Mashiach and Eliyahu Hanavi

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amother

Thu, Jun 20 2013, 8:27 pm

I hope I'm posting this in the correct forum.

Mashiach is the (the only word I can think of) "savior"

Eliyahu Hanavi started off as Pinchas, according to some meforshim, and then turned into Eliyahu Hanavi.

Are Mashiach and Eliyahu 2 different "people"?

What is Eliyahu a malach or a navi or both?

I was just thinking about it today and I realized that although I grew up totally frum and bais yaakov schools throughout my life, I dont have these clear in my mind. Maybe I dont cause I never thought of it before today.

fromthedepths

Thu, Jun 20 2013, 8:33 pm

Savior?? Different religion.

Mashiach is a king.

amother

Thu, Jun 20 2013, 8:35 pm

thats why I didnt want to use the word savior but he will be the symbol or person or whatever that will be synonymous with the ending of this galus, therefore savoir is not that far off.

but as I said in the original post, wasnt sure what the correct word would be since again, mashiach wears many hats.

bigsis144

Thu, Jun 20 2013, 9:17 pm

amother wrote:

Mashiach by definition is from shevet Yehudah (unless, of course, we're discussing Mashiach ben Yosef); Pinchas was a Levi, Eliyahu HaNavi was from Menashe, I think?

I think Eliyahu as a figure is more of a herald for Mashiach.

Quote:

What is Eliyahu a malach or a navi or both?

I was just thinking about it today and I realized that although I grew up totally frum and bais yaakov schools throughout my life, I dont have these clear in my mind. Maybe I dont cause I never thought of it before today.

Human being ascended to a different plane of existence.
Do you want to discuss Eliyahu's folk status in stories as a wise, bearded, unassuming beggar who conveniently disappears after helping a Jew in need who had done him a kindness? I don't know how that stands in the hierarchy of "truthful mesorah" because that character archetype is SO fairytale-esque...

PinkFridge

Thu, Jun 20 2013, 9:22 pm

Moshiach literally means, anointed one.

chani8

Fri, Jun 21 2013, 4:52 am

Moshiach and Eliyahu HaNavi are not the same.

Eliyahu is meant to announce the arrival of Moshiach.

Whether Eliyahu and Pinchas are the same, there is a midrash that suggests that, but of course a midrash is not always meant to be taken 'literally'.

freidasima

Fri, Jun 21 2013, 5:09 am

And just to remind us all that none of this appears anywhere in original (Tanachic) judaism. Nor is it even hinted to in passing.

It all comes up much later.
Guess when? and Guess who else is busy talking all the time about messiahs for decades and decades when our rabbonim finally get around to discussing the concept?

Yeah well.

shalhevet

Fri, Jun 21 2013, 5:15 am

Shtuyot, FS. Malachi 3:

יט כִּי-הִנֵּה הַיּוֹם בָּא בֹּעֵר כַּתַּנּוּר וְהָיוּ כָל-זֵדִים וְכָל-עֹשֵׂה רִשְׁעָה קַשׁ וְלִהַט אֹתָם הַיּוֹם הַבָּא אָמַר יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת אֲשֶׁר לֹא-יַעֲזֹב לָהֶם שֹׁרֶשׁ וְעָנָף. כ וְזָרְחָה לָכֶם יִרְאֵי שְׁמִי שֶׁמֶשׁ צְדָקָה וּמַרְפֵּא בִּכְנָפֶיהָ וִיצָאתֶם וּפִשְׁתֶּם כְּעֶגְלֵי מַרְבֵּק. כא וְעַסּוֹתֶם רְשָׁעִים כִּי-יִהְיוּ אֵפֶר תַּחַת כַּפּוֹת רַגְלֵיכֶם בַּיּוֹם אֲשֶׁר אֲנִי עֹשֶׂה אָמַר יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת. {פ}

כב זִכְרוּ תּוֹרַת מֹשֶׁה עַבְדִּי אֲשֶׁר צִוִּיתִי אוֹתוֹ בְחֹרֵב עַל-כָּל-יִשְׂרָאֵל חֻקִּים וּמִשְׁפָּטִים. כג הִנֵּה אָנֹכִי שֹׁלֵחַ לָכֶם אֵת אֵלִיָּה הַנָּבִיא לִפְנֵי בּוֹא יוֹם יְהוָה הַגָּדוֹל וְהַנּוֹרָא.

If it wasn't Friday I could give you many more sources, but this is the first that comes to mind. It is Malachi 3 at the end of the chapter for those who want the English.

I learned Eliyahu Hanavi will come the day before to announce Mashiach's arrival. And they are certainly not the same person.

