Does War Precede the Coming of The Messiah? Rabbi Dovid Gottleib

you have different descriptions. Um if you think about the ER, the silent prayer, you have three blessings of praise and you have six blessings where you make private petitions for you, for your community, for your time. And then there are six really seven more which are national. They talk about national. They go up to the final redemption. Now if you look at the order of the blessings there you'll see that the very last blessing is coming of Messiah the last one at the end not coming back to the land and not restoring justice and not rebuilding and that's based on the Gabbor migill that is one possible scenario where the Msiah comes at the end and it's all been done already there are other possible scenarios that's why says the descriptions of the messianic era are based on verses in the Tanakh, some in the Torah and many in the in the prophets. And the verses are vague and ambiguous and difficult to understand. And the Ram says we have no oral tradition and therefore he says we're thrown back on the verses we don't understand and therefore we don't know exactly how it's going to happen till it happens. And he says, "Furthermore, it's not appropriate to invest time and effort studying these matters because they don't add to awe of Hashem and they don't add to the love of Hashem. Study how to do his will. Study how to understand his Torah and and and leave that to to experience it when it comes." And we find in the Talmud different attitudes towards it. Uh two of the Tamilic sages said, "Let him come. Let the Messiah come and let me not see him because there is a prediction of a very disastrous war with many casualties which again no one is saying it has to happen but it can happen. It's one of the and they said well they're afraid of the of the of the test that will be uh they'll have to pass in living through those events. Uh the Torah is very realistic about human psychology and human limitations and being realistic is to recognize that it's a complex phenomenon and has different dimensions. Uh there was a time many years ago when I perused some of psychology and I think it's fair to say that the popular schools of psych psychological explanation and therapy have each one has some truth in it and each one makes the mistake of taking the some truth and making it the whole truth. There's no not a sufficient appreciation for how complex and subtle the human being is to the extent that we really don't understand very well what the human being is doing. And if you reduce a human being to a to a a a formula whether it be Freud or whether it be Adler or whether it be Jung whether it be existentialist therapy if you reduce it to a formula it's definitely not correct. It may have part of the truth but because human beings aren't reducible to a formula like that. Even the one who has 64 different categories of people and you can mold the your picture. The Miriam Adahan who wrote about this writes carefully and say that I'm not saying the categories are exact. I'm not saying that you push people into the categories. They guide your thinking. They guide your evaluation. But you see people who straddle two categories or in some some other condition. You have to accept it and realize that it's only an aid. It's not really a a a a complete description. Now I can just give you an illustration of this. Um the Gmorra says that it is there are times when it is appropriate to pray that someone should die. When is that? When he's got an incurable medical condition and he's in pain. Then now of course you can't take this as a general rule. You have to ask a rabbi to think about a particular case. It depends on the details. But there is such a category of people where you would pray that they should die. So my rebi zatau who was in personal contact with all the great scholars of the age when he went to visit them he always prepared a question you know to hear what this great scholar would say and he went to Rafal and asked him this question. Rashan said the following. When a person is in in terminal disease and and suffering terrible pain, he's undergoing a test of his amuna, his trust in God and his belief in God. And you're praying that he should be released from that test. And the example in the Gmorrah is Rabeno Hakodos, the author of the Mishna, the one whom we call our holy rabbi. He was the one who when he was terminal and he was in terrible pain, the holy yes shea was praying that he should be saved, he should live and his head his servant, his maid servant was praying he should die. But because the holy yes was was pray her preparers couldn't compete. So she caused a disturbance which distracted the yeshiva and then her prayers went through and he died and the Gmorrah says she was right and they were wrong and from that the says there in the dorm that there are times when we do pray that someone should die. Now you know simplistically you could say yeah but isn't all of life about to being tested and the when you you res respond to the test and you pass the test that's life's biggest success. What do you mean you want to be relieved reserved from the test? Yeah. When you do succeed, it's a great victory and you've accomplished a great deal. But also there's a risk that won't go well. Uh and yet and that risk has to be taken seriously. The kamar had several cases where tanoim were suffering and another tan came to visit who had some special merit and the visitor said do you want this suffering and the patient said I don't want the suffering and I don't want the reward and then the visitor did something prayed and the and the suffering was relieved so they themselves were were realistic think about what it means to stand in front of such a such a a a test and we every morning in the holy sitter say don't bring us into a test so you ask well what do you say you're going to give up your life give up free will give up no one purpose that a test can have is for you to take a certain type of situation seriously realize how serious it is and to make an effort to to overcome What's motivating a person to say to God, "Please don't test me." He already realizes that the thing is serious and he realizes that the test may cause him to do something which isn't appropriate and he's afraid of doing the thing that isn't appropriate. He's already learned that lesson by the very fact that he's asking not to be tested shows that he's learned that lesson under those conditions who could listen to the prayer. I'm just pointing out that that all these things which depend upon the psychology of the people at the time and what kind of uh effect it will have on them are very subtle, very deep and that's why you'll have different opinions. Um and uh and one has to be prepared to spend your time in indecision and doubt because we're not going to have a clear total