Menashe Ben Israel, and the Prophecy of What Will Happen To the Jews of America Before Mashiach

this Tower class is brought to you by torahanytime.com we're continuing in our shoe room on safer bamidbar the Sherman safer by midbar are generously dedicated by our dear friends Dr zakimum Dr zakims mother of Chile melies for their whole family are also sponsored by rabbis master of Isaac's father Isaac whose yard side was testvav Sivan tonight you're sponsored anonymously she is also sponsored by my dear friend Rebecca of Mizrahi Hashem with okay so we have a very interesting subject tonight and this week is parashas bahaloska but I would like to speak today about one of the colorful and interesting Personalities in Jewish history you see we live in a Time we are everyone well everyone in our community and all of our all have to fit into a very specific box and have to act a very specific way and have to teach and learn a very specific method but throughout our history we've had many great sages and who were of colorful personality and had very wide interests and uh up there among them was a great Sage by the the name of Ben Israel and we would like to speak about him today his background his uh what he accomplished during his lifetime and one of the reasons I'm speaking about it because uh we're going to be we're heading out soon in the beginning of July we're going to be visiting Spain and Amsterdam and then Portugal so I want to give you a little bit of a taste of the history of these uh countries and the personalities that grace these countries that was the name that menashev in Israel was born as because he was born to a Murano family by the way we don't like to use the word Murano Morano as a pejorative term it means Pig that was the name that the Christians hurled on us those Jews who practice Judaism and secret were called Murano so his parents were Muranos and they escaped the Otto defe just by the you know just in a split second they were able to escape Portugal the family after short stay in France they settled in Amsterdam Amsterdam had a much more open type of climate where many Muranos uh return were able to find security there and upon return to Amsterdam the family name became Ben Israel and his name menasha's name was switched from Manuel Diaz soiro to Menasha so Menasha and he had a brother Ephraim so this is the beginning of the life of Menasha in Israel he was born in 1604 some say in Lisbon some say the island of Madeira but he was born in Amsterdam because he was born in Portugal so the family runs away they come to Amsterdam ramanasha received a very thorough talmudic education he studied under rabies and after two years after abuse passed away in 1620 Menasha at 18 years old became the rav in the svale community naveh Shalom but aside from his talmudic education he was also received a very comprehensive secular education he was fluent in 10 languages and he had expertise in many disciplines medicine mathematics astronomy he was well read in classic literature and Christian Theology and he had many debates and conversations with Christian theologians so this is the background of Menasha Ben Israel and his Fame as a scholar spread beyond the confines of the Jewish community so he had many discussions with Christian theologians and actually one of his Works made such an impact that we're going to see first of all he uh he acquired a very a good friend his friends he was good friends with Rembrandt and there are a number of sketches that Rembrandt drew that are said that Rembrandt was drawing Menasha in Israel actually there are a few famous sketches that Rembrandt drew that people say are Menasha in Israel but most of them that are found were not Menasha in Israel instead the picture you have over here was this is the picture of Menasha Ben Israel um it's interesting Menasha Venezuela wrote a work called Piedra gloriosa odila estatesar I'm sure you remember reading that in your youth it's probably been uh many years but the Menasha Vanessa wrote the book Piedra gloriosa odila Estates so uh basically wrote a work explaining the significance on the meaning of statue in the prophecy of Daniel and Rembrandt helped Menasha and Israel draw the Statue of actually you could see today we have extent the picture of the drawing by Rembrandt of Nebuchadnezzar's statue by the way um Menasha and Israel established the first Jewish printing press in Holland and all Jewish books were printed under his auspices so even though there were many alive in his time you had Rafael di motora who was the chief Rabbi of Amsterdam he's known as the Binion Ariel and you had other for example rebutrak Abu Hab however after the fact meaning centuries later of all the stages that graced Amsterdam Menasha and Israel is the most well known because he printed the most so in the time there were people who were better known than he was but in terms of enduring the test of time Menasha and Israel endured the test of time because of his printing now off the Record there was some Strife between Menasha and Israel it seems and the community and this is an age-old battle and that is the battle between the lay leaders and the rabbis this has been going