I think, FS, it's the other way around - guess who got all that from us?

jerusalem-girl

Fri, Jun 21 2013, 5:16 am

Shalhevet, I was just going to type those pesukim. And also, it's erev Shabbos for me too, so more sources will have to come later.

freidasima

Fri, Jun 21 2013, 6:11 am

Shal sorry to say but those psukim have absolutely nothing to do with the concept of what moshiach is, and what position eliyahu havani plays and the moshiach ben yosef and moshiach ben dovid stuff according to chazal.

The concept that is mainstream today is that set down by chazal. They were the first to say it as is the conception today. And their conception of it came after another religion was pushing the concept of a messiah full time and who he was (his lineage as appears in their writings as proof of his messianic nature) and how he will appear and what his task is.

If you learn gemoro and you go through each and every messianic reference, it is impossible to ignore the fact that each and every reference is actually not an action, but a reaction to what the "other", controversial religion that was trying its utmost to take people away from Judaism and that had begun as a sect within Judaism as was such until the first century, was promoting vis a vis "their" messianic concept.

In other words, our chazal in this matter never "acted", but only reacted. That also says something.
Had the messianic concept been SO central to Judaism since time immemorial, it is impossible to conceive that it would never have been mentioned in the Torah in any form. And it is not. No matter how one tries to twist it. Even the mention in neviim in so general and has no reference to the messianic concept as Chazal put it down from the second century onward.

So sorry with all due respect to Malachi, parshanim agree that those pesukim are not really understandable, that they do not speak at all about the same concept that chazal speak of.

Chazal don't deal with "bo yom hashem hagodol vehanora" which is a totally general statement that means absolutely nothing, but rather they deal with the nitty gritty of who, how, when , lineage etc.

And the reason that they state categorically that there is no difference between yimos hamoshiach and today other than "shiabud malchuyos bilvad" (our being under the rule of kingdoms) is JUST BECAUSE they were trying to differentiate themselves from that other unnamed religion which was promoting all sorts of mystical, unnatural and supernatural conditions to the days of "their" messiah (aka second coming).

Once again, as I have reminded people on other threads, we keep what chazal tell us to keep. That is rabbinic judaism. That is what you, I and all other religious Jews keep since that time. Period. But that doesn't mean that it appeared before. It means that chazal say "this is the way it is". and we, as rabbinic Jews (which we all are in practice although fundamentalists like to present it differently) do what chazal tells us to do. You. Me. Everyone.

Note that while much of mainstream daveing speaking of "redemption", days of "geula" and other things, there is never direct reference to Moshiach as a savior, or to yemos hamoshiach as mystical days, but rather only at best to restoration of the Davidic lineage and kingdom as our guide (zemach dovid, etc.)

Keep trying.

shalhevet

Fri, Jun 21 2013, 6:32 am

Do you use an etrog on Sukkos? Why not a persimmon or an orange?

Does your husband put on black, square tefillin? (maybe these days on imamother, I should ask if you do Wink

)

If the answers are yes, then you are relying on the Oral Torah and how Chazal taught us the pesuukim are to be understood. The same oral Torah which teaches us about mashiach and acharis hayamim.

freidasima

Fri, Jun 21 2013, 6:43 am

Nope Shal, not the same at all.
Hashkofic concept versus practical halochic concept.

That's the difference between any of your examples and that of moshiach.

Also it's not that simple. There were different practical halochic groups of thought at the time of Chazal. Not everyone thought that tefilin were exactly the same. In fact one of the problems was that no one (not now, but not even then) had any exemplar of pre bayit sheni tefilin. While we have found tons of stuff in excavations of bayit rishon sites, including religious artifacts, for whatever reason, no tefilin have been found.

There were debates over these issues at the time of Chazal. Each group promoting what THEY considered the correct form of tefilin etc. claimed that THEY were following the original mesorah. For whatever reason, chazal decided that X group (or Y group or Z group, whatever) were the one and only true followers of the original practical mesorah and thus, since the time of Chazal that is what all of am yisroel keeps. Note that there are differences in this matter among several of the kehilot of Jews in the world which were founded before chazal and either had no or only very tenuous communication with EY/Babylonian Jewry after their founding. Examples are Yemenite Jewry but the best example are Ethiopian Jewish mesorah.

Exactly as you said.
What CHAZAL TAUGHT US how the pesukim are to be understood. But don't make it so black and white. There WERE debates among chazal over these issues and group X won out and therefore we keep what group X says.

