משתמש:איתן נחמן/Moshiach in every generation

moshiach in every generation is a term based on the words of the sages, that in every generation there is a living person who is deserving by virtue of being the messiah and waits for a directive from God to redemption the people of Israel as the king messiah. From the words of our sages we derive many signs regarding the identity of this person. Jews throughout the ages have always tried identifying which person in their generation is fit to be the messiah.

Source

The image of the king moshiach, as a man who lives in his generation, waiting to redeem his people, appears in sources right after the destruction the second holy temple.

A Jew was plowing his field when suddenly his cow went mad before him. One Arab passed by and heard her voice, he told the jew: the holy temple was destroyed. It mooed a second time and he told him: the messiah has been born.

— talmud yerushalmi tractate blessings chapter 2 translated

This does not mean that that baby is the king Messiah who will actually redeem the Jews, but rather this shows us that while the temple was still burning, a person was born who would be ready and fit to redeem them the moment they become deserving.

It is on this basis that rabbi Obadiah bartenurah wrote in his commentary on the book of Ruth: " in every generation one of the descendants of Judah who deserves to be the messiah is born". And also in the responsa "and from the day that the temple was destroyed, immediately one was born worthy of his righteousness to be a Redeemer, and when the time comes, the holy one blessed be he will reveal himself to him and send him to redeem the Jewish nation. It is because of our many sins that we did not deserve redemption, but when the time is ripe, God will reveal himself to him and send him, just as God sent Moses In the exodus from Egypt." In 'pri tzaddik' of rabbi tzadok hacohen of Lublin, he writes: "in every generation the soul of the Messiah is enclothed in a different body" and so says the radak "in every generation there shall be one who is of the seed of David, who will bring about salvation". As proof of this, the rebbe wrote to a Jew who was astonished to hear from his rabbi that in every generation there is a man great enough to be the Messiah that "this is also in the words of maimonides in the thirteen principals of faith "I believe... I will await him every day that he should come" which is only possible if he is born before the years before the death of the previous. Elsewhere the rebbe clarifies regarding the birth of moshiach immediately after the destruction that this is necessary because as soon as the Jews repent of their sins "they are right away redeemed". After all, the moshiach is a human being who will rule over Israel, thus he needs to be ready to redeem the Jews as soon as they repent. In one of his discourses the rebbe transcribed: messiah is in the world suffering from the ailments of exile, and looking forward with impatience to the godly revelation that will come about in the true and complete redemption, that is brought about by him, a redemption which there is no exile afterwards, as maimonides states "a king shall rise from the house of David..."

The identity of the moshiach in every generation

To be the king messiah, the signs of moshiach must be fulfilled in him, as maimonides says.

Therefore this person must be

• From the seed of David. For the Messiah is a "king from the house of David"
• Fluent in the Torah and a religious observer of the mitzvot.
• He must have the kingly aroma and as the Torah promises "a tribe will not depart from Judah" and the sages have asked how this is expressed during the exile when there is no king in the Jews. Rather, the descendants of David always hold positions of authority, and although the kingdom of Judah has fallen, it has not fallen completely, and will rise again, as the rambam says "a king shall rise from the house of David". Moshiach is called the fallen son as he is the person who reenacts the fallen house of David. This position is leader of the generation.
• He is the leader of the generation. The gemara calls rabbi yehudah the leader of his generation "the Messiah". It is the extension of Moses in every generation. As it says "Moses is the first Redeemer as well as the last". And as leader of the generation, his soul includes a part of the soul of every Jew in his generation. As Rashi says "the nassi(leader) is everything" i.e. he includes a spark of every Jewish soul in his generation.
• After the light of the hidden Torah (chassidus) was revealed, the leader of the generation is also the Messiah of the generation. Sedei chemed states that the arizal was the moshiach of his time.

On these signs, Jews have sought to identify among themselves the Messiah. It is not a garantee that he will actually be the king moshiach to redeem the Jews, however if the people of his generation deserve it, he will. Since the coming of the redemption depends on the good deeds of Israel, if one generation does not repent and do good, it will be pushed off to the next generation.

• The gemara asks what is the name of the Messiah, and every school said that his name is name of their rebbe. Every student calls his rebbe the Messiah, as he believes in him being the rebbe, the leader of the generation, and thus also the moshiach of the generation. In this way throughout the ages there have been many people called "moshiach", and obviously there is only one actual moshiach. It means to say that they are all worthy of being moshiach, and would have been had their generation deserved it.
• In our generation, the man identified by Jews around the world as the leader of the generation, and thus also the moshiach of the generation, is the lubavitcher rebbe.

The rebbes name is the name of moshiach, as the gemara says "Menachem is the name of moshiach".. The rebbe adds Mendel.

ערך זה הוא במסגרת המיזם חב"דפדיה האנגלית