What Will Actually Happen When Mashiach Comes? The Rambam’s Surprising Answer - Rabbi Dovid Gottlieb

So we're talking about the world to come. Now here this is the second paragraph in chapter nine of those of Judah and I want to make some remarks here which we have to think about to sort of broaden our perspective. We said that the promises of earthly reward are the promises of conditions under which you can occupy yourself with the activities which will produce your entry into the world to come and also your status of the world to come. So the position that you will have there and that's why it's so precious. We had according to his vocabulary, it's the beginning of the reward and we made it compared it to getting the keys to the warehouse. You're happy with the keys because they get you into the warehouse. And here the reward of earthly security and success and pleasure and comfort is like the keys which you shouldn't get too occupied in themselves. We talk about Vegas a little bit. So the Rama starts off for all these reasons, all Israel, their prophets and their sages have yearned the massic age. And I told you that the word in Hebrew for yearned here is tava. And tava is a very strong word for desire. And it means that people who want to make it to the world to come. That's certainly a a normative perspective. It's a kosher perspective. Um, you know, I think there's more. Those are more of the sheets there. Yeah, that's one. >> It's only one page. 14. So, and and the says that the reason why they have this desire is because when we don't have our own independence, and as you'll see, independence is the basic condition of the world to come. When we're under the control of foreign nations, then we are not able to occupy ourselves with Torah and mitzvah. So mitzvah are the actions and Torah here would be the study of Torah. I told you throughout this chapter, he always puts the two of them together properly. Once the Messiah comes, we have a messianic hero. They will find rest and increase their knowledge in order to merit the world to come. Now, not only will we be able to occupy ourselves with serving God both in the study of Torah and in the fulfilling the commandments, in that era, knowledge, wisdom, and truth will become abundant. The the verse says the earth will be full of the knowledge of God. That doesn't refer only to Jews. That refers to the whole of mankind. That doesn't mean that everyone will have the same level of knowledge. But a basic knowledge of God will be shared by everyone. And then the another verse describes it in very I would say personal terms. One man will longer teach his brother nor a man his colleague. There won't be open questions and uh doubts and perhaps the possibility of misunderstanding because the earth will be full of knowledge of hashem. I will take away the heart of stone from your heart and give you a heart of flesh. Meaning as we all experience a practical life, you can know that something's true and still not act in terms of it. We make decisions that are self-injurious. Um, I know that when I bite hard, uh, hard, not my my tooth, my gum hurts, but [sighs] I'm not making appointment with the dentist because I don't like to go to the dentist. I don't enjoy it or something that's closer to home given your age, it's coming to be exam time. I know from the last two years that when I wait till the night before the exam to study, doesn't go so well. First of all, I'm tense, so I don't get the material. So, well, I don't get enough asleep, so I'm not rested enough. This year, it's going to be different. >> This year, two weeks before exam time, I start reviewing. I'm going to make notes. And the night before, I'll study the notes. That's what you say. And then you don't do it. So we we know that in what the Muslims call a distance between the head and the heart, the brain and the heart, the brain knows, but the heart doesn't receive the information. It doesn't act on the information. That's something which is common to the human condition. If we would look into ancient philosophy and look for someone who was on our page, it would be Aristotle and not Plato. Plato writes that if you know the truth, if you know the good, you can't act against it. Plato, Aristotle talked about weakness of the will where you can know clearly what's right and wrong and not do it. And I think that's a much that position agrees with the Torah much more. So that's the heart of stone which resists the teaching of the mind. She says this is poetry. I'll take away that heart of stone. I'll give you a heart of flesh so that what you know will affect your behavior in an appropriate way. Now he says these changes will come about because the king who will arise from David's descendants that's the Messiah the Messiah will be a greater master of knowledge than Solomon and a great prophet close to the level of Moses our teacher. Now in these few words are packed several important principles. First of all those of you who have studied the stories of Solomon there he's called the wisest of all men. Well, so I don't know. Um, here is saying that the Msiah will be wiser than he and guide for the plexi says Moses also was wiser than he than Solomon. And in fact, Moses is the wisest of all men, past, present, and future. Wisest. This is not widely known and perhaps even not widely agreed