Maharal’s Days of Mashiach: The Nature of Nature

Maharal’s system forces the conclusion, in chapter 48 of Netzach Yisrael, that the Messianic era will last forever. Since he views perfection as ultimate form, once an item gets there, it cannot change or lose itself, because that would not be perfection. This explains, for him, why the song sung in praise of Hashem in that future time is considered completely new, because it’s when the world reaches everlasting perfection [I am skipping, for reasons of space and sensitivity, his analysis of why the new song is referred to as a shir chadash, in the masculine, whereas in our times songs of praise to Hashem are referred to as shirah].

The perfection of that time also means our connection to Hashem will be more unbreakable. He cites a Midrash that contrasts Hashem’s saying “I am the Lord your God” at Sinai with Yeshayahu 51;12’s line of “I, I, am your comforter.” For all that the Aseret HaDibberot had a second use of the word anochi, when Hashem says “for I am a God zealous to punish,” the doubled use in Yeshayahu signals a connection that will never change again. [Unlike now, when our exile has changed the relationship, even though it has not sundered it].

He closes this chapter by saying “and these matters are truly very deep, it is impossible to clarify this matter more, unless someone understands them himself.” That means, at one level, that I shouldn’t say anymore; it also is a reminder that Maharal believed he was tapping into truths that get at the essential nature of the universe, of our current time, and of that future one.

Returning to True Nature

Doubling down on a claim we saw last time, he repeats his certainty that the amora Shmuel could not have meant what he said, that the only change in the Messianic future would be political rule or independence for the Jewish people. For Maharal, it’s impossible he meant that as it sounds [I almost always find it fascinating when great thinkers assume something is clearly impossible; among other results, they then have to reread sources that say what they’ve rejected as out of the pale of possibility].

Shmuel must have known the world will not be as material as it is now, says Maharal [because he’s so sure that materiality is a lack of perfection], that the evil inclination will go away, and that all humanity will seek to serve the Creator. The world will then follow its true nature, which includes a general righteousness.

The true nature of the earth is to give great bounty. Sifra to Vayikra 26;4 reads the verse that says Hashem will give rain at its proper time to mean it will come at convenient times, plentifully, and with produce that is much larger than we see it now. Because it is sin gets in the way of our productivity, and the land’s.

What Counts as Miraculous?

Some examples of how he defines convenient, plentiful, and with larger produce—all based on Talmudic statements, so he’s not making any of this up; he’s just taking it literally—is that trees will be planted and yield fruit in one day, that even non-fruit trees will bear fruit. None of this counts as a miracle, either (so it’s not a violation of Shmuel’s idea), it’s nature being given the chance to express itself as Hashem always wanted.

Maharal is broaching a fascinating topic that often gets short shrift, the horizons of the natural and the line between natural and miraculous. Think of the basic plotline of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court—if a nineteenth century man went back in time, what he could do would be obviously miraculous to the people he’d meet. That’s only gotten more so in our times—I doubt any of us would see cell phones or airplanes as a miracle, but if that’s true, how can we know what nature still has in reserve? How are we so sure, for example, that nature isn’t affected by people’s spiritual state, that the better our relationship with Hashem, the more nature itself can and will give us?

Supporting Maharal’s claim, Shabbat 30b has a series of Rabban Gamliel’s predictions about the future world (all inferred from verses)– women will give birth after a one-day pregnancy, trees will bear new fruit each day, the Land of Israel will grow loaves of bread (not the wheat, the actual loaves) and clothing (not the material for that clothing).

A student mocks each idea, citing Kohelet that there’s nothing new under the sun. Rabban Gamliel answers with an example from the world they knew with the characteristic in question. Maharal understands that back and forth to mean Rabban Gamliel wasn’t saying Nature would change, he was reminding us that the disappearance of sin opens natural we cannot imagine.

The New Jerusalem

Jerusalem’s great holiness and connection to Hashem should make it obvious that it, too, will find a greater expression of bounty, as Maharal cites sources to attest in chapter 51 of Netzach Yisrael. Baba Batra 75a has a story similar to the ones about Rabban Gamliel, only there R. Yochanan was interpreting verses as predicting that the walls, windows, and gates of Jerusalem will be made of precious stones in quantities that seemed unimaginable.

Again, a listener mocks R. Yochanan, but then later sees angels preparing exactly such stones; when he returns from the sea journey on which that happened, he ratifies R. Yochanan’s words, R. Yochanan rejects the support, saying that it’s not belief if you only accept it once you see it.

Maharal’s view is that Jerusalem isn’t a natural city, it’s a Godly one (so the rules of nature don’t apply as they do everywhere else; I note that this isn’t a testable proposition, because the rule could be that Jerusalem only reveals itself to those who believe in it or those who deserve it). If so, in that future time, it will be able to express itself in ways that it couldn’t until now.

Remarkably—since it’s not necessary for his argument—Maharal rejects the simple reading of that story, that the mocking student saw the angels after his ship crashed. Maharal insists that the phrase “he went on a ship’s journey” means he gave great thought to the topic and came to realize R. Yochanan was right about how the world works. Nonetheless, R. Yochanan rebuked him for not accepting his words on faith.

There’s much to be said about that. It would take us too far afield to discuss, but I didn’t want to ignore it, either.

An Elevated Jerusalem

Baba Batra 75b has Rabbah quoting R. Yochanan that Jerusalem will rise three parsa’ot (around three or four miles, depending on how long an amah is). Without getting into the details of what the numbers symbolize, Maharal thinks that will be a function of the city’s holiness. Its residents, who will also be at a higher spiritual level than now, will be less bound by their physicality, such that the city’s elevation won’t present a problem.

So, for Maharal, the blessed future will look different, especially in Jerusalem, which will be higher than it used to be, and made up of materials that were, until then, so rare and precious as to make it almost unbelievable that you could make a city out of them. [If we want to see how some of this is already coming true, think of glass, a material that was very precious in the time of the Gemara, but is widely used today; there are others].

All because we will progress spiritually, according to Maharal.

The Temple and Pushing Nature to Its Extremes

This process of Nature revealing undreamt-of possibilities will show itself most in the future Beit HaMikdash. Netzach Yisrael 52 cites Michah 4;2, that many nations will decide to go up to Hashem’s mountain, to the House of the God of Jacob. Pesachim 88a makes the point that the verse doesn’t call it the House of Avraham, since he spoke of the Temple Mount as the mountain of Hashem, nor Yitzchak who spoke of it as a field, but Ya’akov, who called the site of the future Temple the House of God.

Why does that make a difference? Maharal explains that the Temple is where Hashem connects with the earth (that’s its purpose). Avraham and Yitzchak had their ways of connecting with Hashem—chessed and emet, kindness and truth—Maharal thinks Ya’akov epitomized the quality of rachamim, compassion, which he declares the main and essential way people connect with Hashem. (His reasons would take us too long to go into—way too briefly, rachamim stems from and creates a sense of connection between the compassionate person and the one experiencing the compassion. That also makes the connection created more permanent than either chessed or emet would achieve).

For the nations of the world, Ya’akov’s version of how to connect with Hashem is the one they can most easily included themselves in, which is why they’ll speak of going up to the House of the God of Ya’akov.

Sanhedrin 100a read Yehezkel 47;12 as saying that in the future a river will flow from the Holy of Holies, with all sorts of tasty foods on it. That’s because (Maharal says) the Temple is linked to the secret higher realms, from where all of existence is produced and influenced, so that the shefa, the lifegiving overflow, comes from there, which is what this stream symbolizes (Maharal leaves unclear whether he thinks the Gemara means it as metaphor, or there will be an actual river; the former makes more sense to me, because he’s been stressing how non-material the Messianic era would be. It would be odd if one of the expressions of the great impact of God’s Presence in the world would be something as physical as a river with actual food on it).

I am skipping one more Midrashic discussion he takes up—that Hashem will bring together four mountains to build the Beit HaMikdash. It adds one more piece of evidence for his contention that Jerusalem and the Temple in the Messianic era will be the sources of holiness, completion, and perfection for the world. He then prays for it to come speedily, as we all do.

Conclusion

There’s a bit more to Maharal’s Netzach Yisrael, especially his linking the future redemption to the Exodus, but since next Monday will be Chanukkah, I am going to switch to a discussion of that. Once I’ll have gotten off the topic of the Messianic era, I think I will stick with my new topic, places where Rambam lets non-halachic material impact and shape his view of halachah.

For next week, we will discuss how Rambam’s phrasing of the history of Chanukkah affects his view of the nature of the holiday. In the weeks after, we will take up aggadot—discussions in the Gemara we could have re-read as allegorical or metaphorical–that Rambam incorporates in Mishneh Torah, meaning he took them literally enough to see them ashalachically germane.

