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Yeshua (Jesus)
As a religious Jew raised in the yeshivot of Poland,
like my peers, I knew that the secrets of Israel's redemption and the Messianic
Days lay hidden in the book of Daniel. I also knew that some of the great
Talmudic and post-Talmudic Rabbis had plunged into the study of this book and
even plummeted the hidden secrets of its symbolic signs and cyphers. The Talmud and Midrash, discussing Israel's
redemption, often refer to the book of Daniel as the revealer of the secret
time of Messiah's coming. However. at the yeshiva I was ominously
reminded of a warning and a curse pronounced against those who try to figure
out the end. The Talmud says:
May they drop who try to figure out the end; for they say,
since the time of his [Messiah's] coming
This extreme condemnation can be
understood when the error of Rabbi Akibah designating Bar Kosiba the Messiah
is considered : Rabbi
Akibah made the inference, from the verse. 'Yet once, it is a little while,
and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land'
(Haggai 2:6), that Simon Bar Kosiba was the Messiah, though he reigned only
for two and a half years. 2
In the yeshiva I was therefore, forewarned that the secrets are in the
Scriptures, but that it was dangerous to make assumptions or to figure them
out lest we come to the wrong conclusion, as did Rabbi Akibah. The
Midrash even states: Two men
had the end revealed to them; namely Jacob, as stated in Genesis 49: 1, '...
that I may tell you what shall befall you in the last days.' and Daniel
(12:1, 4), 'And at that time thy people shall be delivered... . But thou O Daniel shut up the words...
.' So even these two men were forbidden to reveal what they knew. ... 3
W hen Will Messiah Come?
The study of our greatest sages brought them to the conclusion that if the dates
in the Scriptures are correct, then Messiah should have come in the first
century of our era. or thereabouts. In a Talmudic portion it is written
concerning the timing of the Messianic Age : The school of Elijah
taught: The world is to be for six thousand years; two thousand
years empty without Torah; two thousand years with Torah; and two thousand
years Messianic Times... . 4
The many Messiahs who flourished during that period, claiming
themselves to be redeemers, were all great disappointments. Finally.
Simon Bar Kosiba, whom Rabbi Akibah called “Bar Kochba," came. Though he
was active in the first part of the second century, Rabbi Akibah nonetheless
adjusted him to the Messianic claim. For the majority of the Jewish people
Bar Kosibah was a tragedy and a disappointment.
Apart from the loss of tens of thousands of Jews at his defeat in Betar C.E. 135, his activities resulted in untold
sufferings for the surviving, Jews. In
an eleventh century rabbinic portion, we read:
Woe, for the salvation of Israel has perished! But a voice came from
heaven saying,
In another rabbinic portion, based in part upon a scripture in the book of
Lamentations, ["she has none to comfort (Menachem) of all her
friends,"] 6 the name of the Messiah is identified as Menachem Ben Ami-e1. 7 Messiah, then, is clearly "alive and
well" for the last nineteen hundred years, according to these rabbinic
writings. His name is Menachem (the Comforter) Ben Amiel
(God is with his People). He started to work around the great
Mediterranean Sea. went to Samaria (Korah), then
Rome and the ends of the world. We may ask : Why was He expected during the
first century? Clearly there was a certainty that Messiah had to appear at
that period. This conviction was probably based upon the following
passages in the book of Daniel:
Seventy weeks (or heptads - weeks of years) are determined upon the people
and upon the Holy City,
This revelation was a result of Daniel's prayers given to him by the angel
Gabriel to explain the time, substance and circumstance of Israel's
redemption.
The time embraced was “seventy sevens.” Within the sixty nine heptads
(weeks of years), that is within 483 years, there will be a building up of
Jerusalem's streets and canals, though in troublous times. After these
483 years, “Messiah is cut off, the city of Jerusalem and the Holy Temple
will be destroyed by the people of the prince that shall come. Messiah was to come before the destruction
of the Temple. This is the picture that the archangel Gabriel gave to Daniel.
Who is the Messiah?
It was Daniel's prophecy that challenged me many years to consider the
Messiahship of Yeshua the Nazarene. Rabbinic authorities to whom I consulted said
that the reference to Messiah in Daniel's prophecy was to King Agrippa,
Herod’s descendant, who is called "Messiah" here and who was "
before the Temple's destruction. Hence, the term "Messiah” is
transferred to a carnal king, like Agrippa, or to the unknown Menachem Ben Amiel as recorded in the Midrash. On the other hand. I
learned of Yeshua the Nazarene, who was "cut off” forty years before the
Second Temple was destroyed.
The revelation given to Daniel also deals with the substance and the circumstances
of Messiah's activity, "to finish the transgression, to make an end of
sins and to make reconciliation for iniquity and to bring in everlasting
righteousness." In other words, Messiah's death is distinctly
connected with the atoning work that the Temple sacrifices were to
accomplish, except that it would be a work of completion and fulfillment far
greater than any Temple sacrifices could possibly secure. I was thus enabled
to lay aside my fears and prejudices and to open the Brit Hadasha
(NT) and learn more of him, who, as the Prophet says: Hath borne our
grief’s and carried our sorrows; Yeshua
indeed fits perfectly into Daniel’s timetable. No one else qualifies; References: What
The Rabbis Know About The Messiah by Rachmiel
Frydland For further
information contact
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