upon. Everyone knows that Moses was the greatest prophet. It's one of the 13 principles of our belief that he was the greatest of all the prophets. But man says word for word that he was the greatest of all the of all the of the wise men. And in fact, it's based on a statement in the Talmud in where it says that Moses was of which means the greatest of in three categories. One is Torah and one is prophecy and one is wisdom. The wisdom and Torah aren't the same thing. And it says he's the greatest in wisdom. So let's go back to this sentence. The sentence has to be read correctly. The king who will arise in David's descendants will be greater master of knowledge than Solom and a great prophet close to the level of Moses our teacher in both respects. Don't read close to Moses as just going on the prophet half since Moses was the greatest of the prophets and the greatest of the wise. The Messiah will be close to Moses in both of those respects but below beneath I want one more remark they'll take a question and if you have heard there are people who say this you heard that the Messiah will be greater than Moses according to the Rambam that's dead wrong now maybe those people have other sources that they trust although some of them say they pledge allegiance to the Ramb it's absolutely not correct Moses was the greatest past, present and future of all the prophets and all the wise. Your question. >> So, so even though Solomon was given his knowledge as a gift from God, Moses was still wiser. >> Well, um that's a that's an interesting question. Now, from our point of view, all the human capacities that we have, all of us are given from God. It isn't as if your wisdom wasn't given from God. He just gave you. [laughter] But in fact, it was of act an explicit interaction God offered Solomon, I think it was wisdom, wealth, and long life and said, "Choose one." This was in a dream that he had. I mean, a prophetic dream. And Solomon said, "Wisdom, because I'm going to be king and I need the wisdom to be able to lead your nation." And God said, "Because you asked for wisdom, I'll give you all three." So there was a specific interaction by which he got it. And by the way in this he's imitating Moses because when Moses says to God show me now your way of expressing yourself in the world and those of you who heard of it the 13 principle of mercy were revealed to him at that time. Manadities asked the question before that Moses is described as having a complete picture of how God runs the world. He's faithful in all my house. So asks, "What was Moses' petition this specific occasion that he got these 13 principles, not all the rest?" He's saying to God, "I'm going to be the leader of your nation. Teach me how to lead your nation." That's what Moses said and that's what Solomon said. And by the way, having said this, those you know a little of the terminology, the phrase 13 principles of mercy was unknown to my monitor. because he says that Moses being asking to know how God runs the world received 13 principles, 12 of mercy and one of punishment. He has that word for word. So I I've always wanted to find out what the earliest reference in in the literature is to the 13 principles of mercy because doesn't have it. There are 13 and he doesn't count them the way we normally count them. >> Yeah. So [clears throat] I understand that uh in in the the sense we're leading the nations they have what we call right. So would Msiah be a guil. >> Um for this you have to learn the the volume of the Ariza which is about this thick where has hundreds of pages on the nature. Goku by the way means reincarnation and we definitely believe in reincarnation and no we didn't take from India India got it from us um not for the academic prejudices that people harbor um so he definitely could be and probably will be a reincarnation of some soul or other and that soul itself could have multiple reincarnations but I don't remember whether it's specified I don't remember could very well be I just don't remember would he be a reincarnation of Moshe I don't know so I hear where you're coming from it's a nice question if we're being told by my manities that here he's going to be close to Moses in both respects prophecy and wisdom it does sound like a kind of continuation now I'll tell you something else since we come this far u not all of our sources agree with the idea of of reincarnation but sad was about 100 years before my monities writes explicitly against That's explicitly against and that's because he didn't get in the line of the transmission of the secret material that the the tradition contains. In fact, there's a Mishna in the tract which says there are certain things that you don't teach to the public. Some things you teach to only two disciples at a time. Some things you teach to only one disciple at a time. And some things you only give them the headlines. that if they understand by themselves, fine. If they don't, they hope to get another job. You know, there are things that were kept secret. And some people, even great scholars, weren't in the line of receiving this secret material. So, wrote against the idea of of reincarnation. All the capitalists I know speak about reincarnation. Visa, as I said, has a whole volume on it. Mymanities to me is a very puzzling case because since Rosadon 100 years before wrote about