Over the questions and issues of the nitty gritty of Moshich etc. there was no debate, no one said they had any kind of mesorah whatsoever. It was and still is not practical halocho. It is hashkofo. It is not one of the taryag mitzvos no matter how one turns it, to beilieve in Moshiach ben yosef and moshiach ben dovid.

Hence your example has no meaning to a hashkofic concept. It is practical halocho. A totally different kettle of fish.

and just BTW, let us remember that there WERE debates over these issues and as we are ALL followers of rabbinic Jewry, we keep today (and since the time of chazal) what chazal told us to do. Whether it is or is not the correct mesorah is irrelevant because being a Jew in post chazalian times meant first and foremost one thing. Whether they were right or whether they were wrong, whether it was the original mesorah or not, chazal made the decisions about what we keep in practical halocho, what THEY claimed was the correct mesorah (because there were always several good Jewish groups who all claimed that THEY kept it according to the original mesorah) and we keep to it.

Chazal basically set down a legal system. They were the supreme court. We are the citizens. If we want to be part of the country we have to keep the law as set down by the supreme court. Period.

Keep trying.

And just for the record, I have never put on tefilin, I have never had a desire to put on tefilin, the only time in my life that I even TOUCHED tefilin was when my father z"l was dying and his last request was to bring him tallis and tefilin, and I helped him put it on.

(But I will be happy to defend any woman wanting to put on tefilin because she feels that it is important for her true davening.....)

ora_43

Fri, Jun 21 2013, 6:51 am

shalhevet wrote:

I think, FS, it's the other way around - guess who got all that from us?

Exactly.

Christianity became a thing precisely because there was a Jewish tradition behind it to some degree. Otherwise his followers would have been saying "Yoshke is the mashiach!" and the rest of the Jews would have been going, "The what now?"

Of course, the Christian concept of "messiah" now differs wildly from the Jewish one, but there were a good several generations where Christianity was seen as an offshoot of Judaism - just a sect with the wrong idea about mashiach, not a totally new theology.

ora_43

Fri, Jun 21 2013, 6:58 am

freidasima wrote:

Had the messianic concept been SO central to Judaism since time immemorial, it is impossible to conceive that it would never have been mentioned in the Torah in any form.

??

AFAIK, chazal say the idea was introduced at the time of the neviim. Like, once it was determined that there would be subjection/exile, it was also determined that there would someday be a leader who would end the exile.

Why would that have been explicit in the Torah, which came several hundred years earlier?

freidasima

Fri, Jun 21 2013, 7:04 am

Ora that's exactly what happened.
The Jewish Xtians said that Yoshkele was the moshiach. The Jewish Jews answered "moshiach means meshuach shemen, king, and he isn't a king". The Jewish Xtians countered with "he is the king of kings, the son of G-d, and when he returns to earth there will be mystical days (and explained what they meant).

To with the Jews countered with WTH (which my kids have recently taught me does not mean what the heck...but you get my message).

Until the time of post Paulian theology (there is a lot that has been written about Paul being a Jewish Xtian and not the man who removed Xtianity from Judaism, that came after him, I can give you references when dh comes back, that's his baby..) which means around the year 100, the concept was not problematic to say Yoshkeleh is a moshiach=king, because that was the use of the word. The problem was with his being son of G-d, or with a mystical concept. Chazal do NOT refer to anything during that period, if you look who among chazal are even involved in the messianic discussions they are all 2nd century and onward.

Why?

Because second century was also when Xtianity gave up on Jews becoming Xtians and began preaching primarily to the pagans. They they began offering them salvation through messianic belief and the concept that "when moshiach (aka the Yoshkeleh) comes, all will be good, the ills of the earth will cease, etc. That's their concept of the Second Coming as they developed it in the 2nd century.

By that time, however Chazal realized that they couldn't be silent about such a concept. And they were also afraid that Jews who were now living during terrible times, after the destruction of the temple, and particularly after the quite unsuccessful Bar Kochva revolt, might nevertheless be swept towards such "messianic" thinking of a messiah whose appearance would herald a finally good period for all (as opposed to the really miserable and pretty hopeless times of the present)

They also had a second problem. The fact that at the time the Xtians were beginning to promote themselves in the eyes of the romans as the legitimate representatives of the religion. Judaism until then was an (not "the" just "a") recognized religion in the Roman empire. Xtianity was not. Hence the xtians were being fed to the lions (stories of the original Xtian martyrs, etc.). Now Xtianity was trying to promote itself as "religia licta" or whatever it was called in Latin, a legal accepted religion, and by doing that, to push Judaism to the wayside legally in the Roman Empire.

That was something Chazal couldn't let slide either.

