10 October 2025
Question
We are told that when Moshiach comes, the yetzer hara, the evil inclination, will be gone. There will be no more inner struggle, no temptation, no mistakes. But then what will be the point of life? Our entire existence is about improving, overcoming obstacles, and turning darkness into light. If there is nothing left to fix, what will we actually do?
Answer
A college student once asked the Rebbe, “I learned in the book of Tanya that a tzaddik, a completely righteous person, never makes mistakes. Yet I see on your desk an eraser. Why would a tzaddik need an eraser?”
The question had a bit of chutzpah. It could have rubbed anyone else the wrong way.
But not the Rebbe. He smiled and said, “There are two uses for an eraser. One is to correct a mistake. The other is to take something already good, and make it even better.”
When Moshiach comes, we will all be tzaddikim. And we will do exactly what the tzaddikim do now, grow from good to better.
Today, much of our energy goes into fighting darkness. We battle distraction, temptation, ego, anger, doubt. We are constantly fixing what is broken. That is holy work.
But one day, that work will be done. There will be no more brokenness. We will no longer have to spend our energy fighting evil. Instead, we will use that energy to rise higher and higher in goodness. There will still be a struggle. But it won’t be good versus bad, it will be good versus better.
When Moshiach comes, no one will rub us the wrong way. And yet, we will still need erasers. Not to fix what we did wrong, but to perfect what we did right.