As we stop here with our discussion of the days of Mashiach, I close with the hope that seeing Rambam’s view of a world largely like ours, except that people are healthier, live longer, and have the time, space, and material bounty to focus on service of Hashem; Abarbanel’s—Mashiach is an extraordinary figure, with almost otherworldly abilities and the resurrection of the dead brings much of the world to realize how right we were all along; and Maharal’s sense of the world reaching its ultimate perfection, have given us more insight into how tradition views those days, and the times we can anticipate and hope to see more of, speedily and soon.

Maharal, Week Two: A Time Utterly Different Than Our Own

Maharal bases his ideas of how the days of Mashiach will look in Talmudic texts. He cites them at length, and goes through them step by step, interpreting them in the way that reveals his view of the Messianic world. Those interpretations, however, aren’t simple or obvious, and would take us too much time to engage critically—to read the text itself, then his reading of it, and then see the strengths and weaknesses of those readings would take us much more time and space than we have here. Instead, we’re going to mention the texts off which he’s working and his conclusions, leaving for another time the also productive endeavor of actually learning those texts with Maharal as our guide.

Our opening text this time is Sanhedrin 98a’s series of statements about what serves as a sign of the end of days (starting with R. Abba’s idea that the hills of Israel will teem with plant life, based on Yechezkel 36;8). Maharal sees each of the statements in the series as sharing the assumption that the world will be rendered desolate, physically, economically, and even in terms of Torah and its scholars, just before Mashiach comes and improves all that.

The starkest example is that there won’t even be fish for those who are ill. For Maharal, fish are lower creatures, so that the loss and destruction that will prepare the world for a new way of operating should affect them last and least (since change takes the world to a higher level, I think he means, it affects those already closest to that level most).

I am skipping his proofs that fish are lesser creatures; once he’s established that, he understands the Gemara’s idea that fish, too, will be lost as a sign of how thoroughgoing the change of the Messianic era will be. It will be a time when simplicity is the ruling value, so that anything not simple—kingdoms, the haughty, the very wealthy—will be lost, leaving a poor nation, whose complete simplicity readies them for the simplicity of the days of Mashiach (he closes the chapter by saying ve-zeh mevo’ar, this is clear; this is an example of Maharal’s repeated certainty that what he is saying is both true and clear.  I do not generally note when he does this, but the overall tendency bears attention—he is not just confident of what he’s writing, he is repeatedly and explicitly sure that what he is writing is the clear and obvious truth, if we’d only notice it).

You Can’t Get There Intentionally

Sanhedrin 97a had a baraita that said that three aspects of the world only come be-heseach hada’at, when we’re not paying attention. Maharal explains that as a function of the fact that all three are not part of the ordinary course of the world (we can leave discussion of the first two, lost items and scorpions, for another time). We can plan and arrange this world in certain ways but there’s no way to do that for that which isn’t part of this world. (Remarkably, that seems to say we cannot do anything directly to bring Mashiach; perhaps Maharal doesn’t think of keeping Torah and mitzvot well as direct action. Still, there were Hasidid rebbes who thought they could influence the upper realms and bring Mashiach; Maharal would seem to say that’s impossible).

Mashiach isn’t part of this world and so will only come when we’re not looking for him (he relates the Talmudic idea of Mashiach riding on a donkey to the Hebrew word for donkey, chamor being close to chomer, the material; Mashiach comes riding in on a control of the material, a suppression of it, that’s not a characteristic of this world).

Proof that Mashiach’s not fully of this world comes from  R. Shmuel bar Nachmani in the name of R. Yochanan (Baba Batra 75b)’s including him in a list of three phenomena with Hashem’s Name attached to them (the righteous and Jerusalem are the other two). To facilitate his arrival, we need to be distracted, such as by the war of God and Magog, and the economic hardships of the period before the Arrival.

Mashiach as the Old Age of the World

Maharal’s referring to Mashiach as not really of this world and linked with Hashem’s Name makes him sound almost nonphysical. He doesn’t quite mean that. To explain better, he notes that the time of Mashiach is referred to as the end of the world. Just as the end of people’s lives sees them receding from the physical, focusing more on the spiritual [like retirees who take on regular religious practices they neglected in their younger lives], the end of the world will be a time when everyone will seek to act only in ways that bring them closer to Hashem.

Shared goals will unify the people of the world. That unity is itself a sign of perfection, the essence of which is oneness. It is people’s becoming more focused on one central goal that is the meaning of Zechariah 14;9, that Hashem will be king over the whole world on that day (the last line of Aleinu); from Hashem’s perspective, that’s meaningless, since Hashem is always King over the world and One.

But humanity will be able to appreciate that as well, will (as Pesachim 50a says) stop making a different blessing on good news (hatov ve-hametiv) and bad (baruch dayan haemet), because we’ll see that it’s all from Hashem, and therefore appreciate the goodness in all of it.

Not only will Mashiach not be as physical as we are in these times, Maharal is saying, neither will we, since the world will be in its old age, when the physical recedes in importance, and we can see and value that which is really important.

The Song of Mashiach

Chapter 43 of the essay discusses Sanhedrin 94a, which talks about the possibility that King Hizkiyahu could have been Mashiach, but for the fact that he didn’t sing Shirah, a song of praise. Maharal rejects the idea that this was a failure of Hizkiyahu’s; he says the song to which the Gemara refers is a song reflecting how different that new time is, how complete in its perfection. Hizkiyahu knew that his time was not as perfect as necessary, so he didn’t sing the song [there are reasons to question this reading; for one, that the Gemara opens by saying Hashem wanted to make Hizkiyahu the Mashiach, and didn’t Hashem know that the world wasn’t complete? One answer to that, however, might lie in Maharal’s reading of the Gemara we’re about to see].

The earth steps in and says that it’s willing to sing shirah for Hizkiyahau. To Maharal, that means that the earth was verifying that Hizkiyahu had reached the perfection necessary to be considered Mashiach. But the Gemara then says a Heavenly Voice will come out, quoting Yeshayahu 24;16, that the secrets of the universe are Hashem’s, meaning that even the earth cannot know what kind of perfection characterizes the times of Mashiach.

Growth in the Times of Mashiach

The perfection that will characterize those times does not mean there won’t be room to grow, but it does mean complete change will not occur—evil will not have the opportunity to change to be good (one reason for that is that the value of the good will be so obvious, turning away from one’s past evil deeds will not qualify as repentance anymore). Apparently, then, when he speaks of it as a time with no change, he means no change of categories—a good person becoming more good, growing in his or her service of Hashem, isn’t the kind of change he thinks is contradicted by the perfection and stability of that era.

Maharal is so certain of what he’s writing, he is sure that Shmuel must agree. In the Gemara, the Amora Shmuel asserted that the only difference between this world and the Messianic era would be the political independence or supremacy of the Jewish state. That seems to assume there will be an evil inclination, for example, yet Maharal just said there wouldn’t be.

He could easily have said that yes, his picture follows the views in the Gemara that disagree with Shmuel. Instead, he says Shmuel could not have meant his statement about bigger-picture items. Individuals will slip up and sin, Shemuel holds (and the other opinion disagrees about this, too), but the majority of the world will be sin-free (since it’s otherwise not perfection).

The Length of the Messianic Era and What It Says About Mashiach

Sanhedrin 99a has two different versions of a baraita recording views of how long yemot HaMashiach will last, ranging from forty to seven thousand years. For Maharal, each of those claims stakes a position on the nature of Mashiach’s role. R. Elazar held it would be only forty years, which views Mashiach as the one to take the Jews out of exile [paralleling the forty years it took to leave Egypt] and bring them to Hashem, Who will rule over them Himself, as it were. [This construction of it assumes that once it took the Jews forty years to leave Egypt—which was only because they sinned with the spies—that became the right number for that process].

The other views each have their own meaning as well. Seventy years is the full reign of a king, for example, and Mashiach deserves no less. Three generations, another view, is because that’s how long one long period lasts (children and grandchildren are still part of one’s own world). Beyond that, it’s a new world and a new kingdom.

The Greater Connection of the Jewish People with Hashem

We don’t have the space to discuss all the views. One more worth spending a moment on is that of R. Hillel, who said the Jews wouldn’t have a Messiah, because they already used it up in Hizkiyahu’s time. R. Yosef sharply disagrees, disproving it from the prophet Zecharyah’s still prophesying about Mashiach.

Maharal says R. Hillel couldn’t have meant there wouldn’t be a future redemption, since there’s so much in Scripture that predicts it. Instead, R. Hillel held the future redemption would be conducted solely by Hashem, that the Jewish people had lost the right to have a human lead the redemption.