on for many many centuries you know till today the way I like to say it is that the difference between then and now is now people are Coy enough to make believe that they like each other so they pretend they like each other back then they were honest enough to make it clear that they didn't okay that's the difference between then and now so you know the story goes the rabbi wasn't feeling well and the presence of the board came and he said Rabbi I just wanted to tell you that the board voted seven to six to wish you were a first Lima um The Story Goes um that um adaras had a difficulty with his kilo because he wanted a raise um him and the partners and he wasn't getting the raise that he needed so he had no recourse but other than to go on strike and not to not to pass for the kahiwa and he after the fact he felt a little bit guilty about that so he wrote a letter to review inspector and you know what was it right of him to you know how could he do that to the kahila says come on I I have to do that all the time you know so this is an age-old battle um that we're going to see that Menasha and Israel had financial difficulty the reason he had financial difficulty is because mortara was given a much higher salary reviews was given a little bit less and then Israel was given the lowest salary of in the city so there seems to have been some kind of uh Rift between him and the Panacea air which may have been due to the fact that most of the Jews in Amsterdam were descendant of Muranos and the fact that they grew up as Christians may have meant that they had certain beliefs which were not uh mainstream Jewish beliefs that they still held on to and published many many swarms that rubbed them and made them very uncomfortable so this perhaps created a situation but let's um let's see a little bit about the accomplishments of ramanasha Ben Israel first of all the first thing you need to know is that he's listed as one of the all-time great godelli Israel by the safer shame so in the magdalam he brings Menasha Ben Israel and he brings his safer nishma now is a Wanderer safer it is a safer dedicated to prove the immortality of the Soul the immortality of the Soul actually it was at a print for many years and uh a great sage in Kew Garden Hills republished the say finished and in the back he put some of his own and this is a safer proving The Eternity of the Soul so actually if you you have over here an excerpt and number 10 of the safer nishman he says it should not be bad in your eyes it's I mean you should not find it difficult that I quote in my safer the beliefs of Scholars and sages who are not Jewish he says the reason I do that is just so that you should know that all of the valid beliefs of the sages of the world they usurped and they took from Judaism and it became part of their belief and if you read their beliefsumai we will see that many of our beliefs has crept into their belief but says in Israel that anybody who knows me knows that I dedicate myself primarily to the study of talmad babli and also he was a great kabbalist he was uh one of the first to be very well versed in the teachings of Isaiah Amsterdam were proponents of studying the zayar and teaching the zayar Menasha and Israel despite his very academic background nevertheless was a great expert in the teachings of the Zara kadash okay other religions and probably Jews in that time probably Jews in that time they didn't know what to do they didn't have the proper upbringing and training and education because many of them uh grew up as Christians so apparently in that time the immortality of the Soul was not was not a uh a unanimously maintained belief even among the Jews otherwise uh Menasha Vanessa would not have to write about that we take it we take it for granted but if you look in the Hamish there's a Hamish explicitly say that the soul will live forever actually the homage doesn't even talk about the afterlife there is no mention of Islam there's no mention of what happens after 120 in the hamesh that's the clear's question in parashas uh so this was uh the main subject of Menasha and Israel's work now the says that Menasha and Israel wrote um he was a DOI resistive he was a marabits toyer in Amsterdam showing the truth of the words of Ghazal in many areas and he wrote many beautiful swarim and he wrote swarm in Spanish he wrote swarm in Latin he was fluent in 10 languages now over here in number three we have the title page of one of the great swarm of Menasha and Israel the name of this book is the conciliator the conciliator this he wrote in Spanish um the conciliator and what's interesting is the brings the stand as one of the greats Farm in the conciliator Menasha and Israel addressed sukim that seemed to contradict each other meaning did God create man and then from man take a rib and create Eve or did Hashem split them into two so he reconciles all difficult passages in the khmesh then Here Comes one of the main contributions of Menasha in Israel this is a quite an interesting work the name of the work is mikvay Israel in English it's called hope of Israel this work was published in Spanish in Spanish if you want to know what it looked like you have on on