Journey to London: JFS Menorah School - Moshiach, When is it Coming? What Will it Be Like? + Q&A

this torah class is brought to you by torahanytime.com good morning everyone thank you for hosting me this morning we're going to speak a little bit about the messiah and the most important thing you need to know is the messiah will liberate you from homework so that's the good news um we know the rama has 13 principles of faith i was asked to discuss these principles of faith and let's start with a very basic question because we know that in the torah there are more than 13 principles anybody know how many mitzvots there are in the torah 613 so how did we narrow things down to 13 what exactly makes something a principle of faith as opposed to a regular mitzvah we know sitsis is a mitzvah it's not a principle of faith wearing tv is a mitzvah keeping shabbos is a mitzvah so how do we differentiate between what a principle of faith is and what a regular mitzvah is and there's an actually a very important idea and i hope we could clarify this from salvation brisker and that is what if somebody never learned about the mitzvos and they don't know there's something called sitsis or they don't know there's something called fill in and they don't observe it because they just don't know about it are they still a loyal member of the jewish people yes because it's not their fault they never learned about it they were never exposed they were never educated and therefore if somebody did not learn about a particular mitzvah they can still be considered a card-carrying member a loyal member of the jewish people not so with the 13 principles of faith if somebody does not believe in it even because they never learned about it and they're never educated never exposed nevertheless the entrance way the right to be considered a loyal jew is dependent on not only believing it but one if they're not educated yet they must make sure to educate themselves about these 13 principles of faith let's talk about the rambam's article of faith regarding the coming of meshiach the ramadan says as follows i believe in complete faith in the coming years even though he's delayed nevertheless whenever he may come yeah we're all familiar with that you know that you learned that they learned that they probably know a good song or two for that okay i so let's just translate i want to get it clear because i'm going to ask you a question that perhaps we never thought about i believe with complete faith in the coming of mashiach and even though he may be delayed and it's already we're in this exile for over 2 000 years still i wait for him every single day this article of faith is different than all the other 12 articles of faith in its way it's phrased maimonides the rambam who is considered the greatest of all the resignem all the early authorities when he formulated these articles of faith he formulated them as statements i believe that god created and guides the world and everything that happens to me and everything that happens to every individual on this planet has been conducted and guided by hakadoshvaracho in other words all the articles of faith are statements well um what grade are they on how where how old are they so many of you have had um exposure to gemara perhaps you've learned a ptosis have you ever uh learned the ptosis so even if you haven't learned to ptosis let me just explain one thing ptosis and the rambam basically lived in the same period of history but the way ptosis phrases himself is very different than the rambam the rambam makes statements statements of statements of jewish law statements of practice ptosis asks questions and gives answers taisu says the tema i have a wonder and twice this answer is vie shloimar you could answer as follows taisu says the im taymar and if you're going to ask f shirloma you could give the possible answer the way toastfist phrases himself is question answer question answer question answer maimonides the rambam doesn't ask questions and he doesn't give answers the ram states facts the rambam says one should believe one day the dead will be resurrected one should believe that god controls and guides everything that happens in the world that means that let's say somebody insults a person you know heaven forbid somebody says an ass they were to you and the torah says don't take revenge and you say how can i not take revenge he just hurt my feelings no we're supposed to believe that god decreed that somebody should say something nasty to me today and therefore i should swallow it and and say to myself you know what it's not really that person who's hurting my feelings god decreed today that my feelings should be hurt and i'll i'll take that as a lesson for the future that probably i need to behave a little bit better and this way something like this won't happen to me again that's a statement of fact as the ram says that i believe with complete faith that everything that happens to in the world was orchestrated by and yet when it comes to the coming of mashiach the ramam doesn't just make a statement of fact the rama asks a question the ramadan says i believe in complete faith in the coming of the meshiach fine so far so good but then the rama has a question where has he been the alpha ismaya he's delayed it's 2021 i've been waiting more than 2000 years where is he he got stuck in traffic somewhere where is mashiach that's the question on the rambam even though he's been delayed and the rambam answers i wait for him anyway why all the sudden when it comes to the coming of mashiach does the ram have a question and then the rambam give an answer the rambam could ask questions on any of the statements of faith the ramadan could say you know i believe with complete faith that god controls everything that happens in this world but i have a question but sometimes it seems that good people have difficulties and bad people seem to be successful why does the rabbi ask that question does god really control everything in the world and a man says yeah even though it doesn't look that way but behind the scenes god is controlling everything now all 12 statements of faith the ramam states as fact without any questions and when it comes to the coming of mashiach the rama has a question where is he and the rabbi answers i wait for him anyway why has the rambam deviated from his normal method of expression in this statement of faith now i'm going to tell you the answer of the brisker of that is a great day in your