Whether or not that fits what R.Hillel said, it is an important idea for Maharal’s view of this time, that the Jewish people will have an extraordinary connection with Hashem. Based on Hoshea 2;21, he says the connection will be more permanent (ve-erastich li le-olam, I will betroth you to me forever), the Jewish people will attach to all of Hashem’s Attributes (ve-erastich li be-tzedek u-ve-mishpat u-ve-chessed u-ve-rachamim, I will betroth you to me with charity, justice, kindness, and compassion), and it will be a more complete linkage than ever before (ve-erastich li be-emunah, I will betroth you to me with full faith).

This fullness did not characterize the Exodus from Egypt, in Maharal’s view, which was why we had to eat the Paschal sacrifice be-chipazon, in haste. For the future redemption, Yeshayahu 52;2 says “you won’t leave be-chipazon.” To Maharal, that means that this redemption will be so full, so eternal, that we can savor it slowly and at a calm pace. It will also, once here, not change significantly, so that we’ll be in no rush to enjoy it before it disappears.

Next time, more on what it means that the world will not change once Mashiach arrives.

Maharal’s Yemot HaMashiach: Getting at the Roots

Part of what I find interesting in studying different Torah scholars’ perspectives on the same topic is that juxtaposing them gives us a clearer picture of their varying foci. Rambam was interested in the Messianic era as a time when the world could better focus on service of Hashem, and Abarbanel on it as a time when the Jewish people could finally prove to the rest of the world the truth of the claims we’ve been making about Hashem and how best to serve Hashem.

Maharal takes us in yet another direction, more concerned with the fundamental workings of the world, and how those will change in the Messianic era.

Transitions are Hard

I am taking this from chapters in Netzach Yisrael, an essay of Maharal’s that discusses both the Exodus from Egypt and the future redemption (part of his point is that the future redemption will be similar in some ways to the first one). I am taking only that which addressed our topic, so this should not be taken as a representative summary. For example, we’ll start at chapter 36, ignoring the first 35 chapters, because that is where Maharal takes up the future redemption.

He says there will have to be a loss or destruction of the old order and the ushering in a different way for the world to work (he calls it the havayah hachadashah, the new existence). A little later in the chapter, Maharal explains that our current world is extremely physical, while the Messianic reality will be more nivdal, separated from physicality. Moving from one type of world to the other will not be simple, and is what the Gemara labels chevlei Mashiach.

Literally, that means the birth pangs of Mashiach, which Maharal see as an apt metaphor. The mother’s pain, he says, is from bringing forth a new existence, the baby’s. So, too, the great changes that come with the Messianic era cause birth pangs.

Avoiding the Troubles

Sanhedrin 98b lists some ways to avoid these troubles, and quotes several Amoraim who express their yearning for the days of Mashiach while praying they not suffer the chevlei Mashiach.

Maharal understands R. Yosef to say that he recognized that he, too, was caught up in the physical, like this world, so that the best he could hope for was to be able to partake somewhat of the times of Mashiach, despite his physicality [Maharal reads a reference in R. Yosef’s words to a chamor, donkey, as indicating chomer, materiality; here, I’m less interested here in his textual readings, how he arrives at his conclusions, than in the substance, so I’ll mostly skip them].

That same Gemara has Abbaye reminding Rabbah that a person who is involved in Torah and acts of kindness can feel confident that s/he will be spared the troubles of Yemot HaMashiach. For Maharal, that’s because Torah is a non-physical good, while kindnesses are done in the physical world; a person who does both is combining the two so well that a move from a largely physical world to one where that’s not the central factor will not be as traumatic as for others.

Change, Simplicity, and Three Meals on Shabbat

Two assumptions important to Maharal’s views here are that change is always difficult and, largely, undesirable, and that the highest level is simplicity. Torah and acts of kindness, in his view, have the quality of peshitut, simplicity, and involve no change, so that one involved in those two has reached a stable high level.

Rambam, too, thought that perfection was static and unchanging, but Maharal seems to me to go a significant step further, in that he is saying that change is bad in this world, because it shows a lack of simplicity [I could have imagined change being good, because it takes us closer to the ultimate perfection, as in the change from the ordinary world to the Messianic one. If we saw change that way, it theoretically could come without pain or trouble; that’s not Maharal’s view].

The rubric of change and trouble explains to Maharal the view of R. Yehoshu’a b. Levi (Shabbat 118a, quoted by R. Shimon b. Pazi) that eating three meals on Shabbat protects against chevlei Mashiach, Gehinom, and the war of Gog and Magog. In the Gemara itself, the connection is technical, that each of those are referred to as a yom, a day, and the source for eating three meals is the word hayom, this day, used for the extra manna that fell on Friday.

Maharal gives a more fundamental reason, that Shabbat signifies the overall perfection of creation, which leads to oneg, enjoyment, the opposite of tsa’ar, distress. At three junctures, the world won’t be perfect, however. Gog and Magog will be a time when thre will be too much of the nations of the world [it’s not clear to me if he means there will be too many of them, or they’ll think too highly of themselves]; Gehinnom is a time or place that addresses people’s lacks, and chevlei Mashiach brings into actuality that which was only potential.

All three should involve pain, but the person who partakes of three meals, showing his or her belief in a world of perfection, avoids those sufferings [there’s much lacking in this explanation, but Maharal doesn’t elaborate, and I won’t speculate].

The next point of Maharal’s that I want to note isn’t long enough for its own heading, even though it deserves it. Maharal closes this discussion by saying “and understand these words very well, and there is no doubt in this interpretation.” I noticed several similar comments in these chapters, where he offers an idea and then tells us how certain he is that it is the correct way to see the issue.

I greet such certainty with mixed feelings, since what he has to say is not the only way that giants of Jewish thought have seen these issues or interpreted these texts. More, I tend to find his ideas interesting, but not in any way obvious or automatically compelling. It makes me wonder about how sure any of us should feel about ideas that come to us, even when they seem very good, even when they seem the best way to explain the sources at hand.

For another time.

Gog and Magog

Maharal devotes chapter 37 to the war of Gog and Magog (which came up as one of the troubles that eating three meals on Shabbat helps avoid). Maharal assumes that will occur in the time of Mashiach, but kodem malchuto, which I think means before he rules over the whole world (if he’s not ruling at all, it’s not clear how it’s the time of Mashiach). All the nations will come to do battle, Mashiach will defeat them, and become the single king [note that for Maharal, Mashiach won’t just be respected by all, he’ll actually rule over them].

The war will occur because nothing starts out at its fullest level of development or perfection (here, change is growth towards perfection, but also shows perfection has not yet been reached). The nations will oppose Mashiach because he will be a force towards a more unified world, whereas the nations are always multitudes.

The Death of Mashiach b. Yosef

The first element of the war is the death of Mashiach b. Yosef. Maharal says the Jewish people are like a single individual with twelve limbs (the twelve tribes). Yehudah and its kings rule from the head or mind (in that they follow Hashem’s Torah, I think he means). Yosef is more like the heart (in that the Northern kings tended to follow their hearts more, to give themselves and the people what they wanted).

The heart is the center of the body, the focal point of most other body parts, as will be Mashiach b. Yosef. But since it’s based on the heart, it comes to an end, and the other nations, trying to maintain their plurality and pluralism in the face of Mashiach’s movement to unity, will be able to kill him. Then, Mashiach b. David will overcome them, removing all their power, and build the new world.

The Final Defeat of Separatism in Favor of Diversity Within Unity

The second aspect of the war (which Maharal closes by saying, “this now has explained to you the issue of the war of Gog and Magog”) is of the nations’ desire to be multiple and separate, while the Jews strive for unity. [I pause to note that he cannot mean sameness, since he himself had said that the twelve tribes are like twelve different body parts. I think he means that the rest of the world sees each nation as its own separate, distinct entity, with no need or reason to unify around the truths of the world, as do the Jewish people].

That’s what will be at stake in this final war. The non-Jews will seek to defeat and destroy Mashiach, whose move to unity threatens their picture of world order, in which each nation is its own sovereign, independent, and separate entity. The goal of a world that worships Hashem, following the lead of the nation unified by its worship of Hashem, asks the rest of the world to buy in to a different picture than they’ve had until now.

They will resist; in defeating them, Mashiach will more firmly establish his rule while taking the world a giant step closer to its ultimate perfection.

As our first step in Maharal’s view of Yemot haMashiach, we’ve seen the stress he placed on the change from one kind of world to another, physical to not, multifold to singular, and the struggles that comes with undergoing that transition.

Next time, we’ll see the factors that will help complete it, and begin the discussion of what will be true of the Messianic era itself.

Abarbanel’s Yemot HaMashiach: Depths of Exile and Wonders of Redemption

Mashmi’a Yeshu’a is a book about the prophets who predicted salvation for the Jewish people. In theory, Abarbanel could have shared only those prophecies that had new information about the Messianic era, and noted in the introduction or conclusion that he’s skipped many prophecies that echo these.

