After all is said and done, there are basically two things that can be said about this world we live in and this life we inhabit. Either it’s a hotchpotch of objects and events going nowhere in particular. Or else there’s a plan—a method buried somewhere in all the madness, a goal towards which all this is headed.

Four thousand years ago, Judaism embraced the latter option and proceeded to convince the rest of the world of this truth. That the world has a Creator. That the Creator has a plan, and that everything that occurs—good and evil, momentous and trivial—is a step in the march towards its fulfillment. That life has purpose. That all this is leading somewhere—somewhere good.

The rest is commentary.

From the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe:

Facing Reality

For Real

Land and See

The Right Not to Know

The Quest for Peace

The Window

The Fifty-Sixth Century

Stories:

The Clock

The Palace and the Pigeons
by Tzvi Freeman

A Surgical Procedure
by Yerachmiel Tilles

The Old Man on the Island
by Yanki Tauber

Cholent
by Yanki Tauber

Contemporary Voices

Coming In for a Landing
by Yeruchem Eilfort

A Mother’s Plea
by Chana Weisberg

Timed Out
by Chana Weisberg

“Some Say the World Will End in Fire, Some Say in Ice . . .”
by Adin Even-Yisrael (Steinsaltz)

Sighting Moshiach
by Tzvi Freeman

Is the World Really Getting Better?
by Tzvi Freeman

Cold Soup
by Manis Friedman

Belief in Moshiach
a conversation between Susan Handelman and Manis Friedman

The Truth about Moshiach
by Naftali Silberberg

A Chaos of Infinite Light
by Yaakov Brawer

A Taste of Future
by Eli Touger

Who Believes in Moshiach?
by Yanki Tauber

Technology of the Redemption
by Naftali Silberberg

The Seven Fat Cows
by Yanki Tauber

A Gathering with the Rebbe in 1992
by Yanki Tauber

Is Judaism a Theocracy?
by Yanki Tauber

The Skeptic and the Believer: A Conversation on Moshiach
by Yanki Tauber

Eternity
by Zvi Yair

Listening
by Tzvi Freeman

From the Sources:

A selection of source texts on Moshiach and the inherent goodness of creation from the Bible, Prophets, Midrash, Talmud, the classical commentaries, Kabbalah, the chassidic masters, and sages of all ages; compiled by Yanki Tauber