his opposition against it knew about that and Manades is very I would say encyclopedic in his treatment of Jewish subjects and he's quite critical. There's some things which are mentioned in various places and he says it's not true and it's not not correct and so on and his arguments against them. As far as I've seen, he has he never mentions reincarnation at all. I find that curious. If he agreed with Sadig on record opposing it, I would have expected him to go on record opposing it also. So, I find it very curious that he doesn't mention it at all. Could the Raam have had a hidden doctrine and he kept it really secret? So now I'll tell you something else. The guy is perplexed. The beginning of the third section is an is an exposition of what calls the account of the chariot which is Hashem's ultimate relationship to the world. And it's coded into the first chapters of the book of Ezekiel. So man says I have not received any tradition on how to understand this. On the other hand, I think I figured it out. So I'm in a dilemma. First of all, if I don't teach it, so then it's going to be lost because only I have it. Second of all, I'm not sure it's right. But third of all, if it is right, the Mish said, don't teach it in public. Said what am I going to do? Write it in a book? There's no public greater than writing in a book. It'll be around for hundreds of years and thousands of times we will read it. So here's what I'm doing. I'm going to explain to you the first three chapters of the book of Ezekiel. You'll probably think when you read it, I'm just explaining the very the basic meaning of the words. That's what you'll think. Truthfully, I've hidden my secrets there. I've hidden them there. And that was my compromise so that only certain special people will get it. Well, I can testify that the rumbum knows me very well. I've read that section several times. To me, it sounds like the plain meaning of the words. I don't get any further than that. And there are lots of irresponsible basically secular scholars who think where they we figured it out. And some of the classically uh silly ones is that he's really means the basics of Aristotleian philosophy which he didn't want to consciously uh say that he that he agreed with. But this material is described as hidden after the theme philosophy was known everywhere. People were studying it writing commentaries on it. There was schools that were teaching it. There's not a hidden doctrine at all. So, uh there's a fellow named Kenneth Cin, a professor at Northwestern University. He wrote several books on the rumbum and he was honored with the responsibility of writing the article on the rumb in the Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy which is a very good encyclopedia of philosophy online free and he writes there two things about about my manities. One, he says he's not an aristoilian as against a lot of the so-called scholarly opinion. And the second thing he writes there is I think if the rumbum said he kept it a secret, we should leave it a secret. And that guess as to what it is because absolutely no way of showing that it's all speculation and it's driven by the politics of the scholarship of the time and it's really not worth much. But any rate um there there is this this secret material and says explicitly that he didn't receive a tradition on it. He analyzed it and came up with it himself. So that being the case um I don't know what to say about his attitude towards reincarnation. I have my suspicions that maybe he did know something and didn't want to talk about it. >> Yes. >> Do we still have a tradition of secret knowledge? Absolutely. of Yakabil who lives close to here wrote a wonderful s in Hebrew it's called to and in English it's called um gosh um I'll think of the name and in it he writes this is really it's it's an astonishing book it's not long if you get hold of it in English it's really very good u he writes the books that are written by Cabalists contain mistakes in them. They put mistakes in them so that you can't learn kabala from the books. You'll have to go to some oral master who received the tradition. And by the way, the Mishna was written almost in the same way because the Mishna is written in a way that many of them are very hard to read. And sometimes the Talmud says they're very hard to read because they're missing certain text and in order to understand it you have to fill in certain text which isn't on the page which means you can't you can't know the content of the Mishna by just reading it. As one person put it to me I forget who it was. He said the Mishna was composed because the oral tradition was being forgotten. So what Rudasi did is he created a text that would be would be an an ability to preserve the oral tradition using this text as the focus for oral study then the [snorts] oral transmission will be much more accurate than it would be otherwise. Not that it should replace it as a text that you could learn instead of it. The Gora is much more like the replacement even though it is hard to read. someone conceivably could get a lot a lot more than you can get from the uh yeah okay so now let's go back so this is because there'll be this Msiah will be here he will be the great teacher of this mater in addition to there being a spirit of Hashem in the world he will be the great teacher who'll