Chapter 10. The Messiah and the End of Days
The Light of the Messiah
Q: Do you believe that the Messiah will come?
A: The Messiah is a Light that draws one to the center, to the Creator, and to the source that he must return to. Any person has his own private Messiah, meaning a personal Light of correction. But there is also a collective Light of correction, which will bring the whole of mankind to another level of existence, a sublime one.
Nothing external will change in our world when this Light comes. Everything will be the same, but there will be an internal soaring, the whole of mankind will rise and people will feel that they are in a collective, genuine reality. They will no longer feel such things as life and death and time.
The corporeal body will become meaningless, and we will have no feeling of connection with it. People will relate themselves to the soul. It is, in fact, what happens to Kabbalists. For one who feels the Upper Reality, this lower, inferior world, becomes meaningless.
The Messiah is a Light from the Creator that will raise the whole of mankind to spirituality. It is not a person, although there will be people who will guide humanity to spirituality and teach it the spiritual system, but they will only be representatives of the Messiah.
Q: What is the coming of the Messiah and when will it happen?
A: The Messiah is a Light from Above that affects us when we study Kabbalah and corrects us. That collective force is called “Messiah.” It is not a single person, but a spiritual force that pulls us from this world to the spiritual world. It allows one to begin to feel this world and the Upper One simultaneously.
Q: Is the Messiah a person or a force?
A: People are at a degree where they cannot perceive the Messiah as Light, but only as a flesh-and-blood leader. But when Kabbalists speak of the Messiah, they refer to a superior Force of spiritual correction, a Light that gives one a chance to improve one’s attributes.
The Messiah will be the pulling, liberating Force from the government of the desires to enjoy for ourselves. When that Light penetrates us, meaning the “receiving nature,” it will correct us and turn us from receivers to givers – like the Creator.
However, all the spiritual forces are revealed in corporeal raiment. For example: Rabbi Shimon Bar-Yochai, the Ari and Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag-all three represent one exalted soul that radiates a great Light of correction. However, it appears in our world as a person, a Kabbalist, a teacher and a writer of books.
Such a thing happens not only with regard to a super-Kabbalist, but also with regard to a redeeming Messiah. He must be a person, a leader, who under the guidance of the Creator and through the Force of the Creator, will be able to direct the entire world to the purpose of creation.
Humanity will have no other way out of the evil and the torment that each person will feel, other than recognizing him as the leader, and following the path that he will show us.
Kabbalah and the Messiah
Q: How is the circulation of Kabbalah related to the coming of the Messiah?
A: Indeed, the success in the circulation of Kabbalah is evident all over the world. In the Torah it says that in the End of Days, all the peoples will want spirituality: “For they shall all know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them” (Jeremiah 31, 33).
The growing interest in spirituality at this time, in addition to its growing commercialism,, testifies to the coming of the days of the Messiah. Soon there will come a day when a spiritual Force will come down to the world and open the eyes of mankind and enable it to see the complete reality.
Q: What should we expect now with the coming of the Messiah, and how should we understand it from the point of view of the Kabbalah?
A: A person acts only according to one’s feelings, to what stems from one’s inner needs. It cannot be any other way. New Reshimot, new data and new instructions that we must implement surface in us each minute. This is how we advance toward our corrected situation, the eternal and optimal situation.
These instructions are inside each and every one of us, just as the knowledge of the mechanisms of the body is imprinted in our genes. All our future situations are imprinted in us and must be implanted one by one, by a predefined order.
This means that our path has already been set. It is so because we were already in a perfect state, one that the Creator had created in the beginning. But afterwards, we drifted from that state to its opposite, to a state of complete imperfection. Our task now is to go back the same path from which we drifted from Above, from the perfect to the imperfect – to rise by ourselves to the preliminary state from which we descended.
Part of that road is taken by man unconsciously, as we do today. That part of it is called “This World,” or “Our World.” The part of the road that is taken consciously is the part that lies past the barrier, which is the border between this world and the Upper World, or the “Spiritual World.”
Man can only imagine what he can sense, and nothing more. He will never be able to feel the higher degree, the degree above his present degree. That is why he can aspire to the final goal of creation to begin with. In every situation, he pictures the final goal by what he can now see as the best situation from his current state.
