Tag Archives: Birthpangs of the Messiah

20 Things That Will Happen When Mashiach Comes

This week’s parasha, Vayikra, begins the third book of the Torah. The parasha is unique in that it is only one of two parashas (along with next week’s Tzav) where the word Mashiach appears. All four cases of the word in the Torah refer to the anointed High Priest, not to the messiah at the End of Days. Nonetheless, on a deeper level it certainly is alluding to the messiah of the End of Days. All the verses in question deal with the anointed High Priest (“HaKohen HaMashiach”) atoning for sins—both his own and the people’s—and purifying his nation. Indeed, one of the roles of Mashiach will be to prepare Israel for that final purification at the End of Days. This includes identifying one last Red Cow to produce those special waters which alone are capable of removing the impurity of death.

The early Christians saw these verses as allusions to their purported saviour, Jesus. In one place, for example, they wrote:

the Law [ie. the Torah] made those high priests who had infirmity, and who needed daily to offer up sacrifices, first for their own sins, and then for the people’s; but our high priest, Christ Jesus, was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens. (Hebrews 7:27-28)

For the Christians, Jesus was the ultimate anointed high priest. Yet, Jesus accomplished essentially nothing of what Mashiach is supposed to. This was perhaps best explained in the 16th century by Isaac ben Abraham of Troki (1533-1594). He was a Karaite Jew, and a renowned Karaite scholar. His magnum opus was a book called Hizzuk Emunah, “Strengthening of Faith”, written to debunk Christianity, silence missionaries, and convince Jews to remain Jewish. The book was so popular that it spread like wildfire, not just among Karaites but all Jews, and even Christians. In fact, it played an important role in the start of the Enlightenment, leading countless Christians to abandon their faith. One of these was the French philosopher Voltaire (1694-1778), who called the Latin translation of Hizzuk Emunah (first published in 1681) a “masterpiece”.

Because it was a Karaite text, traditional rabbis were wary of consulting it. The great Rabbi Menashe ben Israel (Manoel Dias Soeiro, 1604-1657), who opened the first Hebrew printing press in Amsterdam in 1626, ultimately refused to print it. Still, Abba Hillel Silver, in his A History of Messianic Speculation in Israel (pg. 225), points out how Troki’s text borrowed from earlier Rabbinic texts, including Mashmia Yeshua, “Announcing Salvation”, of Rabbi Isaac Abarbanel (1437-1508).

Silver goes on to summarize the sixth chapter of Troki’s Hizzuk Emunah, which includes a list of twenty clear prophecies in Scripture that must be fulfilled upon the coming of Mashiach—none of which were fulfilled by Jesus (thereby necessitating for Christians some future “second coming” yet to materialize after nearly two millennia). Briefly going over these twenty events is enlightening both as a reminder for why Jesus could not be the messiah, and for what to expect when the true Mashiach does come.

Living Waters and Dead Waters

‘Israelis – The Ingathering of the Exiles’ by Saul Raskin (1878-1966)

The first prophecy is the return of the Lost Tribes of Israel. In ancient times, following the reign of King Solomon, the Twelve Tribes of Israel split into two kingdoms: the southern Judah and the northern Israel (or Ephraim). The more sinful northern kingdom was eventually overrun by the Assyrians, who exiled its tribes. These are sometimes referred to as the Ten Lost Tribes. It should be noted, though, that they weren’t necessarily ten tribes, nor were the tribes completely expunged. In reality, there were many Benjaminites, Simeonites, and Levites already living inside the Kingdom of Judah, and members of all the northern tribes fled to Judah when the northern kingdom was destroyed.