life that you're able to hear the torah thoughts of the briskarov that's like the highest level of jewish intellectual stimulation the torah novella the risk of you ready for this i had a grandfather a blessed memory who just passed away this year at 106 years old he was a holocaust survivor he was from poland one of the greatest rabbis who were murdered in the holocaust their name was ramanakam zemba he was killed in the warsaw uprising my grandfather used to study with him daily and my grandfather was in auschwitz in fact my grandfather was thrown into the crematoria and he was pulled out in the last second by the nazi and said rabbi you're able to work get out and his life was saved tell you a story my grandfather smuggled into fill in into the labor camps and he would wake up every morning at the crack of dawn to put on his felon now if you're caught wearing to fill in in the labor camp the nazi comes in picks up the pistol shoots you in the head and puts you out of your misery and my grandfather risked his life every single day to put on philly him and his brother his brother's name was heinach my grandfather's name was mordechai he was a rabbi and every day they would put on the fill in first my grandfather and then my grandfather gave it to his brother and one particular morning my grandfather had put on the twillion very quickly fell in shaliyad that fell in shall rush and he gave it to his brother hanukk puts on the fill in shalyard he then puts on that fill in shall rush just then the wicked nazi came in his name was ficus he picks up the pistol to shoot and then he gazes at the fill and sharosh the head villain of this righteous man this sadiq and he was gripped in terror as the gemara tells us you know what the gemara tells us that when the nations of the world see the jew wearing the heads fill in they will be afraid of you and this nazi was gripped in terror he put his gun down and he ran out and my grandfather wrote in his memoirs that this was an open miracle so this is uh the individual we're talking about somebody who risked his life daily to make menyanim in the death camps you know sometimes we feel to pray with a minion it's a cold outside it's hot outside it's a pain in the neck we have to realize our ancestors they risked their life to fulfill all jewish practices my grandfather said that when he was in da'chao and he was in auschwitz every day he believed meshiach was coming meshiach was coming meshiach will be here meshiach will liberate him the rambam in codifying the halacha of belief in mashiach the ramam says two very important ideas number one every jew must believe in the concept of mashiach but then the rambam adds that it's not enough to believe in the concept of mashiach says someone who doesn't believe him somebody who doesn't wait for the coming of mashiach they are not entitled to be considered a loyal member of the jewish people let's think carefully about the words around them friends we need to know that when you read words of rambam rashi or taisus every single word is precise is calculated has been measured you know you know that rashi before he wrote his commentary on hamish he fasted 613 times before he wrote his commentary on rashi so the richonin before they wrote their commentaries they had to be on such a high level and such a connection to aka every word they write is like a jewel we're entitled to ask why did they say it this way why don't they say it that way every word is so precise the rambam says listen so carefully anyone who doesn't believe in the coming of mashiach or someone who doesn't await his coming is not fulfilling this fundamental idea so the brisker of explains that the rama is articulating that the belief in meshiach actually has two parts to it number one one is required to believe that there's a concept of mashiach but that's not sufficient one has to actively await the coming of mashiach you hear there are two different points one has to believe in the coming of mashiach and one has to await one has to anticipate his coming so in other words you get up in the morning it's not enough to say if somebody were to question you pal do you believe him yeah yeah that's not enough because if we believe mashiach we say you know let wake me up when he gets here in the meantime i'm gonna take care of my business i'm gonna have play with my friends i'm going to follow my soccer team and when meshiah comes let me know and then we'll move to israel it's not enough just to believe in mashiach one has to actively await his coming as if every day it's like 50 50. maybe you'll come today maybe it'll come tomorrow do they they have amazon here in uh uk yeah so you order something from amazon i don't know sometimes uh somebody asked me to send them a book outside of america i said why don't you order on amazon they don't have amazon so not every country has uh and some some some rely on a different service anyway you order something from amazon they say it's coming either tuesday or wednesday so on tuesday every time the the doorbell rings you run to the door maybe it's your package after all you know amazon said it's either coming tuesday or wednesday same thing with meshiach every day of our life we have to think you know what good shot good chance is coming today it's likely it's coming today it's very possible it's coming today that is the tenet of faith that number one we believe in the concept of mashiach and number two we await his coming as a realistic possibility what's the second book of the hamish anybody know second book of the hamas now the book of voracious has another name anybody know another name for the book of voracious this is the name that the ramban gives to boracious do you remember anybody i know bereishis has a as another name it's called seifer sira the book of creation safer shemoise also has another name and this name does not sound to be too sophisticated or too brilliant it seems to be a rather uh boring and uh bland name anybody know another name for the book of shemoise book two this is the name given by one of the rishonim the smug safer mitzvahs it's called book two what kind of name is that book two well what a brilliant name whoever came up with that ingenious name for a safer shamanist book two and the explanation is as follows we know that one day god is going to redeem the jewish people and we're going to go back to eretz israel and we're going to rebuild the base hamikdash and we're going to restore the service the