Instead, he decided to go through each of them (although, as he noted, he did not do all of Yeshayahu’s prophecies, since there were too many. He instead chose sixteen), even though there’s much repetition. He does not explain why seeing it in multiple texts is worth readers’ whiles; I suspect it’s because of the anti-Christian element. To convince his fellow Jews that the Christians were not correct in their claim that the founder of their religion was the Mashiach, he showed, over and over, that prophecies about the Messianic era have not yet been fulfilled.

Our goal here, though, is to learn some traditional views of how those times will look,  not review Tanach in general (valuable as that is; just this past week, a listener contacted me about one of the shiurim I recorded for the OU’s Nach Yomi project, where you can  hear audio shiurim of every chapter in Tanach). I won’t try to cover all of Mashmi’a Yeshu’a, then, I’ll finish up what’s new in Yeshayahu and the (very little) that’s new in the other prophets.  

Abarbanel confirms my sense that the prophecies in Yeshayahu cover the Messianic era, because in each of the later chapters, covering the predictions of other prophets, he shows how their major points all only reflect ideas we had already seen in Yeshayahu.

The Way Back to Israel                                                                   

The seventh prophecy Abarbanel takes up, starting at Yeshayahu 34;1, speaks again of massive casualties for non-Jews—which Hashem will bring about despite the good predicted by their astrological fortunes [in our terms, despite the course of nature and history pointing towards positive outcomes, Hashem will bring death and destruction].

In the long time it will take until this happens, the sages and leaders of the Jewish people must encourage the populace to retain faith in the future redemption [in Abarbanel’s time, many Jews despaired, convinced that the Christians must be right, since they were so ascendant; it is hard to seem to be on the losing side of history, for centuries, and still believe in a future that will include salvation and success].

When that future arrives, he reads Yeshayahu as telling us, the way back to Israel will be through deserts where no other people had gone. He doesn’t quite explain the value in that, although his first reading of the next phrase of 35;8 is that no impure nations would have gone on that route. Perhaps, then, he means the redemption will happen in such a way that the Jews returning will not have to deal with those who have not yet bought into our understanding of the world.

That fits his second reading, which he labels more correct, that the evildoers of the Jewish people will die during the advent of Mashiach, will not merit getting to Israel with the righteous.

[It’s not clear how that would translate to our times. Most today get to Israel by plane which, as an historical matter, has not been much travelled by the impure, although they do travel it now as much as the pure do. Too, if we see events of the last century as at least beginning the Messianic era, it’s not clear to me that we would be comfortable asserting that those who didn’t make it were not worthy, nor that all those who did make it were. Were Abarbanel here to pursue the discussion, I could imagine him either saying that we still haven’t hit chevlei Mashiach, the true advent of the Messianic era, or that the percentages of those who made it and didn’t make it were tilted in the direction he understood Yeshayahu to have predicted. Or something else].

He also understands Yeshayahu to have said that non-Jewish kings would not be able to stop our return, which only fully happened once the State of Israel came into being [I once saw a moving video of R. Ovadia Yosef, zt”l, which I can no longer find, speaking of the end of the British Mandate’s obstructions of aliyah as itself reason to celebrate Yom HaAtzmaut].

Mashiach Now, Mashiach Later

Although I think we’ve seen him say it before, he takes the section of Yeshayahu that we read on Shabbat Nachamu as a reminder that there is a time beyond which the redemption must happen, and there are times when we could, were we to act properly enough, hasten that redemption, bring it earlier than otherwise.

He also reads 43;1 as calling to those who left the Jewish people (note that he says they left the Jewish people, not just the religion) because of the pressures of exile, assuring them Hashem will bring them back, too [this stands in unresolved tension with his earlier assumption that evildoers won’t make it back; I think he might mean that succumbing to exile is less culpable than truly willful evil. The problem is that if those who stay and, later, reject the religion for no reason are held accountable for all they do, they’d have been better off giving in to the pressures of the Christians. There’s moral hazard there, it seems to me.]

The Glory of the Return

Part of what’s important about the predicted return (in Yeshayahu’s ninth prophecy, starting at 49;7) is that it will demonstrate to those who have mocked us for our foolish fidelity that we are, indeed, still Hashem’s nation. Kings will stand before Mashiach out of respect, nobles will bow to the ground in his presence, recognizing that Hashem’s Presence and Providence are connected to him.

So many Jews will return to Israel, from all ends of the earth, that it will be filled to bursting, and they will have no fear of their enemies. The Land, suddenly fruitful where it was once desolate, will also be surprised by the return since most Jews will have left the religion and assimilated [while he was obviously speaking of his time, this could easily apply today], yet Hashem will find the way to bring them back, to have non-Jews assist in bringing them back.

This prediction, for Abarbanel, is one more proof that resurrection will happen in the course of the redemption, since he cannot imagine how otherwise there would be enough Jews to fill Israel, even if all the assimilated Jews returned [if he only he had lived until now, where even just those who affiliate as Jews would go a long way to filling Israel, let alone those who have been completely lost.  And that even after the terrible destructions of the intervening centuries].

Expanding Jerusalem, Expanding Providence

The resurgent population, especially of Jerusalem, is the topic of prophecy eleven (Yeshayahu 54;1), which calls for spreading the city’s borders as well as strengthening its foundations. To accommodate the increase, the city will expand [this has started in our times; Yehezkel thinks it will be much bigger even than it is now, as we will see in a moment].

With the visible changes will come a change in attitude, among Jews and non-Jews. Even Jews who until now were uninterested in Torah study or Hashem will now want to learn more. Some non-Jews will recognize Hashem, as we’ve said, but Hashem will still punish some—in Abarbanel’s reading, the Moslems and Christians, who act as if they’re serving the true Gd, when they’re actually not. They will therefore suffer plague and other natural disasters in their homelands, leaving it to nations that had not heard of Hashem before to now learn of Him and join in bringing the Jews to Israel.

Summing Up Yeshayahu

In the name of space and brevity, I have skipped a tremendous amount, but this brings us, mostly, to the end of Abarbanel’s discussion of Yeshayahu. Noting that almost everything about the predicted redemption is in Yeshayahu already (which is why we will have little to add when we turn to other of the mashmi’ei yeshu’a, the harbingers of redemption), he says it was for that reason that Hashem had him called Yeshayahu, which means “will be saved by Hashem.”

Abarbanel closes with a list of the essential points of Yeshayahu’s view of the redemption. They offer a good review, especially since he found that almost all of the rest of the prophets echoed these fourteen points. For us, they’re a quick way to see how he saw the Messianic era.

He starts with the idea that Hashem will take vengeance on other nations, 2) more so on Edom and Botzra (Christians), whose survivors will not be able to join in faith in God. 3) The Jews will be saved and gathered back to Israel. 4) As will the ten tribes. 5) Leaving this exile will be similar to the Exodus in many ways, 6) The redemption will happen by a certain predetermined time, 7) but only after a long exile, 8) It will bring with it a return of the Divine Presence, like at Sinai, a restoration of prophecy for those ready for it, and an increase in wisdom among all Jews, 9) Even those who abandoned Judaism totally will return, some forced by circumstance, 10) there will be a Davidic king, 11) there will never be another exile, 12) most of the other nations will come to believe in Hashem, 13) world peace will come with the redemption, and 14) the dead will be resurrected.

Yirmiyahu and Yehezkel Added the Size of Jerusalem

The main point in later prophecies that I found was that how large Jerusalem will be. Yirmiyahu, in what Abarbanel counts as his fourth prophecy, says the city will more than double its original size, and that because of its sanctity, many other nations will live there as well. Yehezkel defines the size more explicitly; Abarbanel understand him to mean it will be a square 150,000 amah on each side. [If we take the lowest suggested length of an amah, 18”, that’s 42.6 miles on each side. For reference, that’s about the distance between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, so it’s suggesting that Jerusalem would sit at the center of a square that would extend 21 miles in each direction.]

Lest we find that impossible, he points out that Nineveh is described in Tanach as a city that took three days to walk from one end to the other, where 42 miles is walkable more quickly than that. Egypt’s main city, in Abarbanel’s time, was also that large or larger, so there’s no reason Jerusalem cannot be as well.

Next time, on to Maharal, whose view of the Messianic era focuses on much different aspects of redemption.

Yeshayahu’s View of Gog u-Magog and International Relations During Yemot HaMashiach

Yeshayahu 18 is the beginning of the third of Yeshayahu’s prophecies that Abarbanel discusses. Traditional commentary (as opposed to Christian, which Abarbanel summarizes but we will ignore) read the chapter as being about the war of Gog and Magog to which other prophets (most explicitly, Yehezkel 38-39) refer. He says he will read the verses as seems most convincing to him but comes out at largely the same place, that this is a prophecy about the war at the advent of Messianic times, and what happens after.