What happened was that all the tribes eventually assimilated into the larger, ruling tribe of Judah. Over time, the tribes lost knowledge of their lineage, and today everyone is simply a Yehudi, a Judahite, or Jew. (Levites, because of their unique role, retain knowledge of their ancestry). One of the prophesied events of the End of Days is that the identity of the Lost Tribes will once more be known. Though this idea is much more developed in later Rabbinic literature, it comes from numerous places in Scripture. Troki chooses to use Ezekiel 37:15-22:

And the word of God came to me, saying: “And you, son of man, take one stick, and write upon it: For Judah, and for the children of Israel his companions; then take another stick, and write upon it: For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and of all the house of Israel his companions; and join them one to another into one stick, that they may become one in your hand… And say to them: ‘Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the nations, wherever they have gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land…’”

Related to this is the second great prophecy, that of Gog u’Magog. This refers to the great world war at the End of Days, described in detail in Ezekiel 38, among other places. During the course of this war, Zechariah 14:4 states that the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem will be split in half. Then, new “living waters” will go out of Jerusalem to make Israel flourish (Zechariah 14:8).

Bab-el-Mandeb Strait (Credit: Skilla1st)

Meanwhile, Isaiah 11:15 states that God “will utterly destroy the tongue of the Egyptian Sea; and with His scorching wind will He shake His hand over the River, and will smite it into seven streams, and cause men to march over dry-shod.” The identity of the “Egyptian Sea” and the “River” is unclear, though Silver has it as the Red Sea and the Euphrates. On the possibility of the Red Sea drying up, we know today from geological records that the Red Sea had once (and possibly more than once) become a dry chunk of land due to the narrow and shallow Bab-el-Mandeb closing up.

As for the “River”, in context it would make more sense if it referred to the Nile, the lifeline of Egypt. Today, we are indeed seeing the Nile drying up rapidly, and the Washington Post recently reported that the Nile Delta is losing as much as 20 metres per year in some areas. With this in mind, when Isaiah prophesies that the “tongue of the Egyptian Sea” will be destroyed, it may be referring to the Nile Delta, which opens up into the Egyptian Mediterranean, ie. the “Egyptian Sea”. The Post article is quite an accurate realization of Isaiah’s prophecy, with images of men that “march over dry-shod”.

(Having said that, the Euphrates River isn’t doing much better than the Nile, so whether Isaiah meant the Nile or the Euphrates is irrelevant in light of the mass devastation that has plagued both rivers.)

A Renewed Jerusalem

The sixth prophecy in Troki’s list is also from Zechariah (8:23):

Thus said the Lord of Hosts: “In those days it shall come to pass, that ten men shall take hold, out of all the languages of the nations, shall take hold of the garment of him that is a Jew, saying: We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.”

The tremendous anti-Semitism that Jews have experienced throughout history, into the present day, will finally end. The nations will be at peace with the Jews, and wish to learn from them. This is related to another prophecy: that gentiles from all over the world will come to Jerusalem to worship the God of Israel on every Rosh Chodesh and every Shabbat (Isaiah 66:20-23):

“…upon horses, and in chariots, and in litters, and upon mules, and upon swift beasts, to My holy mountain Jerusalem,” said God, “as the children of Israel bring their offering in a clean vessel into the house of God. And of them also will I take for the priests and for the Levites,” said God. “For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before Me,” said God, “so shall your seed and your name remain. And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, all flesh shall come to worship before Me, said God.

The gentiles—“all flesh”—will come to Jerusalem, upon every kind of transport. One of these is a rekhev, “chariot” in ancient Hebrew, and “vehicle” in Modern Hebrew. Another two of the transports are unique words that aren’t found elsewhere in Scripture and are impossible to translate: a tzab, and a kirkar. It is possible that the former refers to some kind of slow transport (as the word is written the same as that for a “turtle”) while the latter conversely refers to a very fast form of transport. In our day and age we have no shortage of either.

Troki lists separately a related prophecy from Zechariah (14:16): “And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations that came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of Hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles.” Once a year, during the holiday of Sukkot, those nations that warred against Israel at the End of Days will come to Jerusalem to worship. The fact that it must be during Sukkot is no coincidence, for it is during Sukkot that our Sages say the offerings in the Temple atone for all the gentiles. This is why the Torah requires seventy bulls to be offered over the course of the holiday, corresponding to the seventy root nations of the world.

