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Messiah

שו”תCategory: faithMessiah
asked 6 years ago

I saw that the Rabbi wrote several times about the issue of redemption and the Messiah, but despite this, I was unable to fully understand the Rabbi’s teaching on this. If the Rabbi could elaborate a little on this:
A. What is the Rabbi’s conclusion regarding the theology on the matter, given at Mount Sinai/the words of the prophets/the law of Moses/others? And what is the Rabbi’s attitude towards this?
In . What is the Messiah? A person/period and according to the Rabbi, are we already in the process or not?
C. If it is Magi, what signs will come before that from what we know anyway?
Thank you very much, Shabbat Shalom!


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מיכי Staff answered 6 years ago
A. I doubt whether this principle came down from Sinai. There are statements about it in the prophets, but statements in prophecy are vague and always subject to different interpretations. Therefore, I do not have a clear position on this. If it is a tradition from Sinai, I would of course accept it. on. I don’t know. In my opinion, no one knows, even those who make all kinds of vehement statements on the matter. C. I don’t know. See section A regarding prophetic verses.

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עדן replied 6 years ago

Also, reward and punishment, heaven and hell, is not written in the Torah, nor even in the prophets. At least it is not explicit. What is the Rabbi's position on this? And if that is also not clear, what is the point in working for God? If I work for nothing when there is no redemption or reward and punishment..

מיכי Staff replied 6 years ago

The same thing.
First, I did not say that there is none. I said that I do not know. Second, we do not work for the reward. See the Rambam, beginning of the chapter on the following: Answer:
Halakhah 1
Let not a person say, "I am doing the commandments of the Torah and engaging in its wisdom so that I may receive all the blessings written in it or so that I may merit the life of the world to come, and I will abstain from the transgressions that the Torah warns against so that I may be saved from the curses written in the Torah or so that I may not be cut off from the life of the world to come." It is not appropriate to worship the Lord in this way, for he who works in this way is worshiping out of fear and not the virtue of the prophets or the virtue of the sages, and none worship the Lord in this way except the people of the land and women and children who are educated to worship out of fear until their understanding increases and they worship out of love.
Halacha b
The worker out of love engages in Torah and mitzvot and walks in the paths of wisdom, not for anything in the world, nor for fear of evil, nor in order to inherit goodness, but rather does the truth because it is truth and the end of goodness comes because of it…

עדן replied 6 years ago

I know there is an ideal of coming to work out of love, but it should be based on the issue of reward and punishment, otherwise I don't see any real reason why to work.. or more than that, why to love God? In the end, it has to start with some kind of reward, otherwise there is no reason for me to change the course of my life because of gratitude for having created me..

מיכי Staff replied 6 years ago

I explained this at length in my trilogy. The duty to do what is right does not depend on reward. Just as the duty to be moral does not depend on having any reward. Do I not murder or steal because I will gain something from it? Is there no expectation from a secular person not to steal or murder (without the sanctions imposed by the law)?
The truth is the best reason, and it does not need further reasoning. Doing the commandments makes the world better (in some spiritual sense), and that is the reason to do so. What's more, it gives us a meaning to life and a set of principles to analyze life and the world (I will not go into detail here).
If someone has difficulty keeping the commandments without reward, that is what the stories about reward and punishment are for (assuming that these are indeed unfounded stories). This is a question for a psychologist, not a rabbi. It is not on the ethical level, but on the psychological level.

בני replied 6 years ago

To be honest, I have never even considered the opinion of a person who upholds moral values that limit his freedom and desires to the extent that they add nothing to him. The reason I adhere to values is because it is good for me or because of a religious obligation or because I was raised not to steal and if I steal I will feel very bad about myself and I no longer get the pleasure from stealing and perhaps also because of the fact that I will not steal so that others will not steal from me, in other words, it is worth believing in something for the sake of a social convention that will benefit me. Although this seems to me to be only the reason for the values being that I uphold values because it is bad for me to violate them. I love meat but I feel so disgusting that I think about the pain that the animal went through until it reached my plate and it no longer tastes good to me and I personally do not eat it. But I do not see this as me being more valuable in the truth of things and I also recommend that others not see things about the pain that animals go through so that they can continue to enjoy it. This also seems to me to be the rational view of values and that is why I was surprised by the things the rabbi wrote in favor of veganism… right?
PS: Does this trilogy include the Emunah notebooks that the rabbi has on the site or is there no connection?

מיכי Staff replied 6 years ago

So, that's our point of debate. In my opinion, not all actions are self-interested (several columns have been written here about this and talkbacks have also addressed it).
A revised version of the notebooks makes up the first book in the trilogy.

עדן replied 6 years ago

If the rabbi could send clear links because I haven't found anything comprehensive on the matter... I'm not claiming that it's all about interests, but rather that a person is born with natural/acquired feelings toward immoral things. Every normative person has a bad feeling and a kind of internal disgust toward murder, and therefore he will certainly keep it in the work of the... It seems irrelevant to me.

מיכי Staff replied 6 years ago

See column 120 (and a little bit of 122) and following.

מיכי Staff replied 6 years ago

These feelings, if they are the motivation for action, are just like self-interest. You do it for the benefit (a good inner feeling). In last night's Zoom class, I briefly discussed this distinction.

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