The Five Most Likeliest Candidates to be Moshiach

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  • #2169056
    ujm
    Participant

    Who do you think are the five most likeliest candidates to be Moshiach?

    (You can choose a number other than five to select, if you feel like listing more or less.)

    #2169353
    Shimon Nodel
    Participant

    1. Not you
    2. Not me
    3. Someone who is a direct descendant of Shlomo Hamelech, so that rules out most of beis Dovid
    4. Someone with a sword, but that’s just my assumption

    That’s it, I’m not misyaches to your number 5 suggestion

    #2169352
    moishekapoieh
    Participant

    A loaded question, since so many orthodox believe it’s what’s his name, with the minions believing his lies about some stolen election

    #2169373
    SQUARE_ROOT
    Participant

    Rambam’s commentary on the Mishnah,
    tractate Sanhedrin, chapter 10 says:

    “When the Mashiach dies, his son will rule after him,
    and his grandson will rule after that.”

    CONCLUSION:
    The Melech HaMashiach cannot be a childless man,
    because he must have a son and a grandson who rule after him.

    Rambam does not mention Mashiach returning to life, after he dies.

    At its annual convention in June 1996,
    the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA) declared that:

    “there is not, and never has been, a place in Judaism for the belief that the Messiah, a son of David, will begin a Messianic career only to experience death, burial, and resurrection before completing it.”

    #2169375
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    Rav don segal, rav tzvi meir zilberberg come to mind

    #2169376
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    On second thought, rav don is probably a levi, but i don’t know…

    #2169384
    mentsch1
    Participant

    Shimon
    Doesn’t mashiach Ben Yosef go first?
    And it just happens that my family has a mesorah that we are descended from Yosef
    Just sayin’

    #2169398
    RSo
    Participant

    Isn’t the Lubavicher Rebbe the correct answer to all five?

    Do I now win the prize?

    #2169403
    Shimon Nodel
    Participant

    @mentsch1 menashe or efraim?

    #2169408
    CTLAWYER
    Participant

    This post is a prime example why more time needs to be spent learning English in Yeshivos.
    “Most likeliest “
    Est ending means most.
    What a waste of a modifier.
    Bittul zman through ignorance.
    No charge for this lesson in English grammar.
    BTW, I thought Joseph claimed to be a teacher in the NY public schools.

    #2169433
    1a2b3c
    Participant

    It’s either “likeliest” or “most likely.” Not both.

    #2169436

    if you are plowing a field, see people marching to Yerushalaim, you ask them and they say “to greet Moschiach” -finish plowing and go. So, speculation may be for those who are not doing anything else, which might be an aveira delaying Moschaich’s arrival.

    PS Plowing is _not_ a recommended job l’hathila, a clean and easy job is preferred.

    #2169441
    akuperma
    Participant

    since when do we vote? it isn’t an elected position

    #2169463
    ujm
    Participant

    CTL and 1a get an A+ for passing this trick exam. Well done.

    For the rest of you, please pay more attention next time.

    #2169466
    Amil Zola
    Participant

    Was Jos a teacher before he became a self taught nuclear engineer/scientist.

    #2169470

    akuperma> since when do we vote? it isn’t an elected position

    I think some vote is expected, if not for a specific person: First two kings were appointed by a Navi Shmuel, after people _elected_ to have a king. Previously, Shoftim were appointed by some or other body. So, at minimum, Jews need to consent to having a ruler with certain powers, and then delegate, in some Republican manner, the actual appointment.

    #2169471

    Cheap ploy. Most people here expect Moschiach to come from a yeshivish or, ok maybe, a chasiddish community. So, his language will be according to the school he attended.

    Of course, one could observe that Jewish leaders were always expected to communicate well with the world – from Moshe’s education in the palace to R Gamliel having 1000 Torah students and 1000 Greek students in his household … So, either Moschiach will have to come from YU or Lakewood needs to improve on Yinglish classes. Maybe, though, Moschiach will come from lepers in Rome as Gemora suggests, so maybe he’ll speak Italian with the Pope.

    #2169486
    CTLAWYER
    Participant

    @aaq
    If coming soon, Moshiach would be better off speaking Spanish than Italian since the current Pope is Argentinian.

    I, however, took 6 years of Latin in high school and college. I don’t listen to Radio Vatican, but it made law school easier for me than classmates with no Latin knowledge.

    #2169499
    Sam Klein
    Participant

    Someone sent me this back when Donald Trump was going against crooked Hillary Clinton:

    The gematriya of “Donald Trump” is “Moshiach ben David”!
    דונלד טראמפ = 424 = משיח בן דוד
    דונלד=94
    טראמפ= 330
    =424
    משיח=358
    בן=52
    דוד=14
    =424
    Unbelievable!