Helping the Jews’ Repatriation, Or Not

He first wants to understand verse three’s reference to a nes, a flag or sign, and sound of a shofar that will tell the non-Jews to help the Jews gather back to Israel. Since people scattered all over the world couldn’t see one literal flag, he suggests it means a sign everyone knows. His idea is that the whole world will carry the memory of what happened to Sancheriv’s armies (185,000 of whom were killed overnight, see II Melachim 19;35; his assumption that people all over the world will continue to take the Bible seriously, seeing its claims as historical truths to shape their approach to life, seems sadly out of touch with where we are today).

The knowledge of what happens to those who oppose Gd’s plan, which will be passed in everyday conversation through the generations, will stimulate them to cooperate and help when the ingathering of the Jewish exile starts [this, too, seems not yet to have occurred—the British resisted, as did the Ethiopian and Russian governments; there are also still slightly more Jews outside of Israel than in, so perhaps this reading will come true as well, non-Jews actively aiding Jews in returning to Israel].

Those who try to stand in the way of those events will find themselves destroyed before they succeed in executing their plans to do that to the Jews. Shunned for their evil, they will neither be buried nor will their corpses be eaten by animals or vultures (an example of a traditional assumption I think we often forget, that events in the natural and animal world are sensitive to the events of the human world).

Resurrection of the Dead

Abarbanel is comfortable with a second reading of these verses as well, that this is a reference to the resurrection of the dead. (Later in the passage, he explains that the Word of Gd is so rich, it can have multiple meanings, all of them true; many years ago, in my PhD dissertation, I suggested that this is a new aspect of textual reading, which started in 15^th century Spain).

Resurrection will force everyone in the world to concede the reality of Hashem’s impact on Jews’ lives [an assumption I have come to question: I can imagine scientists seeing the resurrection and assuming they would be able to do it, too, once they learn how to decode genetic material well enough. How wild is it that we live in a time when the bodily resurrection of the dead might not suffice to compel admission of Hashem’s Providence?]

Abarbanel is confident that news of this resurrection will spread worldwide. Seeing people who had died returning to their homes will compel all humanity to avow the truth of Torah. Since this will occur right around the time of ingathering of the exiles, nations will be moved to participate in helping the Jews return to Israel, to be part of this series of world events.

In a later one of Yeshayahu’s prophecies, Abarbanel reads the prophet as bothered by the redemption’s failure to address those who died in exile, many of them sanctifying Hashem’s Name in their death [including many in Spain, killed by the Inquisition]. It kept Yeshayahu up nights, this hole in Divine justice, and that aspect could not be assuaged by Hashem’s assurances that He is with us throughout our exile.

For Abarbanel, resurrection is the answer. All who died, and especially those who died sanctifying Hashem’s Name (by suffering for being Jews) will come back to life at the time of the redemption (this is earlier than in Rambam’s view, who seemed to time it to long after the Arrival of Mashiach and the rebuilding of the Beit HaMikdash). Hashem will take vengeance on the nations and then bring the dead to life, so that, in addition to being a proof of Hashem’s power, they can participate in and witness the redemption, making up for their sufferings in their first lives.

When They Won’t Yet Help Us

Yeshayahu 19 speaks of a war that will occur at the end of days, between Edom and Ishmael, which for Abarbanel means Christianity and Islam [I find it continually surprising that 500 years have not changed the international players that will be the most likely causes of war. I also note that Abarbanel structured his book by going in the order of Yeshayahu. That means that here, for one example, he is discussing an earlier time than in prophecies we’ve already looked at. He does not offer an explanation for why Yeshayahu structured his book that way, nor for why he didn’t, himself, digest Yeshayahu and present it as an overall description of yemot haMashiach].

Christian kings will destroy Egypt, killing huge numbers of people, leading the people of Ashur and the rest of the east [not too far from Iran and Iraq] to take revenge, killing an even more horrifying number of Christians. That’s the war of Gog and Magog [unless we assume World War II was that war, we have to consider the possibility that a worse one might loom].

For Egypt to come to accept Hashem’s role in the world will take a tragic destruction, so far out of the natural that their wise people will be stumped, will eventually all have to admit that this was divinely sent.  Once they are brought around, they will make yearly pilgrimages to Israel [as Zecharyah also says, in a haftarah we read on Sukkot].

Many Egyptians will speak the same language as Jews—for Abarbanel, a reference to both language and faith. The people of Ashur, arriving to avenge the Egyptians’ destruction at the hands of Edom (the Christians), will learn from them proper faith and service to Hashem. (In a later section of Mashmi’a Yeshu’a, Abarbanel reiterates his belief that Edom and Yishmael—the latter of which currently rules most of the world, he writes, will find themselves judged by Hashem’s harsh sword, to be destroyed, with all the kingdoms of earth.)

Abarbanel also pauses at a later point to read a verse as specifically about Rome, the spearhead of the Jew’s last exile. Their whole city and their holiest places, including the palace of the Pope, will be so abandoned, will lie so desolate, that cattle will graze there. Yeshayahu referred to them as not having insight (lo am binot) because their faith has poor intellectual foundations, is not based on logic or reason [ which some Christians celebrated; a credo quia absurdum est, a faith that is absurd, as mori ve-rabi R. Lichtenstein zt”l used to quote Tertullian.

It’s hard to speculate, especially since we have not yet seen the unfolding of all these events, but Abarbanel seems unclear as to whether Ashur or Egypt will find its way to Hashem first. World events suggest Egypt is closer, since they’ve made a peace treaty with the Israelis, but they’re still far from agreeing that Israel is part of the divine plan to help the Jewish people.]

The Antichrist as Mashiach ben Yosef

In the fifth of Yeshayahu’s prophecies (starting at chapter 24), Abarbanel tells us he will break from his usual style of listing questions or problems with the presentation in navi, so as not to go on too long. The comment sticks out, since he wrote at great length, not generally betraying any worry about whether readers would stick with him or copyists would assure the survival of his writings.  This is a first indication that there were limits to the very great patience he assumed in his readers.

He summarily dismisses traditional commentators’ relating these verses to the exile of the Ten Tribes, preferring the interpretation of Christian commentators, that it’s about the destruction of other nations at the end of days, in particular the troubles of the Antichrist. Abarbanel identifies that Antichrist as Mashiach b. Yosef, a first-stage Messiah, who will be killed in war before accomplishing what Mashiach needs to. The whole idea of the Antichrist developed because there was a clear and well-known tradition of Mashiach b. Yosef in the days of the second Temple. Unable to ignore or deny it, early Christians adopted it, changing the name.

How to Avoid a Destruction That Forces Restoration of Equality

24;1 refers to Hashem emptying out the land. For Abarbanel, that’s because a huge destruction will empty out the cities, leaving no advantages for the honored over the ordinary. The enemies won’t give preference to the elderly nor will they care about the young. [Another example of finding surprisingly contemporary themes in centuries-old writings, in this case the issue of inequality. Were cities to be wiped out—as we hope they won’t need to be—the inequalities of today’s societies would be wiped out as well.

If that’s not the optimal way to restore some overall fairness to social status, it will come because of three failures by those non-Jews. First, they did not ensure justice and honesty in society. More broadly, they did not keep the Noahide laws. Finally, they did not adhere to the basic covenant of the world, which was that people recognize their Creator and live in service to Him [pardon the pronoun].

As a sort of subset of that failure, most of the nations Yeshayahu knows and refers to are related to the Jewish people (Ammon and Moav are descendants of Lot, Edom is a brother of Ya’akov’s etc.; in Abarbanel’s picture of all of Christianity and Islam as being from Esav and Yishmael, they, too, are all relatives of ours), and yet partook of persecuting them, making them liable for destruction (if Hashem puts you somewhere for a purpose, and you act in opposition to it, your existence is forfeit).

Yerushalayim Dodges that Bullet

In his reading of Yeshayahu, though, the city of Jerusalem will not be affected by all of this. The previously destroyed city will be happily rebuilt as a mighty one, will no longer be trampled by those who do not belong there. The Jews who do come there will pray for a better heart to serve Hashem, an easier conquest of their evil inclination and for world peace (or, at least, peace for them with their non-Jewish neighbors, near or far). This will come not because of the walls of Jerusalem, or other tools to military domination; it will come because of Hashem’s involvement and protection in their lives.