avoidance but god's going to have to redeem us he's going to have to yank us out of england he's going to have to yank us out of america he's going to have to get us to eretz israel he's going to have to sort of allow us to be victorious over the reigning monarchs and powers of the world how's god going to do that say what do you mean how's he going to do he could do anything god could do anything god has made many miracles but here's the here's the rule this is how god operates god doesn't just make miracles every miracle that god has performed that will perform for the jewish people he had to perform first on a smaller scale and use that miracle that was first performed on a smaller scale to be the predecessor and the trial run and the practice for the ultimate miracle this concept is called massey of ice simon lebanon what occurred to our forefathers will reoccur to their children so what mirror what was the practice the rehearsal you know you're in a play so before you actually act in the play you have to rehearse the play before the play goes on stage you have to have a trial run so we know god is going to perform for us many many miracles in the time of mashiach i don't know how we going to get into israel we're going to have to cross a big ocean i guess god's going to have to split the sea and how's god going to overthrow all the powers of the world i don't know god's going to have to bring plagues so i want to share with you a very important piece of information this is the teaching of rabino bakaye rabbino bakaye was a student of ramban nachmanidis and rabbenu bakaye wrote a commentary on homich on the pentateuch and brings this teaching in at least six places and he writes this is a concept that all the prophets are unanimously agree upon namely that the events of the exodus the events of yudhis mitsuram the events of god taking us out of egypt were a trial and a rehearsal for the miracles that hashem will perform for us when he brings mashiach so the first thing god did is he brought ten plagues on the egyptians that was just practice that was practice for the plagues that god will bring upon the enemies of the jewish people before the coming of meshiach and then god had them chase after us till the sea and in the times of mashiach as we're about to get into the land of israel they're going to chase after us and there's going to be splitting of the sea again and we're going to we're going to cross the the sea and actually rabbi mccain says we're going to travel through the desert for a certain amount of time and every miracle that you read about and say for shamos this is not ancient history we think okay now we're waking up in the morning in 2021 to read archaic ancient history of the ancient hebrews in the sinai desert something that has no relevance to my life what boring piece of information i mean give me a break frogs and the lice and darkness this happened three thousand years ago that has no relevance to my life no we're not reading ancient history we're practicing what is going to occur in front of our eyes we need to know what the coming attractions will be for us it's not ancient history it's future coming events that's the hamish you have to understand when you open up the hamish you're not opening up a history book you're opening up a book of what you will experience at the time of coming a mashiach that was the dress rehearsal that was the practice may hashem show us what it will really look like very soon share with you an interesting question who's the greatest jew who ever lived the greatest human being who ever lived anybody know let's what do you say masha abhinu man got it absolutely right was the greatest jew who ever lived the torah says moshe was the most humble man who ever lived and rabbenu yonah says the same way he excelled in humility he likewise excelled in every single character trait he was the greatest torah sage he was the greatest teacher he was the greatest god-fearing jew he had the best character traits of anybody who ever lived my shabbat was the greatest jew who ever lived here's the problem who gave him the name moshe the daughter of the pharaoh basia moshe is not a jewish name moshe is an egyptian name moshe is like you know modern-day kevin stephen they're nice names but they're not jewish names moshe had many jewish names anybody know some of moshe's jewish names avigdar yakuza moshe had many jewish names he had ten names so why in the world do we call him by his egyptian name the name given by the daughter of the pharaoh why can't we give him a nice jewish name you would think he's the biggest rabbi who ever lived he should have at the very least a jewish name so much starts off his career he's working for his father-in-law israel in midyan and one day he he's running after a sheep the sheep got lost and as he's running after the sheep he sees this bush and lo and behold the bush is burning burning burning and it's not being consumed and mushroom says asuranova eras what a awesome sight let me stop and think why is the bush not being consumed you know what our sages teach us that many people pass by that bush and nobody ever wondered why the bush is not burning until one day moshe rabbenu he looks at the bush and he says i can't believe it this is the strangest side i ever saw how is it possible for the bush to burn and not be consumed and god called out to moshe from that bush and you know what god called maisha moisha moshe he called him by his egyptian name why is god calling him by his egyptian name a great rabbi rabbi barrel wine once suggested the following approach he was once invited to the holocaust museum yad vashem in ushalayam and he had visited many holocaust museums but they had just opened up a new exhibit and this exhibit was the children's memorial and in the children's memorial rabbi wine expected to see pictures recordings stories like you see in any museum artifacts and rabbi wine said he was completely unprepared to witness what he saw he entered a room the room was eight to ten stories tall and the room was black pitch black palpably black it's like you could feel the darkness and then he looked straight ahead and in the all-pervasive darkness he saw one pinpoint of light and through the effects of mirrors and through architecture that one pinpoint of light was magnified was reflected into over one million pinpoints of light and each pinpoint of light represented one jewish child who was killed in the holocaust and in the darkness all