    Not wanting to be a one-party animal, I took the liberty of gematrifying הילרי קלינטון. Hillary Clinton
    Look at what I found. First of all her first and last names have identical gematriyas
    הילרי = 5+10+30+200+10 = 255
    קלינטון=100+30+10+50+9+6+50=255
    Now 255 is gematriya עמלקיה –
    Amalekia that’s a female member of Amalek

    No one is saying that Donald Trump is Mashiach but he was the best president for klal yisroel we ever had even if we are still in golus today R”L

    May we all wake up to Hashem’s wake up call for serious Teshuva and Achdus together ASAP so Hashem can send Mashiach already bkarov

    #2169559
    Gadolhadorah
    Participant

    “No one is saying that Donald Trump is Mashiach”….
    Thats refreshing to hear since I cannot locate any instance where Chazal bring down that the of Moishiach would be a disgusting racist, anti-semitic, misogynist, who engaged in adulturous behavior with numerous women and continuously vilifies others in an insatiable attempt to feed an endless ego.

    #2169686
    Menachem Shmei
    Participant

    Gadolhadorah,

    You missed the fact that the Donald doesn’t check his suits for shatnez. That should disqualify him as well according to the Rambam (“עוסק המצוות כדוד אביו”).

    #2169667
    Shimon Nodel
    Participant

    Sam Klein, what is ‘unbelievable’? My mother also taught me numbers when I was three. If you’re just learning addition and subtraction now, I wouldn’t recommend starting with meaningless gematrios.

    #2169660
    commonsaychel
    Participant

    @GH, wow that sounds a lot like a description of Bill Clinton

    #2169743
    n0mesorah
    Participant

    Heretical thinking. Hashem has no use for candidates.

    #2169760
    Menachem Shmei
    Participant

    >Heretical thinking. Hashem has no use for candidates.

    Join the long list of “heretics” (r”l):
    The yeshivos of Rav Shilo, Rav Yanai, Rav Nachman, etc. (Sanhedrin 98b).
    The Sdei Chemed (“בדרך הזה היה משוער אצלם בכל דור מיהו”).
    Rav Shachnah, the Ramah’s teacher. The Ohr Hachayim.
    And many more.

    #2169762
    commonsaychel
    Participant

    Mod 29, thats for sure

    #2169793
    Gadolhadorah
    Participant

    “wow, THAT sounds a lot like a description of Bill Clinton
    Common Saychel: It depends on the the meaning of “THAT” is.

    #2169807
    user176
    Participant

    When everyone accepts that Mashiach may come from a group that they don’t identity with or even may disagree with well surely see him sooner.

    #2169809
    SQUARE_ROOT
    Participant

    If my memory is correct, our Torah teaches that the Melech HaMashiach will be identified by Eliyahu HaNavi, and later confirmed by the Sanhedrin.

    The opinions of ordinary people will not count, not at all.

    The vast majority of Chareidim will never accept any candidate for the Melech HaMashiach who is Sephardic or a Baal Teshuvah or Modern Orthodox or Religious Zionist, even though there is no Halachic reason why those people should be automatically disqualified — but Chareidim have a very low opinion of those people, so they will never consider it.

    #2169818
    ujm
    Participant

    The OP did NOT ask to take a vote who should/will be Moshiach. It simply asked who do you think are the most likely candidates that will end up being Moshiach.

    #2169917

    > The opinions of ordinary people will not count, not at all.

    This is not correct. Jews have indirect electoral system:

    People hire local Rabbis in a shul, support local schools, ask shailos and send their children and shekels to yeshivos. They also visit Rebbes and bring donations.

    Local rebbes, melameds send their shailos and children to Talmidei Chachamim they consider best in learning and middos.

    Eventually, this affects who is writing teshuvos, determines school curriculum, and becomes member of Meoetzes and Sanhedrin. Could a Talmid Chacham, like Rogachover, be recognized even if ordinary people do not appreciate him? yes, but only if other “accepted” TCim recognize him.

    #2169919

    So, it seems we identified the most difficult issue: will people accept a Moschiach from another group? What happens when Hashem sends him and he is not accepted?

    Maybe we should start working on the achdus then rather than pushing for specific candidates and disparaging the ones we disagree …

    R Kamenetsky also thought about it when he remarked in R Auerbach’s yeshiva that Maschiach is going to come from that yeshiva because they had top shiurim in Ivrit instead of Yiddish and thus making it accessible to non-Ashkenazim. Obviously, he meant that achdus is a prerequisite at least
    for the M/ himself,, but maybe he meant that a Sephardi with Ashkenazi learning would qualify and get everyone’s respect?

