The Messiah in Jewish Thought [5] – The Messiah at the Gate

As we are ploughing through the tractate Sanhedrin in the Babylonian Talmud, between pages 96 and 105, we have now arrived at page 98a, at the bottom, dealing with the statement of R. Johanan:

The implication of the first verse is that the people will inherit the Land for ever when they are righteous; and the second and third are drawn from the same section of the prophet Isaiah.

Righteous or Wicked — the Messiah Comes Either Way

When the Talmudic scholars were discussing the coming of the Messiah, they found promises of his coming in both sets of circumstances: the circumstance in which the people deserve his coming because of their righteousness, and the circumstance in which they are so wicked and so evil that God finally intervenes to stop the wickedness by the coming of the Messiah. Bringing these two possibilities into focus, they decided that the coming of the Messiah could be in either case: the generation that is altogether righteous, doing the will of God and therefore deserving the redemption of the Messiah; or the generation that is wicked, deserving the Messiah's coming so that he may pronounce judgment on the wicked.

As we know from the New Testament as well, the coming of the Messiah brings salvation to the faithful, but at the same time brings condemnation to the wicked who do not believe God. In fact, in John chapter 3 verses 18 and 36, we are told that the world is already condemned; the Messiah is coming to bring salvation to the faithful, but those who refuse that salvation are condemned already.

It is very interesting that in our own time the first chief rabbi of Israel, R. Kook — a great man with a deep love for the people of Israel and for the Land of Israel — said that our generation, the generation that established the State of Israel, was the generation of the coming of the Messiah, because it is a generation that is both altogether wicked and altogether righteous at the same time. We are wicked because we have left the ways of our forefathers and become, by and large, a secular state and a secular people. The majority of Israel is still not religious — although the number of religious people has increased dramatically in recent years — and so, by and large, they do not keep the Law, do not keep the commandments, do not keep the Sabbath, but basically do as they please. In cities like Tel Aviv it is sometimes hard to find a kosher restaurant, it is so secular. So from that point of view it is a wicked generation. But it is also, in a sense, altogether righteous, because this generation has come back to the Land of Israel and has the privilege of rebuilding it. So R. Kook's thinking was that our generation is both altogether righteous and altogether wicked, and that therefore it is very likely we are the generation that, in his words, is "hearing the footsteps of the Messiah."

"In Its Time" — Yet "I Will Hasten It"

We continue reading on page 98a.

The context of this passage is Isaiah 60:22, the coming of the Messiah, the coming of redemption upon Israel. In one and the same verse it says "in its time" — there is an appointed time in which the Messiah will come — and also "I will hasten it." The resolution: if they are worthy, God will hasten it; if not, the Messiah will come at the appointed time.

The Clouds or the Donkey

Here is a seeming contradiction, at least in the mind of R. Joshua: the two verses don't fit the same person or the same occasion. In one, he comes on the clouds, in a supernatural way, in glory; in the other, he comes lowly and humble, riding on a donkey. How could the coming be both ways? This is how the Talmud resolves it: R. Joshua says the nature of the Messiah's coming depends on the merit, the righteousness, of the people of Israel. If they are meritorious — that is, righteous — he will come with glory, in the clouds of heaven; but if they are not meritorious — a wicked generation — he will come humble, riding on a donkey.

Of course, the New Testament writers, and in fact Yeshua himself, resolve this in a totally different way. Instead of making the two kinds of coming depend on the merit of the people, they say there are actually two different comings: not "this way if the people are righteous, that way if they are not," but a first coming, in which he comes humble and lowly, riding on a donkey, and a second coming, in which he comes in glory, with the clouds of heaven.

These are two distinct ways of resolving the same textual problem. We do have in the Tanakh, seemingly, two kinds of Messiah, and we divide them into two comings — a first and a second. But the Jewish rabbis, who did not know of two comings, divided the same seeming contradiction in a different way, saying it is a conditional coming: if he comes at a time when Israel is righteous, he will come in glory; if he comes when Israel is not so righteous, he will come lowly, riding on a donkey. The important thing to notice is that they are dealing with the same verses. They are aware that these verses in the Torah, the Prophets, and the Psalms are about the coming of the Messiah; but instead of dividing them into a first coming and a second coming, they say he will come one way if the people are righteous and another way if they are not.

