There are people who are able to get along in any situation. Even when things look tough, they are able to find whatever good can be salvaged from the circumstances and work towards it.

Both drives complement and supplement each other.

 
On the other hand, there are those who seek perfection. They have no interest in improving transient intermediate states; they want complete perfection.
Yosef the Righteous, about whom we read these past weeks in our weekly Torah portions, was of the first type. He made sure to extract the best he could from whatever situation he faced in that particular place and time. When he was sold as a slave to an Egyptian official, he did not wallow in self-pity, but became the administrator of his entire household. When he was later thrown in prison, he again succeeded and became top prison warden. Later, of course, he became viceroy over all of Egypt.
This tendency to "make the best of it," even in exile and even in slavery, and even in jail, has great advantages, but it also entails some danger. It can lead to a feeling of complacency with what one has and the forgetting of one's true previous ambitions. Our sages even teach that when Yosef became Potiphar's chief of staff, he began to come close to forgetting his past, his future and his destiny. This is why G-d presented him with the test of Potiphar's wife.
 
Yosef's brother Yehuda, on the other hand, takes the other path. He works towards perfection. He does not suffice with partial redemption and with the easing of immediate troubles; rather, he strives for the Complete Redemption.
Both drives complement and supplement each other. We cannot simply accept the difficulties of the current situation, for this can lead to total collapse. It is impossible to fix everything at once. On the other hand, we must not fall into "now-ism" and the search for instant solutions, because this will cause us to forget our great ambitions for the future. This is why our history has always been marked by both of these opposing, but complementary, approaches.
Ever since our modern national revival and the onset of modern Zionism, the tension between these two outlooks has continued. There are those who say we must be "pragmatic" and "realistic," while others insist on keeping their sights aimed on the long-range objectives.
First there was the argument over the Uganda Plan. Some said Uganda could be a temporary shelter and a suitable transitory solution for the Jewish People at the time. Others said it was dangerous in that it could cause us to forget our goal of Jerusalem and Zion. In that case, the "people of vision" won out. Then came the Partition Plan of 1947, which was to leave us with only a small part of the Land of Israel as the basis of our new country. In that case, the more pragmatic approach emerged victorious.

There are those who have the ability to finish the job, but they don't know how to initiate.

And now again, we have a running argument between those who seek the Complete Land of Israel (Eretz Yisrael HaShlemah) and those who tend towards concessions and the division of the Land.
There are those who have the power to burst forth with a "flash start," but are not built to achieve perfection. And there are those who have the ability to finish the job, but they don't know how to initiate. "All beginnings are hard," mistakes are made, achievements aren't perfect, but this is exactly the strength of those who burst forth: to push forward without perfection, to absorb the initial difficulties. Without those who start, there would be no beginning and, of course, no continuation. But they can only start, and they must be followed by the next stage, by those who have vision for the future, to bring the process to its completion.
At first, we have Mashiach ben Yosef and then comes Mashiach ben David. This is how it has been throughout our history.
Translated from the Hebrew by Hillel Fendel.