    R Steinsaltz offered a more conservative “rely on Hashem” solution: he used to say that we mis-understand Gemora that if all Rabbis of one generation daven on the same street of Yerushalaim, M will come … it means that only when he comes, they all be able to daven together.

    A final thought – maybe having M b Yosef and b David is to soften some of these acceptance issues? Yosef and David are abotu different styles of leadership, after all. So, maybe one will be moderni, one charedi, or one sephardi, one – Asheknazi, one – litvishe, one – chasidishe

    so, if your preference is charedi/ashkenazi/litvishe, you may accept if at least 1 of the 2 is moderni/ashkenazi/litvishe or charedi/ashkenazi/chasidic or charedi/sephardi/litvishe

    #2169989
    GadolHadofi
    Participant

    AAQ,

    Kol Torah in Bayit Vegan is indeed a beautiful yeshiva but the story with R. Yaakov, zt”l actually took place during his visit to Kol Yaakov in Bayit Vegan, the yeshiva founded by R. Adess.

    #2170031
    Yserbius123
    Participant

    And to be fair, the only reason Kol Torah had Ivrit shiurim was because of all the German and Italian bochurim who came to it after the war, attracted by the German Roshei Yeshivos, Rav Schlesinger and Rav Kunstadt.

    #2170061
    kaltlitvak
    Participant

    “The vast majority of Chareidim will never accept any candidate for the Melech HaMashiach who is Sephardic or a Baal Teshuvah or Modern Orthodox or Religious Zionist, even though there is no Halachic reason why those people should be automatically disqualified — but Chareidim have a very low opinion of those people, so they will never consider it”

    it sounds like you would never accept any chareidi people, because you feel inferior to them. you should probably work on your self esteem instead of ripping on a very choshuve chelek of klal yisroel

    #2170109
    spot on
    Participant

    “The vast majority of Chareidim will never accept any candidate for the Melech HaMashiach who is …a Baal Teshuvah…even though there is no Halachic reason why those people should be automatically disqualified…”
    i think the rambam says that moshiach will be muchzak bechassidus from a young age. But I might be mistaken.

    #2170131

    GadolHadofi, thanks for the correction! Your version appears to be right. I definitely heard R Ouerbach, maybe my source confused kol vekol and added the name.

    We definitely need to keep the right track of the yeshiva from where Moschiach will come!

    #2170138
    n0mesorah
    Participant

    Dear Always,

    Your indirect elections is bogus. There are great gaonim that have major clout by the leading public faces of today’s rabbanus that are virtually unknown to their own home crowd.

    If someone is an armchair hypothesist, they run the risk of sometimes being untruthful. But since they have no idea what they are talking about anyway, they may as well be lying all the time. It might just be worth thinking about.

    #2170152
    n0mesorah
    Participant

    …. of chareidem….

    Only the newcomers. Longstanding observant Jews genuinely care about every Yid. It’s in their DNA. Literally, scientifically, mamash a mitzius. You may even come across OTD kids with a long yichus that still have this trait. The chareidi communities have many yidden teaching in less chareidi schools. (Ahem.) Chareidi mohelem charge less (Some do it free.) to give kosher milah to babies in reformed families. There are chareidi programs to daven for fallen IDF soldiers. And chareidem seek out great Torah personalities from across the spectrum. As one MO gadol said, I am running after my congregation. They are running away from the a certain yeshiva’s alumni. And those alumni are running after me.

    #2170167

    n0, this is exactly what “indirect” elections are. Baalei batim direct their effort in certain direction and it indirectly affects Rabonim they do not control directly. Same, as a FCC or CDC chief may affect you iwth their decisions, but you have no _direct_ impact on their election, but do have indirect through all other elections you participated in.

    This is not my idea, actually but a retort I got from a Talmid Chacham yearss ago. He was teaching about certain historical change in Ashkenazi teshuvos from business ethics towards pot-and-pan kashrus. So I asked what I thought was a sharp question – “so it is _your_ fault?”. He retorted – “No, it is _your_ fault”.

    #2170197
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    Nom, i think moshiach must be coming soon, because you wrote something that i actually agree with!

    I don’t think it depends on yichus though; i think people who look down on others would do so in a different context, i.e. if they were rich, they’d look down on the poor, etc… it’s a bad middah, like any other. Truly frum people who have worked on their middos don’t look down on other jews.

    Actually, among the people I’ve seen who actually look down on others, I’ve only seen it by heimishe people who aren’t particularly knowledgeable who feel like they have to grab on to their yiddish or minhagim that they have, and look askance at someone solely because they’re sefardi or a BT; I’m talking about sefardim and BTs who are just as frum, if not moreso, talk with yeshivish language, dress like everyone else, etc…

    An example of this is the fact that roshei yeshiva of chaim berlin and torah vodaas had no issue taking sons in law who were sefardi, and those are just the ones i can think of off the top of my head.

