@ARSo
Re RAMBAN agreeing to RASHI whether Daniel could be mashiach.
1] I cannot imagine RAMBAN giving a public answer in front of the King and afterwards sending written accounts all over Spain , all the while knowing that RASHI , the foremost mefaresh on the gmara , is disagreeing with his pshat. If RAMBAN uses that as proof klapei huts and klapei pnim [for his coreligionists who were under constant pressures to convert] , It must have been in RAMBAN’s own opinion ,totally ironclad.
Not something which someone could come tomorrow and say – hey, this is against an offene RASHI in sanhedrin.
Per force that he agrees with RASHI.
2] RAMBAN consistently brings , and argues with RASHI wherever he disagrees with his pshat , whether al hashas or al hatorah. If he would argue with RASHI in sanhedrin, why is he keeping quiet about it ?
Per force that he agrees with RASHI.
3] So , if RAMBAN agrees with RASHI that Daniel is a fitting candidate even though he was niftar already , then why is he disqualifying j on the grounds that he died ? The answer is simple. There is no problem in dying in of itself. There is a problem ,however, in dying WITHOUT realization of nevu’ot hanevi’im.
Why is that a problem ? Because we cannot have a situation of a free for all vacancy, where first come first served, the mashiach job is open for all wannabe’s who happen to lay claim to throne.
So, to lay a claim and start the mashiach process and FAIL by dying [dissappearing/hiding/going on permanent sick leave] without realization of the nevu’ot , is a reliable filter to keep out all plastic mashiachs.
Daniel, however, never started , never lay a claim to the throne, so why should he be any less qualified than a living person who would want to lay a claim and be equally subject to the reliable filter we mentioned before ?
So, there is ample reason to reject j ,according to all of RASHI’s explanations, on the sole grounds that he started and subsequently failed
Ditto with habads late leader .
There is no point whatsoever going into whether Yaakov Avinu died or disappeared. This is totally irrelevant here.
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