There’s a Famous Gemara…

There’s a famous Gemara: Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi meets Eliyahu HaNavi and asks him, “When will Mashiach come?” Eliyahu tells him, “Go ask him.” Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi asks, “Where can I find him?” Eliyahu answers: “At the gates of Rome, sitting among the poor and afflicted.”

Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi goes there, finds Mashiach, and asks, “When are you coming?” Mashiach answers one word: Hayom. Today.

Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi is electrified. Today. Finally. But the day passes, and Mashiach doesn’t come. He returns to Eliyahu HaNavi, frustrated: “Mashiach lied to me. He said he was coming today and he didn’t come.”

Eliyahu answers with a question that changes everything: “What did he say exactly?”

Because Mashiach didn’t say “today” as a calendar prediction. He said: “Hayom, im b’kolo tishma” — Today, if you listen to His voice.

Geulah is not only something we wait for. It’s something we become ready to receive.

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The Light Shines Backward into Parashat Shemot

And suddenly, that Gemara shines a light backward into Parashat Shemot.

Moshe comes to Bnei Yisrael with the greatest news ever spoken: “Hashem is taking you out. Geulah is here.” But the Torah says they couldn’t take it in. They couldn’t hear him — not because they were stubborn, not because they were cynical, but because they were crushed: kotzer ruach and avodah kashah.

Their inner world had no space left. When pain fills a person, even hope feels heavy.

We all know that feeling. When someone is carrying something overwhelming, even one more small request, even one more conversation, feels like too much. Not because they don’t want to. Because they can’t.

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From “I Can’t Hear” to “I Can Hear”

So what is the path from “I can’t hear” to “I can hear”?

David HaMelech gives us the key in Tehillim:

“Hashlech al Hashem yehavcha.”
Throw your burden onto Hashem, and He will carry you.

Meaning: the burden may still exist, but it’s no longer sitting on your chest. You’re no longer trying to be your own savior. You place the weight where it belongs.

And this is where bitachon becomes more than a slogan.

Bitachon is not pretending things are easy.
Bitachon is deciding you don’t have to carry what was never yours to carry.

When you do that, something happens inside you: you can breathe again.
And when you can breathe, you can hear.

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Why Mashiach Is Linked to Hearing

That’s why the Gemara links Mashiach to hearing. If you listen to His voice, Hayom becomes possible.

The more a person grows in emunah and bitachon, the more they begin to see reality differently. Not because the world changed, but because the noise of fear got quieter. You can notice Hashem’s hand more clearly. You can hear what you couldn’t hear before.

And there’s another Gemara (at the end of Sotah) that describes the world before Mashiach: it gets darker, shakier, and more unstable, until we reach one conclusion:

“Ein lanu al mi l’hisha’en ela al Avinu shebashamayim.”
We have no one to lean on except our Father in Heaven.

That’s not a threat. It’s a mercy.
Because when we finally stop leaning on illusions of control, we discover the only support that was real all along.

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Our Avodah at the Doorstep of Geulah

So our avodah at the doorstep of Geulah is simple — and demanding:

Grow in bitachon.
And help others grow in bitachon.
Lighten the burden.
Return the weight.
Create space inside the soul to hear.

And then, “Hayom” isn’t just a word in a Gemara.

It becomes our reality.