    I do agree that newcomers can be more insecure and will lash out more because they feel threatened, and aren’t sure that they are in the right, because if you can’t learn shulchan aruch yourself, and you’re just going by what your rebbe told you, maybe there really isn’t a halacha against the things less frum people do?

    For all my online rhetoric, many here would be surprised at how i interact with other jews who aren’t frum or less frum. The same way, and I’m in no way comparing myself, people are surprised to know of a certain rosh yeshiva who was among the most anti-chabad voices in the world, who housed a yechi-nik and his family, some of whom were disabled and had a very difficult life.

    #2170349
    benToiroh
    Participant

    To the commenter who cited OU in 1996 that there was never a shita in Torah that Moshiach can come from Techiyas Hameisim:

    1. Rashi Sanhedrin 98b (apparently allows for it)
    2. Rambam (only disqualifies someone who was killed)
    2. Abarbenel Sefer Yeshuos Meshicho (definitely promotes it)
    3. Sefer Sidei Chemed (indicates it is preferable)

    About voting for a King/Moshiach:

    It is a Mitzvah Aseh for each person ‘Som tosim alecha Melech’, arguably indicating that “voting” is a valid method to appoint a King in that it constitutes each person’s fulfilment of the Mitzvah.

    #2170240
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    Aaq, “ashkenazi” teshuvos deal with anything and everything; no *change” happened in the frequency of shailos – also do you think poskim publish every answer they gave to every question? Shu”t is a style of writing a sefer; they pick which ones they use, and some even “asked” themselves shailos to get into the sugya – if there was, in fact, a dirth of questions in a certain area, they’d just write about them stam.

    Whole premise just shows that this “talmid chacham” probably is not interested in normative halacha, and prefers ethical discourse: it’s a lot easier to pontificate and give synagogue sermons to Sabbath attendees about ethics, philosophy, current events, and other things that they and the rabbi want to hear, than it is to learn halacha b’iyun.

    And what is meant by “ashkenaz” – does he mean that Hungarian, German, Lithuanian, polish, galician, Russian, Latvian jews all changed wholesale into chicken shailoh based judaism, and, let me guess, the sefardim somehow didn’t, and contributed more towards business questions? Has this person ever learned kaf hachaim, ben ish chai, sdei Chemed… Anything? The topics are all the same whenever you look .

    He probably just likes that sefardim are generally more meikil.

    #2170397
    n0mesorah
    Participant

    Dear Avira,

    Not just not looking down. But genuine care and interest.

    #2170398
    n0mesorah
    Participant

    Dear Always,

    What do you say about serious global halachic questions that are decided by an unkown talmid chochom sitting in kollel for twenty five years? Just to give you the picture, the people sitting around him do not know that he answers questions from all over the globe. And even his wife and kids are barely aware of it. He is never invited to any asifa and is not asked for brachos. Oh, and nobody ever takes his picture. His suit and hat are older than me.

    #2170395
    n0mesorah
    Participant

    Dear Ben,

    My vote would never coronate any king. It’s a ridiculous sevara. Have you seen it anywhere?

    #2170427
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    Ben, do you really think that the prime minister has the din of a melech? Even the most fanatical zionists don’t say that. They don’t make a bracha on Netanyahu.

    A king must be annointed, too.

    Anyways, the abarbanel does not advocate for that shitah in the gemara; you misread. And where is this supposed sdei chemed? The rambam clearly paskened not like that shitah, that if a messianic candidate dies, he is disqualified.

    #2170475
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    Also, that shitah in the gemara says that if moshiach will be from the meisim, he will be like Daniel….meaning it’ll be someone from those generations; not someone who lived after the time of the achronim who fulfilled none, literally none, of the criteria necessary (aside from his being an ainikel of the maharal)

    #2170576

    Avira, I was not precise, we discussed specifically Polish responsa. I tihnk this is connected historically with overall decline of Poland during industrialization when they enjoyed being the most productive country while others to the West retooled… Jews being part of the economy developed accordingly.

    I already commented on your really sick attitude of questioning credential of anyone quoted outside of your immediate knowledge. I presume YWM has a hidden list of Torah credentials that they do not allow to offend, I am not sure how one registers with the list.

    #2170577

    > What do you say about serious global halachic questions that are decided by an unkown talmid chochom sitting in kollel for twenty five years?

    sounds intriguing. Sowa not contradict my thesis at all – someone decides to send him questions. I am not sure what are you trying to contradict.

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