anyPotato: “Rashi also holds they are calling their Rav Raui Lehyos Moshiach. As is seen clearly from Rashi d’h Menachem: (says Rashi) Ben Chizkiya. Once Rashi shows his girsa just said Menachem so he then states it’s a real human being with a father called Chizkiya. We see he holds not just names and attributes but rather they’re pointing a finger and saying he is fit to be Moshiach.”
1. The colons and periods in Rashi were not put there by him, as a number of Acharonim point out. Rather, Rashi wrote it all, and the printers decided where to put the colon, signifying the end of the quote from the gemoro, and the period, signifying the end of the piece. Thus, your attempted proof (which, at any rate I didn’t understand ) as to what Rashi holds has no basis. That is, we can’t know what Rashi meant by that piece.
2. Even according to you, who was Menachem ben Chizkiyah? One opinion in the gemoro said that that is the name of Mashiach, but that doesn’t mean that it’s referring to someone known.
And as to youir very impressive list of sources:
1. Quoting Rishonim and Acharonimi who write “משיח צדקנו” is disingenuous. (How come I only ever use that word in the Coffee Room?) It’s an honorific. Just like when it says “מלאך ה’בתוכנו”. Would you have us believe that the talmid thought the Maharal was a real malach and not human? A malach being Mashiach! That’s very novel.
2. I have to admit that I didn’t look up even one of the myriad sources that you quoted (I can imagine you thinking, “Let’s drown the snag in sources.” 🙂 ), but from a cursory glance at them I can see that my long-standing and oft-cited complaint has not been addressed at all.
These people considered their Rebbes fit to be Mashiach. If Lubavichers would say just that about their rebbe, I would not be so vehemently against them, even though I believe that he was nowhere near fit to be Mashiach, and that through some of his actions and views he was detrimental to correct emunah in bias Mashiach.
My major complaint is that Lubavichers say that he was bechezkas Mashiach, and in order to buttress this nonsensical claim they selectively quote and misinterpret whatever they want. That to me seems מגלה פנים שלא כהלכה, and is very dangerous to Klal Yisroel.
Finally, to address one of the sources that I happened to see in your list:
“”וראה גם רד”ק על תהלים פט, מח “בכל דור ודור יתאוה מי שהוא מזרע דוד שתהי’ בימיו הישועה ויהי’ הוא המלך המשיח”.
That is, in every generation (the definition of which, as I have written in the past, Lubavichers reinterpreted after Gimmel Tammuz) there is a descendant of Dovid who longs for the salvation to come in his day, and he will be the Mashiach. Note, it does not say that he longs for himself to be Mashiach!