you heard was a recording that recited names and names as names hillel cohen three years old vilna miriam goldberg seven years old sarajevo name after name after name after name for hours and hours and hours and hours non-stop until you want to run out of the room and never come back there again over a million jewish children and rabbi wine thought to himself you know i was born during those years i'm of the same age i didn't hear my name on the recording i didn't hear my name mentioned that means i'm still around i'm still alive i'm i survived the long saga of jewish history and if i'm still around and i'm still here then god's calling me and god's speaking to me and you know what god's saying to me shem aisha you know why god used moisha's egyptian name because very few jewish children survived egypt every jewish child was thrown into the nile and they became the lunch or the dinner of the crocodile swimming in the nile but there was one little boy who survived the nile because the daughter of the pharaoh drew him out of the water came in was drawn out of the water and what god was telling moisha is moshe if you're pulled out of the water you're still alive and kicking you're still around they have a mission for you in this world and moshe said god you got me you're right if i'm the one jewish child that's still around today then i guess i have to listen to you i guess i have to do what you what would you like me to do me behold here i am that is why god used moshe's egyptian name god was telling moshe you were yanked out of the water you're still around and if you're still around you have a job to do in this world and rabbi wine always likes to tell the story how in 1945 he was a little boy growing up in chicago you know chicago is a city in the united states and uh this is in the aftermath of the holocaust and his father told you know beryl this morning we're going to go to chicago midway airport we're going to greet a great rabbi who's coming to uh to greet us in chicago his name is rabbi isaac halevy herzog the first chief rabbi um of palestine and rabbi herzog was a very aristocratic personality he wore a shiny top hat he had a cane and he comes to chicago midway airport and he lights from the plane and he comes down the stairs and all the jewish children of chicago come out to greet him about 200 kids and they escort him to the skokie yeshiva that's the main yeshiva in chicago where rev herzog delivered a 45-minute talmudic address to the entire community and then he says i would like to speak to the teenagers in the room rev herzog said boys and girls i've just returned from a personal audience with the pope and i met the pope because i had a list with me of 10 000 names of jewish boys and girls who were given to priests who were put in monasteries during the holocaust because their parents didn't think they would ever survive so their parents for safe keeping gave their sons and daughters to monasteries to churches to christian institutions and he went to the pope he said give us our children back these are our kids you kidnapped them from us we only gave them to you because we didn't think they would survive but now we're alive give us back the children and the pope flatly refused the pope said all of these children have been baptized and the rule is once a child has been baptized he can never return to his religion of origin the pope took the door slammed it on rabbi herzog's face and the meeting was over and ref herzog is now speaking to the little children the kids of chicago and he says to them and he breaks down crying like a baby he says there's nothing i could do for these ten thousand children they are lost from the jewish people forever and ever but you boys and girls you're still around you're still part of our people you're from the very very few who have made it through jewish history you know how unlikely it is for there to be a jew today in 2021 it's not statistically unlikely it's not highly improbable it's downright impossible that there are still jews today who are alive it's impossible you know in the time of the destruction of the first temple the babylonians murdered tens of thousands of jews the romans killed 1.1 million jews in the year 70 of the common era in 1391 three hundred thousand jews were baptized in spain in 1492 the whole communities were expelled the likelihood of there being an observant jew today is downright impossible ravyakov say people say you know if i would see a miracle like the splitting of the sea then i would really believe in god you ever hear people say that you know i would really believe in god if he would make a miracle like have frogs come out and attack my enemies but i never see any open miracles anymore says rabbi ako bam then you want to see an open miracle he says to my mind the existence of a jew today is a much greater miracle than all the miracles that god performed for the jewish people in egypt and if we're still around and we go to a jewish school and we come to a jewish institution every day and we study torah and we observe mitzvos then god's talking to us he's calling us he's saying you're still around what are you going to do for the future of the jewish people and that is what reversad called out to his audience he said you're still around what will you do for the future of the jewish people so here we are in this wonderful institution and we come to school every day and we think okay i'll learn some torah i'll learn some of my secular studies and we're focused on our future and our careers and what life has in store for us but we have to recognize the opportunity that we've been given because we are not one out of a hundred or one out of a thousand or one out of ten thousand the statistical likelihood of being a jew today is less than one out of a billion it's almost impossible and if you're still around we have to ask ourselves what does hashem want for from us what could we do to help build up the jewish people what could we do to make the future of the jewish people brighter and that's something we need to ask ourselves every day of our life and if this we keep this in mind then indeed we will have a very bright future ahead of us i thank you all for your very kind attention and focus and i offer you my humble blessings for your personal success and all of your endeavors and have a wonderful day thank you so much you've just experienced another torah class brought to you by 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