Tzipisa LiYeshuah

This month is Chodesh Tamuz. Our theme for this month is Tzipisa L’Yishua. Tzipisa L’Yishua literally means to wait for the salvation. We are waiting for the coming of Moshiach, the ultimate salvation. After 120, we are asked by the beis din shel maalah: Tzipisa L’Yeshua?: Did we wait for Moshiach? Our focus for this month is two-fold.
1: Waiting: What does it mean to wait? How do we wait? Are we passive or active in our waiting? 
2. Moshiach: What about Moshiach are we waiting for? Who are we waiting for? What about Mashiach are we looking forward to?
In Chodesh Tamuz, what can be more apropos than shifting our focus to Tzipisa Liyishuah? We are going to zoom in on how to truly yearn for the Yeshua, how to wait, how to prepare, so that when that exalted time comes, we can say that we waited and are ready!! Get excited!! 
Tzipisa L’yishua means to await the coming of Moshiach. Waiting, in essence, is not a practical thing. It is our job and goal for this month (and beyond) to make Tzipisa L’Yeshua a practical thing. A real, tangible, part of our lives.

Raise Your Bar

Practical Tips:

• Let’s make tefilla practical! When you say the words, make it as visual as possible. 

·        R’eh V’anyeinu

·        Tekah b’shofar

·        ViLirushulayim Ircha

·        Es tzemach Dovid

·        Ritzei

·        Yehi Ratzon at the end of Shemoneh Esrei

·        Uvnei in bentching

·        Ani Maamin

• Have a picture of the Kosel in your siddur. This will help you visualize the kosel without the beis hamikdash behind it. :( Allow that to increase your yearning for mashiach.  It can change your Tefillah! 

• Before you make any decision, ask yourself that the choice you make will either bring moshiach closer or farther. 

For example, if you are tempted to speak lashon hora, tell yourself, “If I say this lashon Hora, Mashiach will be pushed off 2 weeks.” (See how much you are tempted to say it now!)

• Sin’as Chinum is what destroyed the Bais Hamikdash. We can build the Bais Hamikdash by having Ahavas Yisrael. This translates as:

·        Be less judgmental. 

·        Accepting someone who is different than you.

Different than you doesn’t mean bad. Hashem created Klal Yisrael with 12 Shevatim. This teaches us a lesson. There are so many different kinds of Jews. Isn’t it beautiful, how each sect of Klal Yisrael has different minhagim and does things so differently, and they are all correct in Hashem’s eyes? This is how we can accept others: Hashem created us differently! 

• Shmiras Halashon

·        There is so much to say on the topic, and so much to do. Hashem First is a DO program, not a DON’T DO, so how to do this topic? Learn 2 Halachos a day.

·        Give someone a compliment.

• Memorize the Brachos to say when moshiach comes. (Brachos and Explanations to follow ) 

• When you get dressed in the morning, ask yourself, “Is this what I want to be wearing if mashiach comes today?”

• Set aside a Mashiach Outfit. Choose one outfit that you can wear to greet moshiach. (Feel free to decorate a hanger to hang your moshiach outfit on)

• Talk about Mashiach, make it part of your conversations.

Let's Explore

Tzipisa LiYeshuah

We are all so excited for Mashiach.

Take a moment to close your eyes and imagine yourself walking toward the Beis HaMikdash for the very first time. To try to envision it vividly I will compare it to how one might have felt when going to the Kosel for the first time after its recapture in the Six Day War. Imagine: we don’t have access to visit the Bais Hamikdash now. It exists! We all believe it does! But we can’t go. So before the recapture of the Old City in the Six Day War, the Kosel was inaccessible like that. No one was able to visit the Kosel. It was just as impossible as visiting the Beis Hamikdash!

Now imagine how one might feel when they find out they can visit a part of the Beis Hamikdash (at least the outer wall) in their lifetime! IMAGINE! The EUPHORIA! 

Quoted from the book, Living Legacy, by Rabbi Nachman Seltzer with permission from the copyright holders: “It’s impossible to describe the emotions coursing through the people who had the good fortune to visit the Kosel. Words have been invented to describe most thoughts and feelings, but there are no words for the experience of a person’s first visit to the Kosel after such a long separation. It was pure spirituality and it sizzled through one’s very being as if he had just been touched with a live wire of spiritual transcendence.”

Picture the intensity of the moment! This is with the Kosel, just the outer wall surrounding the Beis HaMikdash! Imagine how you would feel with the actual Beis HaMikdash!! How would you feel?

If you just felt something, you had that tzipisa. You had that yearning for Mashiach!

Now what are you going to do?

Rabbi Avigdor Miller says that when Mashiach comes, Middos won’t change. He says, “Emunah is important but emunah is only a minor factor. Character is vital. When Mashiach comes, character is not going to change. Having bad middos is worse than having a lack of emunah. Korach was a strict believer, his desire for glory caused his downfall. If you can’t get along with your neighbor now, when Mashiach comes, things won’t be different. A person must learn how to get along with Hungarian Jews and with Lithuanian Jews, because it says “v’kabtzainu yachad-He’ll gather us together.” You’ll have to sit next door to the person who likes a different kind of goulash than the one your wife makes, and you’ll have to refrain from ridiculing his way of life. Everybody will have to become one nation then.” (Quoted from “Most Beautiful Nation” with permission from the copyright holders.)  How can we judge people differently based on the fact that they serve Hashem differently? Hitler ymsh’m didn’t differentiate.

You don’t have to be Chabad to want Mashiach, but gotta want Mashiach to be a Yid. ( From Joey Newcomb song).