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“I totally disagree!” Elissa interrupted. “‘On the brink of an era of global peace’?! I don’t see the world moving in that direction. Yesterday I was watching the news and saw two local homicide stories. There’s a nuclear buildup in the Middle East. And now anti-Semitism seems to be on the rise. Where exactly do you see the beginnings of world peace?”
“I agree,” I admitted, unabashed. “Immorality and hate are rampant. But who’s to say that societal degeneration is not a sign of Moshiach’s imminence?”
“I always thought that we would need to be in a great place to deserve Moshiach,” Elissa looked at me, puzzled.
“Hey, if we were in such a great place, why would we need Moshiach at all?” I countered. “But I totally get what you are saying.The sages don’t put global perfection as the criteria for Moshiach's arrival It seems counterintuitive to expect an era of peace and spiritual awareness to come to a world that is dysfunctional on so many levels. And yet the sages don’t put global perfection as the criteria for Moshiach's arrival. On the contrary—the Talmud says that ‘the son of David [Moshiach] will not come until the whole world has converted to the belief of heretics!’”
Let’s examine the Talmud’s words in context:
It has been taught, Rabbi Nechemiah said: In the generation of Moshiach’s coming impudence will increase; esteem will be perverted; the vine will yield its fruit, yet wine will be dear; and the kingdom will be converted to heresy, with none to rebuke them. This [statement] supports Rabbi Yitzchak, who said: The son of David will not come until the whole world is converted to the belief of the heretics. Rava said: What verse [proves this]? “It is all turned white; he is pure.” (Sanhedrin 97a)
Rava supports Rabbi Yitzchak by quoting an unusual law about tzara’at (a skin disease commonly—but inaccurately—translated as “leprosy”). A white spreading lesion renders a person impure. Nevertheless, if the whole skin is infected with the white lesion, the person is declared pure.1
This law seems completely illogical! The person covered in leprosy should be worse off than the person with just one white lesion! Why is he rendered pure?
The law can be understood on two levels:
- Yes, it is illogical, but it’s G‑d’s law. He defines the criteria for purity; we don’t.
- There is a logical explanation for the law. If the leprosy infects one part of his skin, it is clearly a disease. But if it spreads throughout his body, it may be his skin’s natural state and not a disease at all.
Rava draws a parallel between the pure leper covered in white lesions and the heretical universe on the brink of the Messianic Age.
He coordinated a moral nosedive to indicate the onset of global transformation Why can’t people become better, more wholesome, more peaceful and G‑d-conscious as we progress towards Moshiach? Well, says Rava, the answer follows the lines of the unusual law of the pure leper. (Moshiach himself is referred to as a leper in the Talmud.) It is partially above logic, partially logical:
- The illogical reason that things will seem really chaotic and corrupt in the world before they begin to get really good is that that’s the way G‑d wants it. He coordinated a moral nosedive to indicate the onset of global transformation.
- But like the pure leper, there is something coherent about the heavy grasp of evil that will be felt before Moshiach’s arrival. It’s an indication that all the evil that has been submerged in our culture is now being exposed. In other words, because society’s internal paradigms have become more refined, the base elements are expelled and seen more dramatically. Once they are exposed, they can be cleansed.
Does this seem far-fetched? Here are two examples that illustrate this phenomenon:
Recently there have been a lot of scandals in the political world. Politicians misuse government capital, spending the taxpayers’ money to support their own upscale lifestyle. And how about infidelity? Important people having extramarital affairs. When their sins are exposed, people are understandably outraged. How could a person in a position of honor do something so dishonorable?!
But would political corruption have been considered so outrageous a hundred years ago? Or would it have been almost expected, par for the course?
And since when is infidelity so shocking? George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, and Franklin D. Roosevelt were all known as philandering presidents.
Now society expects more But now society expects more. Corruption is intolerable and infidelity is not accepted. And so it makes big news.
Look at it now from a personal, psychological vantage point. Say one day I become outraged at a dysfunctional dynamic in my relationship with my spouse. It was always there, but today it becomes unbearable. Well, sometimes that’s a very healthy thing. Last week I repressed my discomfort. I wasn’t ready to face it; it wasn't worth rocking the boat. I let it linger in my unconscious. But today my internal channels are healthier and won’t tolerate this decay of integrity. It shoots up to the surface of my consciousness and bothers me. Finally, I’m ready to begin to work it through.
So perhaps there is not more evil, but more attention being given to evil now. And that’s a good thing. Once it reaches the surface, we can begin a healthy cleansing process.2
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Latest Comments:
in the Hebrew letters, in the sacred alphabets across the world, through Babel, and it can be accessed. I am not the only one writing about this, and strangely, I am being put in touch with others, who have this knowledge, and who are writing about this. It's a secret code, and it is as David in Hallelujah, the secret chord, that song by Leonard Cohen Start listening to the words of song, because most songs are love songs, and to follow the lieder, the music, is to perceive this, at deepening levels. I could say, all books have a Divine authorship, and I do. We're all downloading from the SOURCE and language IS the key. I see it. This is deep. We are filtering the light, and so the stamp of our uniqueness is on the books, but G_d is directing this flow, this light.