There’s more to be said about both topics, the destruction of the non-Jews and the resurrection of the dead, in Abarbanel’s reading of Yeshayahu. We’ll see any new ideas within that overall framework next time. For now, we have Abarbanel reading Yeshayahu as predicting a great war, terrible destruction, and then the complete recognition of Hashem’s rule, perhaps because of the resurrection.

If only we could all get to acknowledging Hashem’s rule without that destruction, we could perhaps avert or avoid it.

Next time, Gd willing, we’ll finish Abarbanel’s Mashmi’a Yeshua.

Abarbanel’s Understanding of Yeshayahu’s Yemot HaMashiach: Changes in the World and the King Who Will Inaugurate Them

Abarbanel deals with Yeshayahu’s vision of the Messianic era at remarkable length [I find it especially remarkable because he was pre-printing, mostly, so that to write at such length implies a confidence in readers’ willingness to transcribe this that is itself eye-popping.] As I said last time, I don’t intend to summarize the presentation, since he is interested both in the conclusions and the process, taking readers through the text, to show how it means what he claims it means.

I’ll leave that for your private learning. Here, I just want to see how he understands what Yeshayahu told us about how yemot haMashiach will look. He opens with the admission that he does not have the space to discuss all of Yeshayahu’s eschatological prophecies, because that would take too long. [A revelation of a comment, since if he was sensitive to going on too long, it means that the lengthy work he did write did not seem to him too long. It would be interesting if he was unaware of the issue of length; to see that he knows that he can’t just go on and on, and yet to have written the volumes he did, surprises me at another level.]

Then he refers to a comment of Rambam’s in an introduction to his medical aphorisms, that people choose according to their likes; Abarbanel admits he’s doing that as well, choosing those of Yeshayahu’s prophecies that appealed most to him. [The comment resonates with me since one of my main goals in my A Responsum a Day project (both on ou.org and here on Torah Musings) is to find a collection of responsa that, as much as possible, are randomized such as not to reflect my interests].

The End of Days Wasn’t the Second Temple

The first prophecy he takes up begins at Yeshayahu 2;2. Abarbanel argues that the prophecy cannot have referred to the Second Temple (this is a continuing concern; throughout Mashmi’a Yeshu’a, he closes almost every chapter by summarizing how the ideas he’s just shared were not fulfilled in the Second Temple, so they must be about a future time).

Here, more than that these promises had not come true, Yeshayahu explicitly refers to acharit hayamim, the end of days. The 170  years from Yeshayahu until the return from Bavel weren’t long enough to be called “the end of days,” Abarbanel says. [We could argue that point; I assume we’re much closer to Mashiach than was Yeshayahu, and it may be within 170 years, but we refer to it as “the end of days” until it happens.] More convincingly, to me, Abarbanel notes that Ramban in Vayechi says explicitly that acharit hayamim means the time of Mashiach.

The Future Temple

In that time, Yeshayahu tells us, the Temple will be rebuilt, to stand in perpetuity. The Temple Mount will also be the location of the Presence of Hashem (it will appear there, in a way all can experience), to such an extent that all the nations of the world will gather there.

They will take the faith they learn at the Temple Mount and bring it with them to their home lands, where they, too, will cultivate lives of service to Hashem, will call to Hashem as the power that rules the world, and turn to Mashiach for guidance on how to live that life. That will include availing themselves of his good offices as judge of their disputes, part of what will lead to international peace.

International Relations

More broadly, since religious differences (Abarbanel says) fuel much of world conflict [people in our times who agree with that view see it as a reason to reject religion; think John Lennon—Abarbanel thinks it’s just about bringing everyone on board with the correct religious view]. Once everyone comes to accept Hashem’s rule, the conflict will go away and peace will reign.

Another reason there will be no more war is that everyone will have enough, leaving no urge for theft or conquest.  That is how Abarbanel interprets Yeshayahu’s reference to wolves and lambs living together—there will no longer be people who act like wolves, grabbing others’ property [Rambam interpreted this that way as well].

With all the improved knowledge, everyone’s goal in life will be to perfect their souls. In doing so, they will make war more distant as well, since—as Rambam had said—the evils that people perpetrate stem from their lack of understanding or wisdom. The wiser they are, they less evil they will do, and the more they will get along.

The Person of Mashiach

This Mashiach will be a descendant of David, a prophet of the highest level, such that, for example, he will be able to judge others without relying solely on the evidence, will be able to use his prophetic insight to achieve fuller justice. This is a daring claim, ripe for abuse, but Abarbanel takes Yeshayahu at his word, that Mashiach will not need to restrict himself to human mechanisms for discovering the truth of a dispute).

Aside from that, he’ll be extraordinarily wise, in all ways. Many wise people are less than fully practical, or political, etc., Mashiach will excel in all of it. He will control his physical appetites (the verse singles out smell, despite its being more innocuous than touch or taste), using them only to serve Hashem. He will seek justice and charity, and his close connection to Hashem will mean that he can and will perform miracles [Rambam was clear that Mashiach would not]. This power will obviate war, since he can deal with enemies by prayer, calls to Hashem that will be answered with divine force against the troublesome nation.

A Return to a Truer Nature

Abarbanel is also comfortable with the more simple view of the verse about wolves, that predators will cease killing their prey. He sees this as a restoration of Nature’s original way, as proven by the animals’ ability to coexist peacefully on Noach’s ark. In the time of Mashiach, that halcyon time will return, a function of the overall peace that will reign.

[Three points: First, Abarbanel is comfortable with multiple contradictory interpretations, an aspect of his commentary that I saw in his commentary on Avot as well, when I was writing a PhD dissertation; second, he sees the foregoing predatory activity not as a new version of Nature, but a return to how it originally was [I assume he’d say it changed when Noach left the ark, and Hashem allowed the eating of meat]—that implies that some changes in Nature that we might worry about are actually the world going back to how it was supposed to be; last, he assumes that animals’ behavior is a function of, and reveals something about, the state of humanity].

He wonders at Rambam’s taking this figuratively instead, since he reads other verses as making clear that Hashem can control the nature of animals, such as when Hashem promises to send stinging insects to aid in the conquest of Israel, or warns that He will send wild animals against the Jewish people, as part of the punishments that will come for failure to keep the Torah (and the reverse for when we keep the Torah properly). Similarly, one of the miracles of the Temple era that Avot lists was that no snake or scorpion bit anyone in Jerusalem. That that would be true of the Messianic era does not seem at all unlikely to Abarbanel.

Nations and the Nation

As predicted by Moshe and Bil’am [and let me here say that as we go forward, I will not include predictions that repeat earlier ones—my interest here isn’t in where in Tanach we find which ideas about Mashiach, or how often. It’s only what Abarbanel understood about how that era would look. For that goal, we don’t have to use space repeating an idea each time it comes up].

One last new idea Abarbanel finds in this prophecy of Yeshayahu’s is that in that future time, Hashem will perform a miracle similar to the Splitting of the Sea [he assumes the future redemption will parallel the Exodus]. His reading of the verse is that it predicts that Hashem will dry the Nile, a terrible evil to befall Egypt, will split it into seven smaller rivers, leaving the bigger Nile as a dry path the Jews can follow back to Israel, singing songs of praise and thanksgiving [Abarbanel doesn’t here delve into why Egypt is so central to the future redemption, so neither will we].

So far, we’ve seen Mashiach as a time of peace and prosperity. Next time, we’ll see Abarbanel’s understanding of the world war that will precipitate the Messianic era.

R. Isaac Abarbanel’s View of Yemot HaMashiach: Introduction

R. Don Isaac Abarbanel (I will follow common convention and refer to him just as Abarbanel) had as much reason as anyone to long for the Arrival of Mashiach. He had been forced out of his native Portugal in 1483, then Spain during the Expulsion of 1492. Add the fact that the Christians of his time were promoting their view that the Messiah had already arrived, and had fulfilled both Scriptural and Talmudic descriptions of the Messiah, and it is not surprising that the timing and nature of Redemption would be on his mind.

In 1497—when he was in Italy, where political changes would again mean that he never settled in one place long term–he wrote a book covering these topics, Migdol Yeshu’ot (which I’ve seen translated as Tower of Salvation). The book has three parts.

One, Ma’ayanei HaYeshua, is a commentary on Daniel; in a quick skim of the work, it seemed to me that he focused on the meaning of the predictions about when the Redemption will occur. The next, Yeshu’ot Meshicho, is ostensibly about the passages in the Talmud that talk about the times of the Mashiach; his introduction does tell us some of how he understood the Messianic future, but the work itself— in my very quick read-through– was more focused on refuting Christian claims that the Gemara itself supported the truths of their beliefs.

We can summarize the points about Mashiach in the introduction fairly quickly, and then turn to Mashmi’a Yeshua, which gathers the ideas of the prophets in Tanach who were mevasrei tov, mashmi’ei yeshu’a, the bearers of good tidings, the harbingers of redemption (the phrase is from Yeshayahu 52;7; he chose it because tov numerologically is 17, and he’s found seventeen prophets who told us about the goodness of that future time).