King Shapur's Horse

In other words: do you have a horse of a hundred colors? A little historical note. King Shapur ruled Persia — the area of Iraq and Iran today — and struggled against Rome for many years; Rome was never actually able to conquer Persia. When Shapur heard the Jews discussing that the Messiah might come on a donkey, he said, in effect, "He shouldn't ride on a donkey; I'll give him my own horse" — meaning, "I have such respect for the Messiah that I would give him my own horse. Why should he ride on a donkey?" R. Samuel didn't want to tell him bluntly, "We don't want your horse; we would rather he ride on a donkey, because that is what the prophets really predicted." Instead he said, "You don't have the kind of horse he really needs; he needs a horse of a hundred colors. And if you don't have a horse like that, well — the donkey will do." That was a diplomatic way of telling King Shapur, "Thank you, but no thank you." It is an interesting little historical note within this context of the Messiah coming on a donkey.

Today, of course, in the Jewish religious world, one would find it difficult to believe that the Messiah would come into the streets of Jerusalem on a donkey — for several reasons. First, donkeys are no longer the main means of transportation in this part of the world. Second, there have been so many false messiahs who have ridden into Jerusalem on donkeys; while this phenomenon has lessoned a little in recent years, I remember that every so often another one came into Jerusalem on a donkey, with long side curls, a turban on his head, usually followed by a woman with a baby in her arms, dressed in a kind of biblical costume, and they parade up and down the city hoping someone will recognize them as the Messiah, become their disciple, or at least give them a free meal. So the likelihood of someone today riding into Jerusalem on a donkey and being accepted as the Messiah is far less than when Yeshua came into Jerusalem a week before the Passover, riding on a donkey, and the people recognized him immediately as a king.

The Messiah Among the Lepers

We continue reading from the Talmud.

Let me analyze this story a little, so that it may be better understood.

R. Joshua b. Levi goes to the tomb of Simeon b. Yohai, which is near Meiron, in the middle of the Galilee. Simeon b. Yohai was a rabbi, a fellow student and disciple alongside R. Akiba, and one of the leaders of what we today call the Bar Kochba rebellion, which began in the year 132. R. Akiba, R. Simeon b. Yohai, and eight other rabbis were executed by the Romans; these ten rabbis, leaders of the Bar Kochba rebellion, were put to death around the year 135, and they are considered martyrs who died for the cause of the Torah and of Israel.

Simeon b. Yohai was credited in Jewish tradition with all kinds of miracle-working powers. Until his time the city of Tiberias was considered unclean, and religious Jews did not live there, because it had been built by Herod the Great on top of a cemetery; but it was Simeon b. Yohai, according to tradition, who purified the city — and afterward it became a great center for the study of Torah and for establishing the traditional reading of the Hebrew text of the Bible. Later, Simeon b. Yohai's tomb became a place of pilgrimage, as it is to this day. On Lag ba'Omer, thousands upon thousands of Orthodox Jews go to his tomb to celebrate, and he is regarded as a kind of mystical master in Judaism.

So R. Joshua b. Levi goes to the tomb of R. Simeon b. Yohai, and there he meets Elijah. Elijah is also a kind of mystical figure in Judaism — one who did not die, but went up to heaven in a whirlwind — and so, according to the story, he is there communicating with Simeon b. Yohai within his grave. R. Joshua b. Levi meets Elijah at the tomb and asks him the most pertinent question any Jew could ask: "Am I listed among those who will inherit eternal life, or not?" In Christian terminology we would say, "Am I saved?" Elijah replies, "If this Master desires it" — referring, of course, to Simeon b. Yohai in his tomb, since there was nobody there except Elijah and R. Joshua b. Levi.

It is interesting to note that Rashi, one of the great Talmudic commentators, said "this Master" refers to the Shechinah, the Presence of God, which was also there with them. Why does Rashi say this? Because, living in eleventh-century Europe, he cannot imagine that they would be talking to a dead man, which is against the Torah — necromancy is forbidden in Deuteronomy chapter 18 verses 10 and 11. So according to Rashi, they were speaking to the Shechinah, present with Elijah at the tomb. But according to the plain sense of the story, it is more likely that R. Joshua was speaking with Simeon b. Yohai, who was in his tomb. When R. Joshua b. Levi says he "saw two but heard the voice of a third," he means that he saw himself and Elijah, but heard a third voice — which, according to Rashi, would be the Shechinah, but according to the simple sense would be the dead Simeon b. Yohai, communicating with them.