I know this. I am not asking for confirmation. I am not asking for disagreement. I am stating a truth that already has a PROOF that's extant, by way of a miracle of a story.
G_d IS your Moshiach, if you seek ONE.
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Let the Moshiach NOT come in my lifetime, for I am not ready, nor prepared for the judgement that comes with him. Perhaps if we ALL work a little harder on ourselves, and ask that he wait, then when he does come,it will go better for all of us.
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there is ache in the word Moshiach, do YOU hear this? We always assume we want something, and then, when we get it, we have to reassess what we lost, and what we gained, isn't this life itself? We need to right now, appreciate what we've got, and I say, the Moshiach is HEAR.. How do I know this?
All that I know, comes from my SOUL as Ruah and RU AWE, and RUTH, that book, are deeply connected. All that I have, is my SOUL, and all that YOU have, is your SOUL
(Tracy Chapman).
No, I do not want the world to be destroyed. G_d asked ME this question, and YES, I did hear this, and this was a quesiton posed to me. I might wonder why. And I might wonder, why it is, this secret language, of words, of the Hebrew letters, the alchemy of love, is winging its way here. The path IS empath.
There are many messengers here, right now, and their message is: DO IT. Do It NOW. Act with love, act with mercy, and surround yourself, your life, with positivity, and that truth, of sacntifying what is just.
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In the time of Moshiach, there will still be conflict; it will not be a perfect world. The conflicts and tzuris will be, however, on a much higher level. No longer struggling for mere survival and the avoidance of mass death and destruction, we will struggle for how to create greater equity than Moshiach's coming will have already wrought, how to create a system where merit brings even greater rewards, ones that are not paid via someone else's deprivation, etc.
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life as it exists for us all, involves motion, motion through learning, motion by growth of all kinds, and also the E Motion that is generated by the rocks in our path, and how we negotiate them, and also learn from the stories of others who have encountered similar and also different obstacles. There is a Learning Curve.
Call it, inbuilt.
I cannot conceive of the poetry of life as existing without the dichotomies, that are the bipolarities as it is said, we need them both, and they do fold together to form the whole. The old yin/yang. That blend of opposites. Can we know anything without, its opposite? This has to include light and dark, good and evil.
To envision a world without these polarities is difficult, even though we say we want a different world, a world in which PEACE is everywhere, and we celebrate each other.
Does this mean, no conflict? Does this mean, a total change in human nature and animal nature?
What is the end point we are reaching for?
Can we know?
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It's a metaphor. A little bit white, the person is partially pure, mostlly impure (dark). All white, the person is most pure, not impure (not dark.)
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He wrote about a poverty-struck little stebal or Jewish village in the Pale of Russia, where they had just ran out of money! Everyone there was broke. In Heaven Eliahu immediately informed the Moshiah that it was time to get ready, since there was now a place on earth very close to perfection. It took the Moshiah a long time to get his donkey ready and to clean out the shofer etc., (he had been waiting a long time) meanwhle in the synagogue the shamas had discovered a one kopek coin lodged between the floor boards. The funeral committee immediately claimed it for their expenses. No! said the orphen's committee, we need it more badly! The sounds of thir arguement grew and louder and louder as the two committees almost struck blows. These sounds reached up Heaven and with much dissapointment Eliahu had to explain that on earth things were not so perfect after all. The Mosiah returned the donkey to his stable and packed the shofer away. And that's why we are still waiting for him!
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In a way this is a comforting thought. With all the tragedies and natural disasters occurring in the world today, some common beliefs are that Moshaich is angry and being punitive, taking innocent lives as well as those of the perpetrators. But if these happenings portend the arrival of Moshaich, then it is a blessing in complete disguise. And what a nice surprise that will be.
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Very interesting article! Thank you! In your article you mentioned that some of our previous presidents where "known as philandering presidents". What exactly did they do to deserve this title? Also, do you think that the "outrage" of the public against these people in power who are acting immorally is really a moral outrage? Perhaps it is a conveniently political outrage that democrats have against a republican figure or vice versa... Just curious.
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There's no unconscious or subconscious. There is always consciousness. And since we are all of consciousness then all beliefs are expressed simultaneously..This includes the good and bad, right and wrong. To be fully conscious is to be fully understood; and we are. There's no actual dysfunction but slightly unaware consciousness for the reason of experience. This is the action of consciousness to experience a physical realm with belief systems.
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