It’s a bit of a tour de force, in that Abarbanel goes through Scripture text by text, citing the passages, interpreting them almost line by line to explain their predictions. In the several weeks it will take us to review this, I won’t focus on his textual readings, just the picture of Mashiach.  

Shoring Up Faith

Abarbanel explains that the pain and bitterness of the Expulsion has led Jews to question whether Mashiach was ever going to come, which spurred Ma’ayanei HaYeshuah (the commentary on Daniel), a discussion of  ways of calculating when Mashiach could or would arrive. 

With that out of the way, he searched Talmudic and Midrashic sources for further insight, both to understand the Talmudic view and because many Jews were being challenged by Christians with whom they socialized, accosted for debate about how the end of days will look. Jewish scholars had either borne these attacks in silence, groped blindly for answers, or written polemical responses, without explaining the Talmudic view on its own terms.

His two-part work addresses when the Redemption will happen (his basic answer is that there are times when Mashiach could come, should we merit it, and a point beyond which Mashiach must come. That later point is called et ketz, the time of the end, in Daniel, and is elsewhere referred to as acharit hayamim, the end of days).

The bulk of Yeshu’ot Meshicho, however, is about how to read Rabbinic passages, and refutes the Christian readings of those texts. In terms of a presentation of his view of how that time will actually look, I think we’re best off turning to Mashmi’a Yeshu’a.

Problems of Interpreters and Interpretation

The introduction bemoans the difficulties of understanding passages in Chazal and Tanach about Mashiach. He repeats Rambam’s idea from the introduction to Chelek, that some interpret Chazal literally and assert we have to believe that, and some interpret it literally and reject it. (Neither of which is the correct approach, according to Rambam or Abarbanel).

Another continuing concern here is that many have read Tanach as referring to events that already occurred (the reign of Hizkiyahu, or the Second Temple era). That would leave Jews in the post-Second Temple era with no Scriptural assurances of a future redemption. Abarbanel points instead to Yonatan b. Uzziel, Rashi, the Kimchi family, who read these texts from a context of faith, as about a future we have not yet experienced [to me, that’s an insight not always noticed, which I first heard from my teacher R. Dr. Haym Soloveitchik, that the assumptions we bring to a text often shape what seem to us its “clear” meaning].

He has taken it upon himself to share his insight into the simple meaning of these passages—he says (loosely) “given that I have been blessed by God with the ability to understand these texts more properly.” [An interesting comment; I am sure he meant it as a humble expression of his understanding of his role in God’s world, even as I know people in our time who would take statements like that as arrogant, who would be offended by the idea that he or anyone could understand what God wanted of them, as if he or anyone had the right to see him or herself as uniquely talented in some way]. In offering these readings, he hopes to silence those who would undermine the faith.

He’ll start with Bil’am, move to Moshe’s predictions in Sefer Devarim, fifteen prophecies in Yeshayahu, six in Yirmiyahu, ten in Yehezkel, Hoshe’a, Yo’el, Amos, Ovadyah, two in Michah, Chabakuk, Tzefanyah, Chaggai, four in Zecharyah, Malachi, twelve chapters of Tehillim. He’s already addressed Daniel’s views in his commentary on that book, he says, so he won’t repeat them here [and I’ll leave that for another time].

I will try to summarize his views as briefly as possible, because we still have to get to Maharal. I will also not have the space here to engage his readings of the texts—we won’t get the chance to review all that Tanach has to say about the Redemption– just the conclusions he draws. For this week, let’s see what his understanding of what Bil’am and Moshe Rabbenu had to say.

Bil’am—Broadcasting Good Against His Will

Unique among the figures Abarbanel will discuss, Bil’am didn’t want to be a mashmi’a yeshu’a. Nonetheless, his words had much good, about his own time, about the kingdoms of David and Shlomo, and about Mashiach. We’ll discuss only those parts that have to do with Mashiach.

In Bil’am’s first words, Abarbanel finds a reference to the Jewish people’s uniqueness, that we are not under the control of the stars [today, we would say that we are not bound by the forces of nature, or the “natural” course of history; same idea, different terminology]. Because of that, it’s the Jews who earn or garner the real reward in life, why he expresses a hope to die their kind of death.

While not solely about Mashiach, that fosters a view of the course of Jewish history that seems to me worth remembering, and very relevant to our belief in a Messianic future. It is our memory and certainty that history the way it looks to the human eye isn’t the whole story that fuels our ability to maintain confidence in the prophesied future good of the Jewish people.

His fourth prophecy is again about Mashiach. In contrast to Chazal, who blame Bil’am for the idea of sending Moabite women to seduce Jewish men, Abarbanel reads him as advising Balak to ignore the Jews, since they won’t bother Moav or Midian in his time. In the end of days, long beyond his time frame, they will, but that’s not his concern.

In that later time, when they have not had a king for many generations, a group will arise from within the people [Abarbanal says yakum me-‘atzmo, will arise on its own, which implies that it will be grassroots-driven, rather than coming from a Messiah figure gathering them himself]. They will then re-establish a kingdom which will conquer Moav and the rest of the world (benei Shet are the children of Shet, the only child of Adam to have a lasting lineage).

Bil’am was aware of Mashiach as a time when the Jews would rise up, restore the monarchy, and conquer the world. Moshe Rabbenu went into a bit more detail.

Parshat Ekev and Shoftim

Lema’an yirbu yemeichem, that your days be long on the Land, in Devarim 11;21, repeats the promise to the Patriarchs that the Jews would receive Israel as a permanent and eternal gift. That promise will not have been fulfilled until the Jews are ensconced there permanently, never to be exiled again. [Let’s hope this time is it.]

We saw Rambam’s view that there would one day be nine cities of refuge. Abarbanel agrees, and thinks that will come true when another promise to Avraham will be fulfilled, that the Jews will be given the land of ten nations (adding Keni, Kenizi, and Kadmoni to the seven Canaanite ones), expanding the borders to the river of Egypt on the west and the Euphrates on the east.

When we first entered Israel, there were too few of us, and we were too loosely attached to service of Hashem, to merit all that land. But when we observe all the mitzvot, out of love of Hashem and in a continuing attempt to walk His paths, our borders will expand, and we will then add three more. [Since he conditions this time on the Jews investing fully in service of God, it’s even more notable that he still thinks there will be a need for cities of refuge. As I noted when Rambam said it, that implies there will still be both murder and unintentional killing].

Parshat Nitzavim as Salve to the Tochacha and Circumcision of the Heart

The Torah twice warns us at length of the consequences of failure to serve Hashem. The tochacha in Bechukotai ends with a promise of eventual restoration, but not the one in Ki Tavo. Abarbanel thinks that’s because that tochacha only ends at the beginning of Nitzavim, where the Torah stresses the promise of redemption to help Jews avoid despair.

The Torah doubles its references to the Jews’ repentance (ve-shavta el Hashem and va-hashevota el levavecha), Abarbanel says, to address both Jews who identify as such as well as the anusim, those forced to convert. Both groups need to know that repentance will bring them redemption and permanent residence in this broadened Land. Ordinary Jews will have Hashem circumcise their hearts, such that they will never again sin in ways that would mandate another exile. The anusim, born into families that are outwardly non-Jewish, will need physical circumcision as well as spiritual.

The verses that speak of Hashem returning to a relationship of joy, as Hashem had with our forefathers, means we’ll get back the full Divine Presence we had in the desert, with the Aron, and prophecy, and fire from Heaven on the altar, etc.

In his summary of this section, Abarbanel that the Jewish people will reach a higher spiritual state than even in the time of David and Shlomo, and that all our enemies will be destroyed, accursed, and punished.

Ha’azinu

He saw seven ideas in Ha’azinu, related to the redemption. The ones we have not seen before are: it will involve vengeance against all the nations that oppressed us, at a time that is pre-set, although carefully hidden in Daniel such that people will not understand it until it comes to pass. Third, it is dependent on the Jewish people fully atoning for their sins, by being downtrodden to the lowest possible point of lack of respect and of poverty.

This exile will last until the merit of the Patriarchs is used up (as Ramban held), and the only reason for our redemption will be the denigration of Hashem’s Name caused by the victories of those who do not believe in Hashem. Fifth, there is a guarantee that, at some point, even if the Jewish people fail to repent, Hashem will punish them sufficiently and then redeem them, to rehabilitate Hashem’s honor in the world.

Sixth, resurrection of the dead will happen soon after the ingathering of the exiles, since only three verses separate the reference to Hashem’s judging the Jews (ki yadin Hashem amo) and the resurrection (ani amit ve-achayeh, a verse Sanhedrin 91b sees as promising bodily resurrection).

