[Avodah] Micah and Yeshayahu

[Eli Turkel via Avodah]

I went to shiur of R. Benny Lau (part of a series on trei asar) on Micah
and he made several interesting comments (from a 75 minute shiur)

1. We make a big deal of the miracle of the saving of Jerusalem in the days
of Chizkiyahu (see va-ya-hi be-chatzi ha-layla on seder night). However we
forget that Sancheriv destroyed 31 cities (one can see Lachish today) and
basically set fire to the entire country outside of Jerusalem. In many ways
a pyrrhic victory.

2. Micah accuses the those false prophets who are only interested in their
own interests and wage battle against those who disagree with them (a note
RBL compares prophets to todays newspapers - both forms of communication)
and hinted at similarities in modern politics

3. Perek 3 of Michah has a lot of similarity with the prophecy of Yeshayahu
about the times of Moshiach. Michah was probably a student of Yeshayahu and
used much of his terminology.
R Benny Lau insists that however the point is that Micah strongly disagrees
with Yeshayahu (in this he disagrees with R. Yoel Bin-Nun his teacher).
His claim is that Yeshayahu continues - va-yeshvu ish tachat gafno etc"
Yeshayahu see the days of Moshiach as one when every person has his own
peace, prays to G-d and no need of a central government. Micah OTOH
continues "bet yaakov lechu ve-nelcha", see the Moshiach as a continuation
of the kingdom of David and Shlomo. Moshiach is the perfect government. In
addition Yeshayahu is a universalist while Micah is concerns with the
people of Israel.

Rambam hilchot melachim 11 brings that the Moshiach will bring back the
kingdom of David and Shlomo (like Micah). Based on the yerushalmi he brings
the story of Bar Kochba who is backed by R. Akiva to show that the Moshiach
will be a real leader/warrior . He died because of personal faults. Raavad
disagrees and brings the Bavli that the Jews themselves killed Bar Kosiva
because he wasn't spiritual (like Yeshayahu )

In summary we have a disagreement between prophets (both of whom we recite
as their words being just and truth) whether the perfect situation is
having a perfect Monarchy (Micah-Rambam) or else one where each individual
works on himself and we rely on prayer rather than government
(Yeshayah-Raavad) . He concluded by noting that the same disagreement
continues until our day some 2600 years later)

-- 
Eli Turkel
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