Yaakov gathers his children around him and tells them, "Gather around and I will tell you what is going to happen to you at the end of days". Rashi explains that Yaakov wanted to tell them about moshiach's coming, but the Divine Presence left him and therefore he started saying "other things". This is baffling. First of all, why did Yaakov want to tell them when moshiach will come? What would be gained by them knowing? Secondly, was gathering them around and giving them a blessing just a "consolation prize" of some sort?
Let us try to understand what it is that Yaakov wishes to accomplish by having them know when moshiach is coming. Yaakov is dying, and his children are taking over; they are embarking on a journey towards some goal. The goal of Israel's journey is to bring everything to its final tikkun, i.e. to recreate the world in the mode of perfection that it was before Adam ruined it with his sin. When a person is heading out on a journey, it is imperative that he know his destination. It is precarious to embark on a journey when one does not know where one is going; only once we know the destination do we know how to direct ourselves. So too, before Israel is departing on that great journey towards changing the world and bringing it back to its pristine state, Yaakov wants to establish the point of destination. So now the question is: why, indeed, did Hashem stop him? How will they know how to proceed?
The Torah then says that Yaakov blessed them, "with the blessing that each one received". Rashi explains that he blessed them "with the blessing that each one is going to get". What does that mean? Of course, he blessed them with the blessing that they will receive! The answer is that Yaakov looked into the essence of each one of the shevatim and divined what his personal destination would be, based on his particular talents, abilities, and personality. In other words, Yaakov was taking a second approach to how one finds a destination. If a person needs to go to a specific place, then the only way he can get there is by asking where exactly to go. But imagine a person has been sent off on a mysterious military mission. He examines the equipment and provisions he was given, and, if he's astute, he can deduce the destination from that alone. For instance, if he was given heavy fur clothing then he can surmise that he is going someplace cold, while if he was giving swimming gear, he can surmise that he is going to some seaside, and so on.
HKB"H sent us out on a journey and He gave us the equipment that we need to get our destination. Each tribe had their own particular talents, abilities, and assets, and by looking deeply into them, Yaakov could figure out where they were going and how to get there. There is a similar concept that is spoken about in the sifrei Kabbalah which is expressed in two terms. One expression is that, "the end is attached to the beginning". That means that the end of the journey is a return to its very [conceptual] beginning. Thus, a person first thinks or visualizes a place that he would like to go to, and then embarks on the journey. The place one arrived at the end was really in his mind at the very beginning. Thus, seeing with what we are living and what's deep inside us, we will get to know where we're meant to end up.
We express a similar idea on Shabbos when we daven kabbalas shabbas. In Lecha Dodi we say "sof maaseh b'machashava techilla", i.e. the end of the action was really rooted in the beginning of the thought. This means that despite the fact that Shabbos is at the end of creation - or rather because of that - it was the first thing that Hashem thought of. Shabbos is the reason for creation, while the weekdays are the way in which we move forward toward Shabbos. When we've come to Shabbos at the end of the week, we've really come home to that which Hashem had in mind before He started the creation.
This is really a most important perspective on the concept of moshiach. The Rambam has two fascinating observations about the era of moshiach: he writes that there are many midrashim about what it will look like, and he tells us not to delve into them, because we really won't understand them and we don't gain anything by doing so. That would seem to indicate that we have no idea of where we're headed which, in turn, makes it difficult to strive for geula and moshiach, since we seemingly don't know what we're striving for. But the Rambam starts the halachos relating to moshiach with the fact that moshiach is a king who will return the monarchy of Dovid to Israel, along with the Beis Hamikdash, the Sanhedrin, etc. If we wish to know what is it that moshiach will bring to us at the end of days, we need to reflect on what it is that we had at the beginning of days, and understand that this is what's going to be actualized.
This is something that is applicable to all of our strivings. Yaakov was taught, and teaches us, that to get to the destination one has to know where one is going to. But we know where we're going, not because of some revelation or some flash of light and dazzlement. Rather, we search deeply into ourselves and into the roots of Klal Yisroel, and understand that from there we will draw out what it takes to get to our destination. Digging deeply into ourselves and into the Torah that we got at Sinai will guide us to our destination - the times of moshiach.