So the reasons for them beginning to debate the issue of messianism and to bring in what a 'Jewish' concept of messianism was, were both vis a vis the Jews, and vis a vis the romans.

Consequently, that's when they began to deal with the concept, only post first century.
So yeah, historically our debates over the issue were only begin after "they" spent more than half a century promoting the concept, which we hadn't even referred to once....

freidasima

Fri, Jun 21 2013, 7:14 am

Ora only saw your second post after I typed my first so I'm responding separately.

Today's concept when people start with the "we want moshiach now" or "halevai that moshiach would be here" is what we are referring to. Not the neviim's concept of a leader.

But hey, if we are going nitty gritty then in the Torah the concept of exile sure exists. of the fact that if we sin and do bad, and even particular issues on which "if we sin" we are about to get kicked out of here "toute suite". And the Chazalian concept of Moshiach ben Dovid is not that of someone who will "solely" "end the exile" but much more.

And the concept of Moshiach as it developed afterwards is certainly a heck of a lot more than that.
Now where exactly did THAT concept come from? It certainly is not a Jewish concept. It has no basis in original (torah, neviim) judaism. It's not even sure that it is what Chazal meant. And once again, Chazal did like all legal systems do, they tried to show legitimacy to a concept that they propose by saying that it actually has a basis in the past...and they THEY claim that the basis was here, there or in the third place.

Once again, had the concept been soooo central to Jewish thought of all times, it wouldn't have needed chazal to point out that when Navi X says "XYZ" he is referring to moshiach even though he doesn't say it outright...

Note, in no other core concepts of Judaism that chazal debate do they have a need to do this, simply because that core concept DOES exist, mefeirush.

Look at Shal's two examples. Esrog, Tefilin. Mefeirush in the Torah that it says to take pri etz hadar. The debate is "what is exactly that pri etz hadar?" is it a lemon, a grapefruit or an esrog? And chazal say that the mesorah that says esrog (as opposed to any other mesorah) is the correct one. And we go by chazal.

Same for tefilin. It says put ot on your arm and totafot between your eyes. So you know you have to put something with G-ds word on your arm and between your eyes. Mefeirush shma. The debate of what this something looks like? Once again chazal determined the correct mesorah of all times is X and we therefore all do X.

But moshiach? No mefeirush anything in the torah. Not even a word that chazal debates like Totafot, or pri etz hadar.

So ...what does that mean?
that the concept of Moshiach maybe ISNT central to judaism? (well then if so, why are all the die hards ready to schect anyone who says that they don't fully accept the ikkar of the Rambam of bevias hamocshiach"???)

Or that maybe this is a concept that Chazal only started to promote because of their tremendous fear of losing the Jewish people (which was a totally justified fear) in the second century when we were in terrible states and Xtianity was beginning to grow by leaps and bounds and they were promoting the idea of a messiah?

ora_43

Fri, Jun 21 2013, 7:21 am

The "Jewish Christians" were able to win converts from among the "Jewish Jews" because they weren't talking about son of G-d and whatever else. They were saying, "Remember how we thought we were someday we'd get a leader who would rescue us? It turns out that meant this guy, even though he's dead and everything's still the same. It's complicated."

I'm not sure why it would be meaningful that there are more written references to the idea of mashiach after the advent of Christianity. For one thing, theology was barely written down before then. But more importantly, just because something is said as a response doesn't make it less valid than if it were an independent statement. It's like how there was more written about women's role in the synagogue post-feminism, even though the practices being described dated back thousands of years.

freidasima

Fri, Jun 21 2013, 7:38 am

Ora I don't follow.
We are a text based religion.
When something appears in a text it may be a basis for discussion and dispute, but without something appearing in text there is nothing that one can discuss.

Texts are also analyzed by how and when and why they appear. there is therefore importance to timing and whether something appears as an action or only as a reaction.

It's not that there are "more" references to moshiach after the advent of Xtianity. There are NO references directly to moshiach before the first century of Xtianity.

fromthedepths

Fri, Jun 21 2013, 9:29 am

??

The Ramchal, both in Daas Tevunos and Derech Hashem, says that the world was created imperfect so that we human beings would be given an opportunity to be partners in its completion. Whether you call it messianic times or not, the world is destined to reach the ultimate perfection. Or do you claim that the Ramchal's position is a social construct??

freidasima

Fri, Jun 21 2013, 10:26 am

A. just to remind you, one doesn't pasken by the ramchal

B. What in the world does that have to do with a messiah? With the nitty gritty of what is supposed to be the chain of events with the "coming" of the messiah? the Ramchal talks about a philosophical concept. We are talking about something practical. A chain of events. Who, what, when, how. Not the philosophy behind it.

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