teach the entire nation instruct them in the path of God all the gentile nations will come to hear it as it states and it shall come to pass in the last days that the mountain of God's house shall be established at the peak of the mountains. This is not and all the nations shall flow to it. It's not a g geographical. It means that's what everyone will look up to like in Solomon's time when foreign leaders came to He because he had a tremendous reputation. Well, first of all, he had a reputation for secular success with that is the land of Israel was at peace for 40 years, was very successful, very wealthy. So that made an impression also those among of the intelligencia of the world heard that he was a very wise person. So they they came to see and to hear and to be instructed. That was in miniature. when it comes to the times of Messiah, then it'll be much much more than that. So, everybody desires that period of time and desires it as a means to be able to get into abah. And then he was nevertheless the ultimate reward which is the word that we saw last yesterday as well. And the final good which will have no end or decrease the life in the world to come. So it means that in the times of the Msiah there could be ups and downs of various types. That's the what the contrast that he makes between that and the world to come. Well katam is just uh monotone increasing function going up. Now someone asked me and I I should I should mention this. Um I've said several times there's no free will in the world to come. That means you don't do anything. That doesn't mean that your stat your your condition is static. Let me I'll give you an example. Let's suppose there's going to be a lecture on how to make a million dollars before you before you're 35. And uh there's only a few places available, a certain competition to for those places. and you enter in. You enter the competition and causes you a few weeks of struggle and everything else and you're selected. You got it. So, you take your place. Now, the session begins. What are you doing? You're listening. You're not walking around. You're not talking. You're not building anything. Just listening. But you're not static. Boy, you're learning. And you're paying attention to every word. You know, this is going to make you a fortune in eight years. So you aren't doing anything but you are receiving and because you're receiving your condition is changing continuously. That's a much better picture of what is like. We spoke about creating yourself in yourself the ability to receive. We spoke about the radio receiver. That means there's input coming in and that and that input will change you and it's a kind of unending process of continuous change and growth. That's the way to picture what's what's happening there. And um the it's based on a famous verse about the the righteous they'll go from strength to strength. And in the context it is um both in this world and in the next world. And in fact there's a vision of one of the prophets that Yeshua the high priest is standing in heaven together with the angels. And he's told I'll give you pathways to walk on between these who are standing. Well, the ones who are standing aren't going. They're just standing. That's a picture of stasis. They're stuck in one position. Those are angels. Angels are stuck in one position. They don't develop. And he says to Yeshua, you're a human being. You're not like them. You have the ability to walk. Now, the godd points out this vision is taking place in heaven. So he says clearly the message is you'll be able to develop not only in this world but in the next world also but there the development will happen to you. It's not something that you will be doing at the moment. How it happens to you depends on what you do here. You prepare yourself and then you receive it and it goes on forever. And says something about this which I I don't know to me it's sort of so so different from my point of point of view that I struggle with it. He says you know very well in this world when you have a stimulus and you have that stimulus over and over again without without variation it becomes boring. You need variety. Just in that way the world become also you need variety otherwise it would get boring. And I thought to myself when I first read that can you obviously draw an inference from the way this world is the way the next world is? I mean, golly, there's a lot of differences between them. I I don't know. I But that's what he says. So, this this definitely is a picture, a picture of unending growth and development. In what position, what characteristic? Maybe we'll have a chance to talk about it. And um but with no doubt, no dips, no no reductions. Now, he says the ultimate reward is in the world to come. Now he says something else which is really somewhat controversial. In contrast, the messianic age will be within the context of this world with the world following its natural pattern except that the sovereignty that means our own political independence will return to Israel. The sages as the previous generations have already declared is with there is no difference between the present age and messianic era except for our subjugation to the gentile kingdoms. Gee, we read the literature that we have himself said the statements of the prophets aren't about that's hidden from us. All the