[Avodah] No Moshiach

[Eliyahu Grossman]

>From: Eli Turkel <eliturkel at gmail.com>
>To: cantorwolberg at cox.net
>Cc: avodah <avodah at aishdas.org>
>Subject: [Avodah] No Moshiach
>
>><Hillel said: There shall be no Messiah for Israel because they have
already enjoyed him in the days of Chizkiyahu. 
>>Sandhedrin 99a
>>
>>[Rashi does say: But the Almighty will himself redeem israel and reign
over them].
>>
>>How could he make such a radical and astonishing statement?
>>Or is there something else that we are missing?>>
>>
>RYBS stresses the Rshi that R. Hillel did accept Yemot Hamashiach and Olam
Haba.
>He denied a personal Mosiach and said that G-d himself would save us.


>From my point of view, some of Sanhedrein 99a is a running commentary on
rebuking Christianity. 

R. Abbahu (who seems to have quite a number of such interactions) responds
to a Christian, saying that the Moshiach won't come until the Christians are
covered in darkness. (While "min" is not always a Christian, if you see R.
Abbahu, you can usually count on it!)

A bit after that we have R. Hillel's statement is saying that the Moshiach
came during the 1st temple, (so we can therefore infer that anyone who came
later and claimed to be so was a liar).

Then we have the response by R. Yosef.

Interestingly enough, R. Yosef rebukes R. Hillel and then goes on to quote
the very pusek that Christians use to declare that their guy fulfilled a
Messianic prophecy!

Now THAT should certainly catch one's attention!

I have seen in many places where this type of thing happens. There are 2
methods concerning how to handle non-Jewish interpretation of Jewish
thought: The first school is to transform any interpretation that has any
Christological connection into something else (Rashi, who is not alone in
this, does this in a few places, and other mepharshim take him to task for
it). For example, taking something messianic and making it non-messianic, or
taking something messianic and doing a Rabbi Abbahu on it!

The other school of thought is to say "To heck with what they think. The
Tanach is ours! We shall continue to believe as we do without fear of what
they think" and then davka use a pusuk that the Christians hold dear!

Two ways of dealing with the problem.

In my opinion, THAT was what Rabbi Yosef was doing with Rabbi Hillel, saying
"May G-d forgive him" for trying to change Jewish mesorah to purposely
derail Christian inroads - that Fear of G-d should always be before fear of
man.

Eliyahu Grossman