the page four of the last page last marimakuman yashid mikvay Israel Esperanza di Israel for those of you who speak um Spanish Mr Adler asked me if I could bring in the title page in Spanish so it's right here okay it's in Spanish and this created a big stir because as we're going to see now you want to know why am I speaking about this many many reasons the first reason is because this all started with a levy this is the Parsha of the levium and this this book All Began the Genesis of this book was with the report of a levy the lady's name was Aron halavi safardi but as you can imagine that wasn't his original name his original name was Antonio d montezinos do you remember him Antonio di montezinos known as Aaron Levy was a Portuguese Traveler Anna Murano safaricu in 1644 he met manasa Ben Israel the rabbi in Amsterdam and he said that in his voyages he met one of the Lost ten tribes of Israel where did he find them he found them in the jungles of the Quito province where is Quito in the pachincha province of Ecuador you know where Ecuador is it's in South America and this Anto Antonio di montezinos maintained that in Ecuador uh these tribes were Jews because he spoke to them in Hebrew and they told them that there they are beneath and that they started off in the West End they came from uh Jewish countries and they they were lost in the West Indies and then they made their way to the island to Ecuador and that is where he found the river of sambadion and Menasha and Israel went with this in fact Menasha and Israel maintains that the Native American Indians are the aceres hashvatim so who would have thought that the changing of the name of the Cleveland Indians is anti-Semitism right the Native American Indians Menasha and Israel maintained were the asira and the origins of the United States of America therefore are the one of the ten lost tribes that is the basis of the book mikvay Israel this is okay you know what's that going to do for us Menasha and Israel wrote this book Israel he had it translated it into Spanish this created a tremendous stir among the Christian world this was such a it created such a controversy that Oliver Cromwell his attention was kindled because the Puritans were all studying Esperanza di Israel and we'll see why never have solved Manhattan Pony 24 of us what they they would never have sold Manhattan for only 24. yeah more if they're Jewish okay that's one of the proofs against it but then the book was translated into Latin Israelis in 1650 that the American Indians were the descendants of the ten lost tribes okay now become Native Americans how do they get from Ecuador to the United States of America I guess Mexico and then you know that the border is not that well secured so they had them bust off to uh hotels in Manhattan so that's that's you know it's all part of it it's all so that's the that was the belief of Antonio di montezinos as well as menashev in Israel so this book was published this story happened in August 18th 1644. now fasten your seatbelts because we're going to see where this brings us it was the belief of Menasha in Israel that the meshiach will not come until Jews are dispersed to every single region in the world and Israel believed that the two extremities of the world that were holding up the Redemption was Jews needed to be in America and they also needed to be dispersed to England England was considered the end of the world now you said what do you mean of course there were Jews in England no there weren't the Jews were kicked out of England in the year 1290 and for 400 years Jews were not allowed any entry into England people think Shakespeare was an anti-semite he was an anti-shama he never saw a Jew it was all it was all you know Legend in his mind so Menasha in Israel okay first let's talk about his prophecy about the Jews of America you know everybody likes to to um including myself everybody likes to say you know the Jews of America they better get out of here quickly before what happens uh before what happened to every single Exile in the world happens to the Jews of America we think you know they're going to come and they're going to say you're so cute go liquidate your bank accounts go sell your land and then go to Israel you know usually we're lucky if we could escape with the shirt on our back however menasheb and Israel has a more promising and positive outlook for the Jews of America including the final finances of the Jews of America we have a possible look at number six they'll blow a big Surfer and those who are lost in the land of ashore will come and those who are Outcast Berets they will bow to God on the Holy Mountain beerusalem so it seems like at the end of the days there will be Jews lost and ashore there'll be Jews outcast in Egypt these will be the two main locations of Jews in the diaspora the form of comes ashwor Assyria I don't know Syria Lebanon you know turkey and and Egypt now they're not too many Jews in either region right now so what exactly does the navi mean furthermore the navajaya says then the times of mashirach the first the first nation that will come to ushalayim is tarshish and the question is who's tarshish the plastic says number