A Renewed World

If all the nations are coming to worship the God of Israel in Jerusalem, there is certainly no need for any “idols… false prophets… and unclean spirits” which God will entirely “cut off” (Zechariah 13:2). Zechariah further adds: “And God [YHWH] shall be King over all the earth; in that day God shall be One, and His name one.” (14:9) There will be world peace (Isaiah 2:4, Micah 4:3), which will be ensured and enforced by Israel, to whom all the kings and nations will listen (Isaiah 60:10-12, Daniel 7:27). Even the animals will be at peace with each other, as Isaiah (11:6-8) famously writes:

And the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox…

On that last prophecy there is an interesting debate. Will the animals miraculously stop fighting and consuming one another? Or, is the prophecy only metaphorical and the natural order will remain? The Rambam (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, 1135-1204) held by the latter. Silver translates here that peace will be “between wild and domestic animals”. When reading Isaiah’s verses, this makes perfect sense: a wolf with a lamb, a leopard with a goat; calf and lion, cow and bear. So perhaps what Isaiah meant is that farmers and ranchers will no longer have to worry about wild animals devouring their livestock—once a common, and particularly disturbing, problem. (Or maybe there will be no need to raise livestock at all, for we are now at the dawn of the synthetic meat revolution.)

Israel will finally be completely righteous and free of sin (Deuteronomy 30:6, Isaiah 60:21, Ezekiel 36:25), and lead the rest of the world in doing the same (Jeremiah 3:17). There will no longer be any kind of suffering or sorrow in Israel, for the prophet said “the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying” (Isaiah 65:19).

‘Going Up To The Third Temple’ by Ofer Yom Tov

Finally, the prophet Eliyahu will return (Micah 3:24), and the Temple will be rebuilt (Ezekiel 40-45). The Shekhinah will return to Israel (Ezekiel 37:26), as will the ability to prophecy (Jeremiah 31:32-33), and there will be great knowledge in the world (Isaiah 11:9). The Holy Land will be redistributed among the Twelve Tribes of Israel (Ezekiel 47:13). Lastly, at the very end, will come the long-awaited Resurrection of the Dead (Daniel 12:2).

To summarize:

  1. Return of the Lost Tribes
  2. Gog u’Magog
  3. Mount of Olives splitting
  4. Egyptian Sea and River destroyed
  5. Living waters emerge from Jerusalem
  6. Gentiles declaring to Jews “we will go with you”
  7. Israel’s former enemies coming to Jerusalem each year on Sukkot
  8. Gentile pilgrims coming to Jerusalem to worship on the new moons and Sabbaths
  9. Destruction of all idols, false prophets, and unclean spirits
  10. One religion around the world, and recognition of one God
  11. Israel’s recognized leadership on the international stage
  12. World peace
  13. Peace between wild and domesticated animals
  14. A sinless Israel and a sinless world
  15. No more suffering or sorrow in the Land of Israel and for the Jewish people
  16. Shekhinah and prophecy return
  17. Eliyahu reappears
  18. Rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem
  19. Redistribution of the Holy Land among the restored Twelve Tribes
  20. Resurrection of the Dead

The Spiritual Significance of Israel Turning 70

This week we commemorate Yom Ha’Atzmaut, the State of Israel’s Independence Day, marking seventy years since its founding. Although the State is certainly far from perfect, its establishment and continued existence is without a doubt one of the greatest developments in Jewish history. Many have seen it as the first steps towards the final redemption, and even among Haredi rabbis (which are generally opposed to the secular State) there were those who bravely admitted Israel’s significance and validity. Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach (1910-1995), for example, considered the State as Malkhut Israel, a valid Jewish “kingdom”—at least for halakhic purposes—while the recently deceased Rav Shteinman unceasingly supported the Nachal Haredi religious IDF unit despite the great deal of controversy it brought him. Rav Ovadia Yosef permitted saying Hallel without a blessing on Yom Ha’Atzmaut, and some have even composed an Al HaNissim text to be recited. While we have already written in the past about the significance of the State’s founding (along with one perspective to bridge together the secular and the religious on this issue), there is something particularly special about Israel’s 70th birthday.