statements of the prophets are statements about the messianic era. There's some pretty dramatic statements. The heavens will fall and the mountains will melt and the seas will rebel and you know be wides destruction and and and mountains will be split and all sorts of descriptions. They don't sound naturalistic. Definitely sound like spectacular miracles. The Rambam takes all of them as poetry. takes all of them as poetry. They're poetical descriptions of political events, social events, economic events. They're not descriptions of the heavens falling in the mountains melting and worry, how am I going to get away from the lava? You know, I'll be burnt to a crisp and so and so on. No, they're all descriptions of political events. And he remarks that in the prophets as opposed to the five books of Moses, this is absolutely crucial. In the prophets, you have parables descriptions which are meant to teach a moral lesson which aren't meant to be literally true. That's of the poetical the prophetic style. Moses didn't do that. God's to Torah that God dictated to Moses loss. So let no one tell you, "Oh, we know the Jewish Bible uses parables." Maybe the Garden of Eden was just a parable. No, sorry. Incorrect. Incorrect. Just wrong. Jeremiah could speak with parables. Isaiah, others could speak with parables, but this not and he has one very interesting proof. There is a description of certain gigantic disasters taking place in the times of the Messiah. Andab says if you look in the book of Yoil which is one of the prophets you'll see the very same description where Y says it already happened. You don't think the world came to an end in Y's time do you? So obviously Y was using those very same words only poetically to describe political and economic and sociological uh matters or religious matters. It wasn't use them to describe an end to the natural world. In fact, if you put two and two together, this what we said now and what we said yesterday, the day before about the world to come is only souls, not bodies. And the Ram said, why is it called the world to come? Not because it doesn't exist now. It definitely does exist now. That's why one verse says God has hidden it. If he's hidden it already, he can't be not be in existence. You don't have to hide something that doesn't exist. He hid it already and and denied us purchase of it. It's called the world to come because in each person's life, he starts off in this world where he's embodied and goes through his embodied history and then he dies and his soul afterwards goes into the condition called the world to come. So what's called the world to come isn't a future stage of history. It's a condition that exists right now. And to come means just to come to each individual person. So now if he tells me here that description of the prophets must sound like earthshattering are really descriptions of political and social changes and he tells me the world to come really exist now. It's only that people go. So what about the idea that history will come to an end? the whole of history will come to an end. That begins to sound like it's not on the same page. So, I hear someone ringing the bell and saying, "But don't we know, Rabbi, that this period of history can only last 6,000 years?" And the Mashiah has to come before 6,000 years and then after the Messiah will come vast changes to the world. Yes, there's definitely a statement in the Tal that quotes it and rejects it. He quotes it and rejects it on the grounds that in the Talmud it's reported as the opinion of one sage. The opinion of one sage in the tomb is not binding on future generations. It isn't recorded what the other sages felt about it. Not not explicitly. What's binding of future generations is where the Talbot records a vote. the Sanhedrin took a vote and they decided that this is the law. When the Gumor says, then we're it's fixed. If it doesn't say Hilkas, it's not fixed. And the Rambam points out that if you think the belief in 6,000 years means that after the 6,000 years our whole world disintegrates, then you've quoted the statement out of context because the same author says there's a 7,000 years in a different condition. Now years and time generally are are measured by physical regular physical motion. So if you think that this world is going to go to pieces, there won't be any time or there won't be any time of years. But when he says first of all, I don't think you understood what the sage meant. And even if you had it's an idea of a an individual and this idea of an individual, I don't I don't agree that it's true. And he quotes verses from from Cohelis and statements of other statements of the Talmud which he feels represents a different point of view. So Iman's view is our world and our circumstances with the shift in the world in the times of the messiah will go on forever. And if you think about it logic could seem that the Rambam's position is the is the um default position. More people come into the world, more people live their lives, they do mit, they learn Torah, they die and their souls can go to the world to come. Why should that stop? Why should there be only a finite population? If God is creating the world to give good, why should he stop giving the good? Yeah, he's giving more good to the ones who've already died, but why shouldn't there be more? What would motivate