seven to me Islands will gather is tarshish barish China and the boats from tarshish will come first to bring your children from Far Caspa Musa with all their silver and gold with them so whoever this tarshish is they're going to be redeemed first and they're going to come with checks and mutual funds and stocks and cryptocurrency they're going to bring everything with them so who's tarshish then the end of days all the Jews from all over the world will gather in two locations Syria and Egypt the Jews who are outcast in India and the Far East everywhere in Asia maybe Russia they will come to Assyria and the Jews from America they will come to Egypt and there then Assyria and Egypt will be the two main locations of the Gathering of Jews then the chauffeur will blow and they will all Ascend to erits Israel so in the end of days the Jews from Asia they'll come to Assyria the Jews from America they'll come to Egypt how will they get there Alexandria or they will come to you also Jews in Africa will come to Egypt the Nile River will dry up and from there from there everyone will come to shalam and who will be the first nation to come to you shalaim of all the nations will be France will be Morocco will be England will be South America you ready for this the first Jews to be redeemed when mashiach comes will be the Jews of America USA USA will be the fur gonna win the gold we will be the first nation to redeem and not only that the good news is you'll bring your money with you also again I can't tell you if this is how we passed in I can't tell if anybody else agrees with this in the safer he says it's hard to imagine that the word tarshish means America usually tarshish and the tagam Shivam and the Septuagint tashish refers to cartaga a city in North Africa but the opinion of Menasha Ben Israel is that the First Nation to be redeemed in the end of days will be the United States of America with their money 1644 so I mean fully aware of America he was fully aware yeah yes yes so it's hard to imagine Yana was headed to America you know right yeah who would have thought Yom Kippur you know in the end in the closing moments of Yom Kippur don't think you're going to escape me in America now that you know Yona takes a new meaning you know oh well you ain't gonna Escape me in America anyway this was the belief of um Menasha then Israel by the way we have a number 12 from the safer Mikvah Israel again in Spanish Esperanza de Israel and in Latin it was called Israelis and he writes a summary of the of his thesis in mikfei Israel he says number one that in the West Indies some of the no question some of the Lost tribes live and some of them are hidden today in America number two not all the ten tribes live in in one place some live in Egypt pastros Iraq Islands number three the Assassin did not return in the time of the building of the second temple number four the ten tribes still believe in God as this this uh Antonio de montesinos said that they they spoke to him in Hebrew and they had many Jewish Customs number five the prophecy of the Redemption has not yet occurred and at the time of the Redemption the ten tribes will gather from wherever they are to our shore and to Egypt and the first to make it back to Jerusalem will be the Jews of America now before I continue I want to bring to your attention uh something amazing do you ever notice when people read a newspaper how do they read a newspaper they lean back they poke it out you know they cross they they relax or you ever see how other religions pray they're still and Jews when we learn they're like they're on the move right Jews are shuckling and if and if you try to say you stop the guy all of a sudden his leg is shaking right he can't be contained over and Jews when they dive in they're shuckling they're swaying you go to um houses worship of nations of the world you don't even know if they're awake hello you there you know they don't move so the question is why where does this come from that Jews Shuckle when they learn so the kuzari says the first thing is it it elevates the body heat and it it inspires more dedicated study so that's one reason to Shackle and then he says there's a historical reason and that is they use they used to have many students and very few books so basically in order for all the students to see the book they would have to do the wave so the first student would go like that then that he would go like that so the next student would chuckle down and he would go up and the third student would come down and they basically were swaying back and forth so everybody everybody got a nice look and peek at the book there was one book 10 students shuckling was the only way everybody is going to see what's happening in Israel says that's a nice practical reason this is not the tradition of the Zaya amazingly Menasha and Israel would always turn to the zayar to uncover the kabbalistic reasons for things and he says there's a kabbalistic reason why Jews shackle and that is that we our soul emanates from the great fire on high that fire on high is the almighty himself so our soul is like an air is like a flame and when we learn Tyra the Torah is the wick and when we're exposed