I really want to study this more in depth, but on the other hand I didn’t want to wait until I finished digesting it until I mentioned it – because I have smart folks reading this and maybe you can absorb it faster. and maybe I only found it so I can share it with you.
I don’t know what I was looking for initially – I think it was the blessing over the candles.
I have been trying to light candles every Friday before the sun goes down for…months (?) now, but I don’t know the blessing. I try to light them even if my house isn’t ready for Shabbos, even if I don’t have a dinner.
Anyhow – back to the story at hand – I was on you tube and clicking on all kinds of links and I came to this one: M22
The first page I got to was about teaching kids about the coming of Moshiach – ohh? that is interesting – it talks about all the signs of his coming and I was kind of toying with the idea of buying it to see what it was all about.
And them on the side bar I notcied “Moshiach Seuda” – what is that?
So I started reading.. and I am just going to copy and paste it here for you:
~ The Moshiach Seuda ~
The Annual Banquet of Moshiach
Pesach is a holiday of freedom. We celebrate and relive our redemption
from the Egyptian exile over three thousand years ago. But its real purpose is
to inspire ourselves for the imminent future redemption, that will take place
very shortly in our very own lives.
We start with the two sedorim, two evenings filled with customs and
meaning designed to help us relive the days in Egypt as if we were just there,
and remember the bitter exile and the awesome redemption as if we personally
experienced it.
Then come the last days. The Jewish people suddenly find themselves
trapped by the sea, about to see their short-lived freedom about to come to a
horrific end, and moments later they see the amazing miracle of the splitting
of the sea, and all the Jewish people finally escape their pursuing captors. And,
moments later, when the waters settle, and they see the entire Egyptian army
destroyed, they finally experience another redemption, a spiritual and
emotional one, as they realize that those dark days of exile are really over,
because the mighty Egyptian nation is now gone forever.
It was not something they could ever have imagined, but upon seeing the
Egyptian army dead on the seashore, finally the truth hit home: That the
Jewish nation will never ever be tormented by these people ever again, for they
have been completely and utterly obliterated.
Even though we went out of Egypt, it was not a complete redemption and
we remain in a different exile. It’s is less physically demanding, we aren’t forced
to build cities, or flogged and beaten daily, but our distraction from G-d and
the challenge focus on spirituality, and G-d’s truth, remains just the same.
The only difference is that we now have even harder taskmasters controlling
us: Ourselves.
Then comes Acharon Shel Pesach: A day where we focus exclusively on
taking all the lessons and all of our inspiration of Pesach, from the seder to
the splitting of the sea, and applying it to our daily lives, to help us escape
our current exile.
We have to realize that world the way we see it, will soon be changed
forever. Evil, which we see as an integral part of life, which we cannot
imagine living without, will soon be completely destroyed. There might
come a time where we will find ourselves trapped by it, and it may even look
like the end of our lives! But then suddenly, Moshaich will come, and it will
be gone forever.
One the very last day of Pesach, during the very last hours of the day, the
power of redemption is at its greatest.
It is at this moment that we can tap into the inspiration and use it to
‘jump’ (Pesach) out of our current exile.
We each have our own challenges. For some it’s keeping shabbos, for
others it is giving charity, for some it’s learning and for other it’s being more
patient and understanding of others. If challenged, we might just answer
‘This is how I am’, ‘this is me, I can’t change’. But the truth is that these are
challenges we all have to face eventually, we have to break out of these
personal exiles and limitations. And we can harness the essence of Pesach
and redemption to propel our lives to a level we could not usually reach on
our own.
The last hours of the Pesach holiday are when this energy is strongest. It’s
when we are most inspired. We have fulfilled all the customs of the six days
of Pesach, and now we have drunk the four cups of wine, we have eaten the
Matza, we have listened, we have sung, we have resolved and we have become
uplifted.
And at the last few moments, as we all close our eyes, singing and dancing
together, this is the very moment when we will feel that Moshiach is actually
here, when we can believe that if we would only open our eyes, we would
see him right there dancing with us. And if we truly believe that, with all
our hearts, then when we open them, he will finally be here.
Did that ring any bells for anyone out there? I did not even know there was a holiday at the end of Passover. And now there is this idea”…One the very last day of Pesach, during the very last hours of the day, the power of redemption is at its greatest….”
here is a little more on the history : Moshiach Meal
Fun huh?