Al HaNissim for the Amidah and Birkat HaMazon provided by Rav David Bar-Hayim of Machon Shilo

The number 70 holds tremendous significance in Judaism. It is the number of root languages and root nations in the world (with Israel traditionally described as “a sheep among seventy wolves”). It is the number of Jacob’s family that descended to Egypt and from whom sprung up the entire nation. The number of elders that assisted Moses, and parallel to them the number of sages that sat on the Sanhedrin. Although Moses lived 120 years, he wrote in his psalm that 70 years is considered a complete lifespan (Psalms 90:10), and King David, who put the final edit on that psalm and incorporated it into his book, lived precisely 70 years. As is well-known, David was granted those 70 years by Adam, which is why the Torah says Adam lived 930 years instead of the expected 1000 years. (See here for how he may have been able to live so long.)

The Arizal taught that Adam (אדם) stands for Adam, David, and Mashiach, for the final redeemer is both a reflection of the first man, and the scion of David. More amazingly, as we wrote earlier this year it is said that David is literally the middle-point in history between Adam and Mashiach, and as such, if one counts the years elapsed between Adam and David then it is possible to find the start of the messianic era—which just happens to be our current year 5778. In this year, the State of Israel itself turns 70, and our Sages speak of “seventy cries of the soul during labour”, and parallel to these, “seventy cries of the birthpangs of Mashiach”. It is possible to interpret these seventy birthpangs preceding the arrival of the messiah as the seventy years leading up to the redemption. Thus, Israel’s seventy years potentially bear great significance.

Just as Psalms says that seventy years is one complete lifespan, for the State of Israel these past seventy years can be likened to the end of one “lifetime”, with Israel now standing at the cusp of a new era. Indeed, with all that has happened in the Middle East in recent years and months, Israel has undoubtedly emerged stronger and more secure than ever before. In this seventieth year, the world has begun to recognize Israel’s permanence, and affirm its unwavering right to Jerusalem the Eternal. We see more and more nations formally recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s rightful capital, and the United States plans to open its new Jerusalem embassy on May 14, which is Yom Ha’Atzmaut according to the secular calendar.

These seemingly disparate points—David’s seventy years, the completion of Israel’s first seventy year lifespan, and the recognition of Jerusalem—are actually intricately connected, for it was King David who established the first official, unified, Jewish state in the Holy Land, with Jerusalem as its capital. In fact, David’s kingdom was the only fully independent, unified Jewish state until the modern State of Israel! (Other Jewish entities, including the Maccabean and Herodian, were essentially always vassals to some greater power like Greece or Rome.) It is therefore quite fitting that the State of Israel has the Star of David on its flag, and it is this Davidic symbol that has become emblematic of not just Israel itself but all of modern Judaism.*

Living Prophecy

Perhaps the most famous seventy in Scripture is the seventy year period of exile in Babylon, between the First and Second Temples. It is said that God decreed a seventy year exile in particular because Israel failed to keep seventy Sabbatical and Jubilee years between the settling of Israel under Joshua and the destruction of the First Temple. While the Exile was certainly a “punishment”, we know that God never truly “punishes” Israel, and out of each devastation (which is nothing more than a just measure-for-measure retribution) emerges something greater.

As we’ve written before, it is in Babylon that the vibrant Judaism that we know was born. (See ‘The First Jewish Holiday’ in Garments of Light.)  Unable to journey to the Temple, the Sages reworked each holiday to become more than a pilgrimage; unable to offer sacrifices, the Sages established prayers instead, “paying the cows with our lips” (Hosea 14:3); unable to fulfil the many agricultural laws, the Sages taught that learning the laws was as good as observing them. The Judaism of study, prayer, and mysticism was born out of the difficulty of the seventy-year Babylonian Exile. These past seventy years for Israel—also of great difficulty, and coming on the heels of another great devastation—was similarly one where Judaism has evolved considerably, and instead of dying out as some feared, has actually flourished.