R. Joshua b. Levi did not get an answer to his first question — "Do I have a portion in the world to come?" — so he asked a second: "When will the Messiah come?" Elijah replied, "Go and ask him yourself." "Where is he?" asked R. Joshua. Elijah said, "He is sitting at the gate of the city, among all the poor and the lepers who have no place inside — those who sit outside the gate begging, hoping for someone's charity to provide them a living."

That is, first of all, an interesting point in itself. According to this story, the Messiah is here — he is not in heaven. He is here, outside the city, suffering, and he is a leper. The idea that he is a leper is taken, of course, from Isaiah 53: "Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken." "Stricken," in the medical sense, means being a leper. In this tradition the Messiah is a leper, a suffering person; and leprosy, in Judaism, is the father of all impurities. So the Messiah suffers the impurity of being a leper — and he is here now, not in heaven; he has come.

The story implies that the Messiah has come, and that he is waiting for us to invite him. Notice one of the signs by which R. Joshua is told he can identify the Messiah: the other lepers untie all the bandages of the whole body at once, treat all their sores, and then bind them all up together; but the Messiah unties and treats his sores one at a time — each sore has its own turn — saying to himself, "Should I be needed, should they invite me to come, I must not be delayed." That is how the Messiah, in this text, regards the possibility of his coming. Whatever else we say, the Messiah is here; he is suffering; and he is waiting for us to call him, to invite him to come.

So R. Joshua b. Levi goes and finds the Messiah outside the city, and the conversation between them is this. R. Joshua says, "Shalom aleicha, Mori ve-Rabbi — Peace upon you, my Master and my Teacher," and the Messiah answers, "Shalom lecha, ben Levi — Peace upon you, son of Levi." And R. Joshua asks him — like a typical blunt Israeli — "When will you come?" No "How are you, can I help you," no politeness; straight to the point. And the Messiah tells him, "Today." R. Joshua takes off running to get himself and his house in order, not waiting for further conversation — but of course the day goes by, and the Messiah does not come.

"Today, If You Will Hear His Voice"

So the next time R. Joshua b. Levi goes to the cave, the tomb of Simeon b. Yohai, he meets Elijah again, and Elijah asks him, "Tell me what happened." He replies, "[He said] Peace upon you, son of Levi." Elijah says, "Well — you wanted to know whether you have a portion in the world to come. If he said to you, 'Peace upon you, son of Levi,' that means he recognized you, and recognized your father too, by saying 'son of Levi.'" R. Joshua is now happy, having an assurance from Elijah that he has a portion in the world to come. Then he says, "But he lied to me — the Messiah lied to me." Elijah says, "Tell me what he said." "He said he would come today, but he didn't come!" And Elijah says, "I'll tell you what he meant. He meant, 'Today, if you will hear his voice'" [quoting Psalm 95 verse 7].

That in itself is very interesting, because the whole of Psalm 95 is used in a midrashic way in Hebrews chapter 3 — indeed, Hebrews chapters 3 and 4 are built entirely as a midrash on Psalm 95. What was Elijah telling R. Joshua b. Levi? He was telling him that when the Messiah said "today," he did not mean simply "today" in a historical sense, that he would come to the world on that day. He meant: for you, he would come today, if you would personally hear his voice. In other words, if you would believe the Messiah and obey him, then for you he would come today. That is the implication of the story, and that is how Elijah is portrayed resolving the apparent falsehood in R. Joshua's mind.

And of course that Psalm is used in the same way in the New Testament. The writer of Hebrews says: reprove one another while it is still called "today" — while you still have time, while the sun still rises every morning and sets every night, while time exists — so that when he comes, he will not say to our generation what he said to the generation of the wilderness: "I swore in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest." God swore not to allow the generation that came out of Egypt to enter his rest, because they did not recognize his authority — or at least the Messiah's authority, and his place in God's plan of redemption.

The story is a rich one, with many implications for us to consider. Today, while it is still called day, and before the night comes, according to the words of Yeshua, we must go out and do the work that he sent us to do.