Those are the Biblical presentations of Mashiach, for Abarbanel: a promise of a permanent Jewish return to an expanded Israel, either by virtue of the Jews’ repentance or—at a predetermined time—as a way to restore the proper honor and respect to Hashem’s Name.

Next week, Yeshayahu.

Welcome to a new series for Torah Musings, discussing views of the Messianic era in Jewish thought. I don’t intend to be comprehensive; rather, by comparing Rambam’s view (which we can cover in one week), some of what Abarbanel had to say about that time (another week), and moving on to an extended engagement with Maharal’s ideas, I think and hope that we will get some sense of the possibilities for what Jews are meant to expect and long for in the future.

Since Rambam is famously rationalist, and came first, let’s look at how he described it. One of the striking aspects of his picture, to me, is the extent to which parts of it have already come to fruition, in ways that might have seemed hopelessly utopian or naïve just a century ago.

We’ll start with his Mishnah commentary, the earlier of the works where he describes this time at some length.

Introduction to Chelek, a Powerful and Remarkable King Messiah

One of the later chapters of Sanhedrin (the last in the Gemara, second to last in the Mishnah) opens with a list of those who forfeit their share in the World to Come. In an introduction t famous for many reasons (and which amply rewards careful study and repeat readings), Rambam explains some concepts that seem blurrily similar, such as the Messianic era, Resurrection of the Dead, and the World to Come.

The days of the Messiah, he says, are when a Jewish king will again rule the Jewish people, and they will return to the Land of Israel. [He seems to imply that malchut, kingship, will return before all the Jews. Especially considering that important rabbis of the early State suggested that a Jewish government qualifies as malchut without melech, rule without a king, and that this happened long before several waves of immigration that we’ve already seen—Yemenite, Ethiopian, Russian—this part of Rambam’s words seem to be coming true before our eyes].

This king will rule from Zion, and his fame will be more widespread than Shlomo HaMelech’s. All nations will make peace with him, serving him because of his great righteousness [notice the ideal being expressed—they won’t serve him for political or strategic expedience, they will respect his righteousness]. Hashem will destroy anyone who does stand against him, giving them into this king’s hands.

Messiah Is Not the End, in Either Sense

Other than that, the world will continue. There will be strong and weak, but productivity gains will make earning a living significantly easier [this is again a remarkable prediction, in that basic necessities are today much easier to produce than in Rambam’s time; people work hard today, but that’s because they want much more than was seen as necessary back then. To live at Rambam’s standard of living today takes almost insignificant amounts of money].

The greatest benefit of that time, Rambam says, is that evil kingdoms that stop us from doing what’s right will no longer exist. The world will improve, everyone will have greater knowledge, wars will end, and people will achieve their maximum perfection.

That will be a continuing process, however. Mashiach will rule a long time, then die, and his son and grandson and descendants will rule in their turn [he implies that perfection is a goal never fully achieved, so that people can spend many generations working on it, even in a world where no one is evil, and material wealth is easily achieved].

People will live longer [as we do today], because they won’t have worries or troubles [there is evidence for Rambam’s certainty that stress is a significant contributing factor to disease and death. Were stress really to be erased by plenty and righteousness, it’s more than reasonable that lifespans would increase more than we today imagine.]

The reason to long for this time is that it will afford the fullest opportunity to maximize our potential, to grow to our greatest knowledge of Torah and our Creator, thus earning ourselves the best place we can achieve in the World to Come.

That’s as far as he goes in the introduction to Chelek. He takes up these themes twice in Mishneh Torah, however, enriching our sense of his view of the Messianic era.

Hilchot Teshuvah: Messianic Times as a Time of Perfect Repentance

The first of those is in the later parts of Laws of Repentance. Towards the end of the eighth chapter, he contrasts yemot haMashiach, Messianic times, with the World to Come. The latter is unknowable (for all that our tradition longs for it), but yemot haMashiach has been predicted by the prophets, in a way that presents a bit of a challenge for his view of the goal of observance, knowledge of Hashem.

If that’s true, he opens the ninth chapter by asking, how come the Torah and prophets promised material rewards for proper observance? He answers that they’re a means to an end, giving us the wherewithal, peace of mind, physical health, financial security, and political and military independence to build our readiness for the World to Come (or, if we don’t keep the Torah and receive the threatened punishments, they make the end of achieving the World to Come more difficult to achieve; that’s part of the punishment).

The Messiah will be the king who leads us to take full advantage of these promises, to act in ways that they are completely fulfilled, giving us the best chance to be our best selves, a prophet almost like Moshe, as wise as Shlomo.

Laws of Kings

That aspect of Mashiach came up in a discussion of repentance because Rambam had to explain how physical rewards fit into his view of the results of our acting properly. But since the central figure of that time is a king, the Laws of Kings returns to discuss the king Mashiach as well.

There, in the eleventh chapter, Rambam repeats his view that there will be little supernatural, that he will restore Davidic kingship [I recently started studying Tzitz Eliezer’s remarkable Hilchot Medinah, Laws of a State, a book he published in 5712/1952; there, he notes sources that suggest that Davidic kingship might return before Mashiach, and also that Rambam in a letter to the Jews of Yemen seemed to think Mashiach would perform miracles. Here, Rambam clearly does not; Tzitz Eliezer assumes he changed his mind].

Mashiach will also restore observance of all the Torah, including the offering of sacrifices [I see Rambam’s including this example as strong evidence he was sincere about his belief in the return of sacrifice. While some read him as seeing no continuing value in sacrifices, there is no reason for him to mention it here unless he really thought it would happen.]

Another example he gives is that arei miklat, cities of refuge, will be set up again, since the Torah speaks of there one day being nine such cities, which has not yet happened. [This is a Rambam close to my heart because it provided a key plot point to my novel, Murderer in the Mikdash. I also note that the existence of cities of refuge implies there will be both intentional and nonintentional murder.]

Identifying Mashiach

Here, Rambam also gives us a way to identify Mashiach, since he does not believe he will reveal himself by performing miracles. Rather, if a Davidic king arises, who studies and is invested in Torah, occupies himself with mitzvot like his forefather David, and brings the Jews to observance [Rambam writes ve-yachuf, which most simply means “coerces.” But there’s more than one way to skin a cat, and I can imagine a king “coercing” observance gently and subtly as well], he will be the presumptive Mashiach.

If he then succeeds at rebuilding the Beit HaMikdash, and gathering the scattered Jewish people, he will be Mashiach for sure [note his comfort with Mashiach arriving without our recognizing it, and not being confirmed as Mashiach until much later in his career, after he’s rebuilt the Temple and finally ingathered the exiles].

The Unknowns of the Arrival

In 12;2 of Laws of Kings, he says the simple reading of Tanach is that there will be a big war before Mashiach comes, as well as a prophet arising who will return the people to Hashem and bring peace to the world [in this version, it’s the prophet, identified in Tanach as Eliyahu but Rambam is not adamant that it must be him, who brings peace, not Mashiach].

All these issues won’t be fully known until they come to fruition, because Tanach is unclear about the details and we have no tradition about it. But it doesn’t matter, he says, because the specifics are not essential to observance, nor do they bring us to fear or love of Hashem (the real goals). Rather, people shouldn’t spend too much time trying to unravel these aggadic issues, but wait believingly for it to unfold [in our times, we might say people can contribute to its unfolding in some ways, even if we don’t know the path the future will take].

One function Mashiach will perform is establishing lineage, using the divine spirit within him to identify kohanim and Levi’im, as well as those who are not, who will become regular Jews. He’ll also identify the tribes, but will not “out” mamzerim or slaves who have mixed in to the Jewish people. [Rambam speaks of ruach hakodesh, and he does expect Mashiach to be a prophet, but it still seems odd that Eliyahu could not do this prophetically and Mashiach could. I wonder whether “divine spirit” here might mean something more natural looking, such as his finding a way to identify lineage that, once discovered, seems natural. Like a genetic marker.].

He closes with another reminder that the goal of all this is the opportunity, environment, and inclination to work on our service of Hashem, to improve ourselves as much as possible.

Conclusion

Rambam’s Mashiach and Messianic era is naturalistic and rationalistic, as we expected going in. But it’s not devoid of the supernatural. He expects Mashiach to be a prophet, and is comfortable with another prophet preceding the Arrival, even that that prophet could be Eliyahu.

It will be a time of a fully restored Jewish halachic state, with all the laws of the Torah in place (eventually), life spans extended, and the world as a whole joining in the great project of finding their way to better and better service of God. Certainly an attractive model, much of which it seems to me we have already merited. But it’s not the final word, as we plan to see in the weeks to come.