Many have pointed out another modern “Babylonian Exile”, too. This is the communist regime of the Soviet Union, where millions of Jews were trapped for some seventy years. (The officially accepted start and end dates for the USSR are December 30, 1922 to December 26, 1991.) The histories of Russia and Israel are tightly bound, for many of Israel’s founders came directly from the Russian Empire, including Ze’ev Jabotinsky, Golda Meir, and the Netanyahus. Some even argue that the severe persecution by the Russians—unrivaled until the Nazis—is what gave the greatest motivation for the founding of Israel. The Kishinev Pogrom of 1903 was the final straw for the Zionists. The description of that pogrom by Bialik (another Russian Jew, and later Israel’s national poet) aroused the masses to take up the call and make aliyah, and convinced many more of the necessity of an independent Jewish state.

Russia’s involvement is all the more significant when we consider the possibility of Moscow as the prophesied “Third Rome”. As explored in the past, the “Red Army” headquartered in Moscow’s Red Square brings to mind the villainous Edom. Just as Rabbi Yose ben Kisma taught long ago in the Talmud (Sanhedrin 98a-b) that Mashiach will come when Rome/Edom falls for the third time, and there will not be a fourth, the Russian monk Filofey of Pskov (1465-1542) wrote of Moscow that “Two Romes have fallen, the third stands, and there will be no fourth.” This is all the more interesting in light of what we see in the news today about the growing conflict between the West and the Russia-Syria-Iran axis. It is important to keep in mind that Iran (Paras or Persia) is explicitly mentioned in Ezekiel’s prophecy of the great wars of the End of Days, the wars referred to as Gog u’Magog. The Midrash (Yalkut Shimoni on Isaiah 60, siman 499) comments on this that

In the year that Mashiach will be revealed, all the kings of the nations of the world will provoke each other. The king of Persia will threaten the king of Arabia, and the king of Arabia will go to Aram for advice. The king of Persia will then destroy the world, and all the nations will tremble and fall upon their faces, and they will be grasped by birthpangs like the birthpangs of labour, and Israel, too, will tremble and falter, and they will ask: “Where will we go?” And [God] will answer: “My children, do not fear, for all that I have done, I have done for you… the time of your salvation has come.”

Those who follow geopolitics will immediately identify this midrashic passage with current events. The war in Syria is very much a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, just as is the war currently raging in Yemen. Saudi Arabia has joined the Western (Aram?) camp, and has even begun to speak positively of Israel in public. The prophet Jeremiah (49:27) further details that Syria will be the epicenter of the war, and the “end” will come when Damascus has fallen. Amazingly, Jeremiah calls the king of Damascus Ben Hadad (בן הדד), the gematria of which happens to equal Assad (אסד). And it also happens that the value of Gog u’Magog (גוג ומגוג) is 70.

Top right: Arab Coalition forces led by Saudi Arabia (and backed by the US, UK, and France) fighting in Yemen to defeat Iran-backed Houthi rebels. Bottom right: Today in the news we read about Saudi Arabia considering sending ground forces into Syria, where Iranian Revolutionary Guards are deeply entrenched. Some say Saudi Arabia secretly has forces in Syria already. It is highly likely that there are Russian and American paramilitary groups in Syria as well. Turkish and Israeli forces are heavily involved, too, and the US, UK, and France recently launched a missile strike on Syrian facilities.

Thus, Israel turning 70 carries remarkable symbolic meaning. The Midrash states that Israel has 70 names, and these correspond to the 70 names of the Torah (and the Torah’s 70 layers of meaning, to be revealed in full with Mashiach’s coming), as well as the 70 Names of God, and the 70 names for the holy city of Jerusalem. The last of these names, the Midrash says (based on Isaiah 62:2), is “a new name that God will reveal in the End of Days.” The struggle over Jerusalem and the Holy Land will soon end, with a new city and a new name to be reborn in its place.

May we merit to see it soon.

Courtesy: Temple Institute

*Judaism began with Abraham. In an amazing “coincidence” of numbers, Jewish tradition holds that Abraham was born in the Hebrew year 1948. The State of Israel was, of course, born in the secular year 1948. Jewish tradition also holds that Abraham was 70 years old at the “Covenant Between the Parts”, when God officially appointed Abraham as His chosen one. This means the Covenant took place in the Jewish year 2018, paralleling Israel’s 70th birthday in this secular year of 2018.