"Because They Did Not Demand It"
The coming of Mashiach is hastened when it is asked for and eagerly anticipated.
In this spirit our Sages taught:[1] "All those thousands who fell in battle in the days of King David, fell only because they did not demand that the Beis HaMikdash be built.... Now if such things and such punishment were brought upon those people for not having demanded it -- people who had not had the Beis HaMikdash in their midst, and in whose days it had not been destroyed, -- then we, in whose days it was destroyed, and who do not lament its destruction, and who do not seek Divine compassion for it, are ever so much more accountable. This is why the righteous men of earlier generations ordained that we should pray three times a day, and in the prayers they inserted the request, 'O Compassionate One! In Your abundant mercies restore Your Divine Presence to Zion and the Temple service to Jerusalem!' They likewise instituted the request for the rebuilding of Jerusalem as a separate blessing (concluding with the words, boneh yerushalayim) in the Shemoneh Esreh, and as a separate blessing in the Grace After Meals."[2]
From a talk of the Rebbe on Shabbos Parshas Re'eh, 5746 [1986]
The Answer to a Prayer
The Shelah writes:[3] "There is something puzzling about the statement of the Sages that[4] 'The A-mighty does not spurn the prayer of a multitude.' Our own eyes testify otherwise, for three times a day the entire Jewish people pray the Shemoneh Esreh, which speaks of the Redemption several times.... Yet we are still in exile after over 1554 years!"
To resolve this, the Shelah explains that "G-d acts in keeping with the nature of this request. For every day there is a redemption: ...the nations of the world rise up against us to destroy us, and G-d saves us."
The Rebbe Shlita adds the following comment: "The Alter Rebbe explains in Tanya[5] that when a Jew requests something of G-d in the course of a blessing, this request is certainly fulfilled 'without the faintest vestige of doubt, ...[for] we are forbidden to recite a blessing of doubtful obligation, for fear that it be pronounced in vain.' We are forced to conclude, therefore, that the Jewish people's request for the Redemption is in fact fulfilled."
From talks of the Rebbe on Shabbos Parshas Va'eira and Shabbos Parshas Bo, 5744 [1983-84]
Birthpangs
The coming of Mashiach has been likened to birth, for it is Mashiach [the scion of David] who is alluded to in the verse,[6] "This day I have begotten you." Birth, in essence, is the revelation of an infant who had been concealed in its mother's womb. With the coming of Mashiach, the essential Four-Letter Name of G-d, which is now concealed in the self-obscuring, self-screening tzimtzumim of the Divine Name Elokim, will likewise become manifest. When a Jew stimulates the revelation of the Name Havayah by his fulfillment of the mitzvos, he brings nearer the self-revelation which will take place in time to come.
Just as birth is preceded and accompanied by birthpangs, there are likewise "pangs of Mashiach" in the generation in which the Son of David will appear.
And just as birthpangs hamper a birth, the greatest outcry in that generation will come when the obstacles are most numerous. Before the revelation of the Name Havayah the Jewish people will cry out to G-d on account of the dense obscurity which obstructs the revelation of His light.
Torah Or (Hosafos) on Shmos, p. 106a
Father: Enough!
The Rebbe Rayatz once said: "If all the Jews, great and small alike, together said, 'Father, enough! Have pity on us and send us our Mashiach!' -- Mashiach would certainly come!"
Sefer HaSichos 5696 [1936], p. 312
Notes:
1. Midrash Tehillim, Mizmor 17; Rokeiach, Hilchos Tefillah, sec. 322; Beis Yosef on Tur Orach Chayim, sec. 188, s.v. uksav haRambam.
2. Siddur Tehillat HaShem, pp. 56 and 91, respectively.
3. Shnei Luchos HaBris, p. 251a.
4. Berachos 8a.
5. Iggeres HaTeshuvah, ch. 11.
6. Tehillim 2:7.
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