Little Yossi was having a miserable time in school. Learning was hard for him, the other boys didn’t like him, and even worse, they didn’t seem to understand him. Almost every day, something went wrong. He was picked on and bullied, and it often felt as though no one noticed or cared. One evening, he came home in tears and told his father everything that had happened. His father listened quietly and then said to him with confidence, “Don’t worry. Tomorrow I’m coming into school and will put an end to it.” Those words stayed with Yossi.

The next morning, during the first hour of class, his rebbi asked him a question. Yossi didn’t know the answer and a few boys in the class snickered. His face burned as he stared down at his desk, feeling that familiar lump rise in his throat. For a moment, he felt the sting of embarrassment and helplessness, but then he remembered what his father had said. Maybe my father will come soon, he thought. He glanced toward the door, imagining it opening at any moment. But the door stayed closed.

At recess, he tried to join a game, hoping that perhaps today things would be different. One of the boys looked at him and shrugged. “We already have enough players,” he said, and the boys ran off together without him. Yossi stood there for a moment, kicking the dirt with the tip of his shoe, trying to act like it didn’t bother him. Then he remembered again that his father might be coming. Maybe now he’s here, Yossi thought, and his eyes drifted toward the school doors. But no one called his name.

Later in the day, the kids taunted him again. They stole his snacks and called him names. Yossi swallowed hard and blinked away the tears that threatened to spill over. Maybe my father is already here, he told himself. Maybe they’ll call me any minute.

Every time footsteps passed in the hallway, he lifted his head with quiet hope, but the door never opened. By the afternoon, after hoping again and again only to feel that hope fade each time, Yossi stopped looking toward the door. It hurt too much to expect it anymore, and with a heavy heart, he told himself that perhaps his father wasn’t coming after all.

There was a man who desperately needed help. His financial situation had become unbearable and he did not know where to turn. Someone assured him that the town’s gvir would soon be calling him and would pull him out of his difficulties. The man held on to that assurance. One day passed and then another. A week went by, and meanwhile, his problems only grew worse. One crisis followed another, and slowly the confident assurances that the gvir would soon help him began to feel less certain. What had once sounded like a promise began to feel more like a distant hope, until, eventually, the man could hardly bring himself to believe that the phone would ever ring at all.

I cannot help but think about these images now, as we find ourselves in yet another eis tzarah for Yidden across the world, especially in Eretz Yisroel. Missiles streak across the sky while sirens wail through cities and towns, sending families scrambling with seconds to spare into bomb shelters and safe rooms. Children are pulled from their beds in the middle of the night as explosions echo in the distance. Parents try to calm frightened children while anxiously checking the news for updates, and fathers leave their homes and families to stand on the front lines while entire communities live day after day under the constant threat of attack. In moments like these, one thought fills the minds of so many people: Maybe this is it. Maybe this is Milchemes Gog UMagog. Maybe this is the moment when the long golus finally comes to an end. Maybe Moshiach is finally coming.

Our nation has lived through centuries of suffering since Churban Bayis Sheini—pogroms, inquisitions, the horrors of the Holocaust, terror attacks, intifadas, and repeated wars fought against the tiny sliver of land where the Am Kadosh lives.

Time and again, we have seen people who once seemed friendly suddenly turn against us with frightening speed. Yet, through it all, we cling to a single hope: Perhaps this will be the time when Hashem finally brings the geulah sheleimah.

But unlike the boy and the poor man in our stories, we never stop looking toward the door. We never lose hope that the phone will ring. There have been many moments in history when we felt certain that the time had arrived. It was a time when the world seemed to tremble and it felt as though history itself was approaching its climax. We expected the door to open, the phone to ring. It did not.

And when the danger passed and life slowly returned to routine, it would have been easy to grow discouraged. Yet, we do not give up hope. We continue looking upward and pleading with Hashem, knowing with certainty that the salvation will come. Whether it is today, tomorrow, or next year, we believe with complete faith that it can happen at any moment and that Hashem will never forsake His people.

Perhaps this idea is expressed clearly in the Ani Maamin that we say every day: Ani maamin be’emunah sheleimah b’vias haMoshiach v’af al pi sheyismame’ah im kol zeh achakeh lo b’chol yom sheyavo. Embedded in this Ani Maamin is the challenge of belief, yet embedded is our perseverance and our faith. We emphasize the difficulty, v’af al pi sheyismame’ah, even though he may delay. We do not phrase the other principles of faith this way. We do not embed the questions of faith inside the other 12 ikkrim of emunah. We don’t mention the difficulty we may have, an af al pi that even when we see tzaddik v’ra lo, we still believe that Hashem rewards those who keep His mitzvos.

Perhaps the answer is precisely this: Part of believing in Moshiach means believing specifically after the moments when we thought he was surely about to arrive. For our forebears before us, it was the Holocaust and the wars that followed after the partition of Palestine and the declaration of a state. For us, it could have been the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Six-Day and Yom Kippur Wars, the Gulf War, 9/11, and so many others, like the upheaval of Covid or now, as war rages in Eretz Yisroel. All of them seemed to be Moshiach moments. Then the dust settles and the world appears to return to normal. But we don’t stop waiting, hoping, looking and praying. Im kol zeh, even with all this, we continue to wait.

I cannot predict what the outcome of this war will be, and I daven that Hashem protect all Yidden everywhere. But one thing I can say with certainty: Even if the dust settles and, lo aleinu, Moshiach has not yet arrived, Yidden across the world will continue believing that he stands just beyond the door, not merely saying the words, but truly believing them.

We are not just saying

We are just believing.