to Torah just like Ace flame is always flickering it's always moving it's always swaying it's always it's like it looks like it wants to jump it can't contain itself when a Jew is exposed to Torah no Jew learns like this asked a very powerful question their hand motions and their their gesticulations and they're swaying and chuckling and because when a Jew is exposed to Torah his soul which is a flame from on high is is connected to the wick and it's like a flickering Flame that's the reason the zihar revealed why we Shuckle when we learn Tyra and then menashev in Israel says that the almighty left him uh makoim to innovate and to discover a new reason why Jews Shuckle at the time of prayer he says the gemara tells us that a person is compared to a tree man is compared to a tree the thing is a little bit different than a tree a tree has roots below man's roots are his head and just like a tree needs roots to absorb rain and to absorb nutrients and to absorb water man needs roots and that's his head to absorb the spiritual influence which is coming down from heaven when a Jude davins when a Jew learns there is spiritual influence that is coming down to his Reich or Harish and when when a person is learning it's like there's rain it's like a heavy rain that's that's giving saturation to the mind and the soul of man so at the time of learning where there's this great influence of spiritual energy our heads are swaying because we're so we're so stirred and we're so caught up to be able to take in this spiritual influence of uh of rookliness of spirituality that we can contain ourselves and we can't help ourselves but we're just swaying and moving good that's the reason offered by Menasha Venezuela as mentioned it was the belief of menashev in Israel that the Jews will not be redeemed until they are exiled and dispersed to all corners of the world on the other hand it was a belief of the Christians that they won't be redeemed until the Jews see their Redemption so it was sort of mutually beneficial that the Jews should be allowed entrants back into the land of England so in 1290 the Jews were thrown out of England and in 1655 after the work Esperanza the Israel created such a stir Israel was given private audience with Oliver Cromwell the ruler of England and in 1655 the national Israel traveled to England with the pamphlet and you have the copy of the title page here on number 13 To His Highness the Lord protector of the Commonwealth of England Scotland and Ireland The Humble of address of an Asha bin Israel a Divine and doctor of physic in behalf of the Jewish Nation where he was petitioning Oliver Cromwell and he was received cordially by member many members of the English Parliament they gave him audience and Menasha and Israel plead to allow the Jewish people back into England his Menasha and Israel's motivation was he believed that the Gula would not come until the Jews were allowed back into England however Cromwell received him very favorably but he stopped short of acceding to his request and he did not officially allow the Jewish people to return to England 1656 England declares war against Spain now we have these rich Muranos in England and the question is are these Muranos Jews or Spaniards meaning if they're Spaniards they can't stay in England but if they're Jews then he could keep these rich guys in England the only thing is he doesn't allow Jews in England so he's caught up between Iraq and a hard place he's at war with Spain so he can't let Spaniards stay but he doesn't allow us Jews to stay so unless he bends the rules and allows Jews to uh to now stay so Cromwell allowed them to stay informally and later on the status quo was preserved and by the way when Kramer was in England he refuted some of the anti-semitic libels he called something he wrote something called vindicia Judea arum and he did around some sympathy however he did not accomplish his goal Jews were not legally allowed back into England until 1753 100 years later so you know it's hard to say that he was successful in um accomplishing his goal actually management is a left England broken penniless he felt he did not accomplish his goal although some attribute the ultimate uh we admitted to the Jewish people to Menasha and Israel and he had personal tragedy his son shmuel who accompanied him passed away on the second day of Rosh Hashanah at a young age and Menasha set sail with his son back to Middleburg Holland and after he returned and he buried his son menashiv and Israel himself died at the young age of 53 years old he wrote many books as mentioned some of them were in Portuguese some of them in Spanish some of them in Latin we have a Hebrew work in that we quoted quoted from we the work mikvay Israel again was translated into Spanish and Latin he wrote a safer um penne rabba he wrote an index to the medrish rabba according to topics he wrote something called teshuas Israel which was a translation in Hebrew of the work he wrote against anti-Semitism we mentioned he wrote conciliador and he wrote just Forum on halacha in Portuguese and this safer was reprinted in Portugal between World War one and World War II but he was one of the great leaders of