[Avodah] Rambam on False Messiahs

[Lisa Liel]

On 8/30/2013 10:43 AM, saul newman wrote:
> from the tenor of  rMB and r ZS   discussion ,  it sounds  like 
>  mashiach is  sent  without the Dor being worthy necessarily ,   but 
>  then the klal blows  the opportunity .

See, I don't read it that way.  Mashiach isn't "sent".  That's an idea 
that's rooted in Christianity.  Mashiach isn't some otherworldly 
creature.  He's flesh and blood like me and you.  He isn't mashiach 
prior to accomplishing the things the Rambam lists.  That's just the 
label that's put on the leader who does those things.

Bar Kochva was a leader who looked like he had a chance of freeing us 
from Rome.  He accomplished enough that in the words of Rambam, he was 
b'chezkat she'hu mashiach.  I think the Rambam's whole point is that 
while we can't wait for some supernatural Mashiach to come before doing 
these things, we also can't wait until someone has done everything 
before we start acting on the presumption that's he's the one who *will* 
do everything.

I honestly don't see any rav who isn't involved in the day-to-day 
leadership of the Jews in Israel ever becoming Mashiach.  It's contrary 
not only to what the Rambam wrote, but to the way Rabbi Akiva clearly 
saw things.  He didn't posit that one of his teachers was Mashiach, 
after all.  Mashiach may not be the greatest talmid chacham of his 
generation.  Will he learn Torah?  Sure.  Will he keep the mitzvot?  
Sure.  But no one who sits cloistered away in the Beit Midrash is ever 
going to be the leader that the nevi'im talked about.

Lisa