to stop? It's a very, very difficult question. And another safer says he asked this question. He said God's wisdom decreed. I take that to mean there's a wisdom. I'm not going to explain it to you, but don't think it's uh without without reason. There is a reason. I've been asking this question for decades of people. What could the reason be? Why would you want to call a halt to this to this process? I have a comet in London and he suggested an answer. That was a very very good answer. I have to find a source to see if it's really true, but it's a good logical answer. He says, um, we're talking about each person dying and his soul going to the world to come. Now, Lato in the way of God says at least three times in the world to come, the sadikim, the righteous are gathered together into a kibbutz. What's a kibbutz? a failed socialist agricultural set of [laughter] no. The semantics of keyboards, this was older than than the fine science movement. Keywords is just a grouping a a grouping together. Now, why would that be? Each person lived his life and each person earned what he earned and is getting the reward for what he did. Why do they have to be grouped? What's the idea be a groupy? And one answer is this. The human species started off all embodied in Adam. If Adam and Cabba together had succeeded in passing the test of the tree of knowledge, that would have been over. History would have been over and they have gone from there into the world to come with some detours on the way. But that would have been the end. Each of us is we're described in our literature as slices of a each of us has a slice of aum spirituality. That means this world of spirituality was once embodied in a single person. Now we're living it out as slices. Maybe in the world to come that has to be overcome. It has to be reintegrated into a schlamus into a completion into a complete entity. Just as Adam had he succeeded would have succeeded with the with the task as a a single integrated entity. So there must be something in being single and integrated that's crucial for the interaction between Hashem and us in the world to come. It's not an interaction that's designed for billions of slices. That's an interaction that's designed for a completed multifaceted perhaps entity. If that's the case, it's got to be a stop. You got to reach a completion. If it goes on forever, it'll never reach a completion. It won't be a completion. Now, my monities didn't say kibbus. So, he's not responsible for the rahall's idea. >> But you can hear now where the where the other side is coming from. I really beautiful beautiful idea. Uh the Ra is telling us that if you identify the ultimate relation with as requiring integration so as to mimic or recreate something like Adam's existence then you can understand very well why it has to have an end this I'm I'm saying it to you and because it's being recorded and other people will see it if you find a source for this or some other answer to the question I'd be very happy to to hear it but um that's position that it goes on forever Um this is amaz says this essay on the resurrection of the dead. He says this in in somewhat more detail and uh this is I think also not not very well known or appreciated that the Rama takes this position. So now the one the one last thing that I have to explain to you I try anyway is the idea of resurrection of the dead. What's that for? Why isn't it enough? My monitor makes a big deal out of the dead. Though he had someone in Baghdad who wrote against us and he denied it because everybody wrote in one place but he wrote in another place he wrote about it word for word. So there's no question that he that he that he that he affirmed it. And I have an idea here and say means I don't have any real authority for it but said explicitly we just read it yesterday that to get into the world to come you need good deeds and knowledge of Torah and he said when we're under the control of the foreign nations so then that cripples us and handicaps us. Now let's imagine a person who believes in Hashem and believes in the Torah and he spends every hour of his day doing the best he can. Well, but he has to worry about the danger of the street and he may have sick relatives like in his family that he has to take care of. Does he really have time to study Torah and study the inner meanings of Torah and all the rest? the man didn't have time and it's not of his fault and he's doing the best he can. What's going to happen to you when he dies? We simply say so sorry you didn't fulfill the entrance requirements so you don't get in. No, he has to have an opportunity to earn it. That's what resurrection is for the for the sake of those who couldn't have achieved it but it has to be achieved in this world because it's the entry ticket for the world to come. So you come back and then under the conditions of the messianic era where things are easy and supportive there you'll be able to achieve those uh those preliminaries and of course the period of the Msiah will go on forever people won't be born into the more difficult times of prior times so that could be the reason why there's for the sake from the point of view of the Ramb's picture of the world anyway that's a sketch of Rama's writings of this part of the subject. We together okay you got a question? >> No. Okay. >> Yeah. Right.