the Jewish people especially you have to imagine back in that time where Jews the Jewish Community was reeling you know the youth who had been educated as Christian and they're just first coming out of the darkness to to put their allegiance back with the Jewish people so there's a legend Israel had audience with Oliver Cromwell so he starts to vindicate the Jewish people he said you know we don't hate Christians and we're loyal citizens and after nationalism gave her his whole speech Cromwell gets up and he says I never thought Jews hated Christians we respect you I just have one simple question for you that I can't make heads or tails of and my simple question is why would you want to come back to England we threw you out the city of York is soaked in Jewish blood why would you want to come back here you know we respect you we honor you but it seems like you're being irrational why would you come back to this country which is always a good question you know the Jews uh were tortured were murdered and then we like to return to to live in the same places where they killed us Israel seem to invoke the comments of Desire hakadish Empire where the zayak other says what was the difference between the Redemption from Egypt and the Redemption in the future and the Zara cutter says the Redemption from Egypt was only in one country the future Redemption will be from all over the world and when God is honored all over the world then everyone will acknowledge as follows to Oliver Cromwell Legend has it that he was very startled by this question you know it's a powerful question when in the world why would we want to come back you know it's like Jews go on vacation to death camps we have you know where are you going on vacation well I'm going to stop off in uh maidonic and then I'm gonna head over to Auschwitz you know that's how Jews spend vacation what are you going back there for so as follows you're making a big mistake the answer lies in your question it's because England is soaked in Jewish blood that's why we need to go back there one once again because we have a tradition that there will be a Final Redemption and that Final Redemption will only be when we live and we're dispersed all over the world actually one of our first Europe here it was next week Pastor schlach where we learned that Hashem swore that he's gonna scatter us all over the world but until him it says and to heal him it says that God swore he will scatter us all over the world because of the raglam and yet in Paris it says in in Israel they're laning the sweet pasture slach God says I swear my glory should fill the whole world that actually the dispersal of Cloudy soil throughout the world was hashem's way of fulfilling that his glory will fill the whole world says Menasha and Israel since our tradition is that Hashem will redeem us when we're dispersed all over the world do you know why that has to be because the ultimate revenge of the Jewish people is when we go back to the places where we were murdered and then Hashem redeems us from there and then the nations of the world will see and believe that in fact the Redemption from Egypt took place because until now they'll say yeah God never redeemed you from Egypt but when we're in America and when we're back in France we're back in England and they're going to see how Hashem redeems us from there the way he did from Israel they will see and they will retroactively acknowledge that the first Redemption was uh was in fact uh occurred so the ultimate revenge of the Jewish people is when Hashem redeems us from all the countries of the world and the nations of the world will acknowledge that Hashem redeemed us from Israel salvor Cromwell said wow I thought the Jewish people had a low morale they were down in the dumps but I could never imagine they have such aspirations and they think so broadly and they have such National aspiration of the future Redemption that in fact will be the great revenge against the nations of the world that will be our embarrassment when you when redeems you from all the countries of the world so this is the legend of how Menasha and Israel responded to Oliver Cromwell and supposedly this response gained a great favor in their eyes so this is a little bit of the life of Menasha Ben Israel about which the quotes from yashar me Candia known Asif of Candia who said about Menasha then Israel that he was a great um preacher in a generation he was great in knowledge and he had great faith throughout the world he was great in wisdom young and ear and years the glory of sages the Splendor of our people in the eyes of the nations of the world as well and his Works endure until today and uh our great testimony to his life achievements and if anybody wants to join us we're going to be visiting his cover on era of Shabbos parishism in the ancient Cemetery in Amsterdam and he was one of the live in Amsterdam he had RAB shawl mortara and perhaps another week we'll speak about Rabbi Yakov sasportas who is the chief antagonist and one of the only early antagonists to shop.c have a wonderful uh evening thank you for coming cartoon you've just experienced another Torah class brought to you by torahanytime.com