Question
What must the world be like before the Messiah comes?
Answer
The verse in Psalms 95:7, “Today, if you will listen to His voice”, is interpreted by the Talmud (Sanhedrin 98a) as meaning that the Messiah is ready to come as soon as the world becomes righteous. On the other hand, another Talmudic passage (ibid.) says that he will come only in a generation in which either everyone is meritorious or everyone is guilty; and many other passages (e.g. Mishnah Sotah, end) describe bad things that will happen before he comes.