Imagine that you have lived your entire life in a dark tunnel. Your parents and grandparents lived there too, and so did their parents and grandparents. You have grown accustomed to the darkness and developed the necessary skills to survive. You move through life, sometimes staggering in the dark, at other times feeling your way along. You are totally resigned to the fact that this is what life is, and that it will continue to be so.

But you have been told or have read in some ancient books that long ago, your ancestors lived in a very different, well-lighted place. You have heard that there is indeed a light at the end of this tunnel, that you don't necessarily have to spend your entire life in darkness.

A. Moshiach is the phrase “Messiah” comes from—it’s a Hebrew word meaning “the anointed one.” Moshiach is the number-one belief in Judaism, next to Torah and G-d Himself. It is Belief #12 of Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles of Faith.

B. We were there, and now we’re here. Then, we had sovereignty and our own country, and now we are governed by others, in others’ countries. Then, we had a king anointed by a prophet of G-d, and when we get back there, we’ll have an anointed king again. Two thousand years ago, the Roman Empire exiled us from our land, Israel. We’ve been all over since—we’ve even forgotten where we came from and where we’re headed. We’ve been persecuted in a thousand different ways by a thousand different cultures. But we never gave up hope that G-d would send a descendant of King David to lead us out of exile. This is the classic, essential Jewish understanding of Moshiach.

C. However, you don’t have to be Jewish to eat bagels and lox, and neither need you be Jewish for Moshiach to touch your life. For when Moshiach comes, the world will rise to perfection. Moshiach is not the relocation of Jews from many places to one place; Moshiach is not the eternal domination of one people and the eternal damnation of all others: Moshiach is the concept to end all concepts. Moshiach is Utopia. Moshiach is the answer to “Why are we here?” Moshiach will not just redeem the Jewish people from exile—he will redeem mankind from meaninglessness, and teach the purpose of life to the universe. No more school shootings, no more pain, no more war, no more rat race.