Everyone knows that different peoples and religions picture the future world in a different way. Much like that, the Messiah is seen as the force that will deliver us from our present state and help us transcend to the best possible situation. We can all picture that state according to our own level of attainment. For each person, the “next world” and the “Messiah” are different things, and they vary from one degree to the next. But they become fully understood only at the final degree of the spiritual ladder.
The method of the Kabbalah speeds up the pace of the surfacing of the situations concealed in us and significantly shortens the whole process. It is much like what happens in a chemical reaction. It is possible to contract the process by a million times. You can save millions of life cycles in just one lifetime and profit millions of times more than everybody else.
This is not only an improvement in quantity, but also in quality. Your toothaches, for example, will not last millions of moments, but only one moment. That is why it is not a good idea to slight Kabbalah studies.
The Messiah in the Zohar and in the Talmud
Q: It is said in the Zohar that before the coming of the Messiah, everyone will learn Kabbalah. On the other hand, the Talmud says that “the face of the generation will be as the face of the dog,” meaning that everyone will be out for himself. How is it possible to reconcile those two arguments? In order for the Messiah to come, must everyone study Kabbalah?
A: Baal HaSulam writes in his introduction to the Tree of Life that at the end of time, everyone will abandon Kabbalah because they will no longer be able to trade with it as in the market, because there will be no buyers. People will abandon it because they will realize that it cannot give them anything: it cannot fill them with pleasure, cannot grant them respect in the eyes of others, or control over them. Therefore, there will be no limitations before a person who will want to come and study the wisdom of Kabbalah.
The efforts of those who will study it will induce the coming of the Messiah. Here is a quote from the words of Baal HaSulam: “…And behind these words and that truth, we seem to find a profound contradiction from end to end, in the words of our sages, that the Zohar says that ‘at the time of the Messiah that wisdom is destined to be revealed even to the young.’ And by the above we find that at the time of the Messiah, that whole generation will be at the highest degree until no watch will be needed, and the fountains of truth shall open to water the entire nation. But in Masechet Suta it says that at the time of the Messiah, Hutzpa (impudence) will soar and authors’ wisdom shall go astray and the righteous will be sick. Thus it is explained that there is none so evil as this generation. So how do we reconcile between those two, for certainly they are both the words of the living God?
Hence, we must establish schools and compose books, to hurry the circulation of the wisdom in the nation. And that was not the case before, for fear lest unworthy disciples would mingle with the worthy, as we’ve explained above at length. That became the primary reason for our many sins to this day, and consequently for the prolonging of the exile.
Our sages said: ‘Messiah Son of David doth not come, but in time when the generation is all worthy,’ meaning that every one will retire from pursuit of glory and lust, at which time it will be possible to establish schools and prepare them for the coming of the Messiah Son of David. ‘Or in time when the generation is all unworthy,’ meaning at such a generation when the ‘face of the generation is as the face of a dog,’ and ‘the righteous shall be considered loathsome,’ and ‘authors’ wisdom will go astray’ in them.
At such a time it will be possible to remove the careful guard and anyone who will remain in the house of Jacob with his heart pounding to attain the goal and the purpose, ‘Holy’ be his name, and he shall step forth and learn. For there will no longer be fear lest he might not stand firm and trade the wisdom in the market, for there is no one in the mob who will wish to buy it, and the wisdom will be loathsome in their eyes, so that no glory or desire can be bought in return for it.
Hence, he who wishes to enter may come and enter. And many will roam and the knowledge will increase among the worthy. And by that we will soon be blessed with the coming of the Messiah and the redemption of our souls soon in our days, amen.”
What is the Sensation of Time?
Q: The end of the world did not come in the year 2000, and you deny any reference to “human time.” What, then, is the sensation of time and where does it come from?
A: There is a spiritual time, which is a sequence of situations (you can read about it in the first part of The Study of the Ten Sefirot – Inner Reflection). The sensation of time in our world is a bit like this: we feel that “time stands still,” or that the hours rush by and “time flies.” But that, too, is still relative, as we now know.
Indeed, time and space do not exist. There is, however, a sensation of “time”: it is how we feel the Light in our desires to delight ourselves. That is the picture that the Light creates as it passes by the inner layers of our desire for pleasure.
When we change the “method” of sensing our environment from reception to bestowal, we learn to evaluate time and space entirely differently, and begin to realize that they are only a result of the effect of our evil inclination, of the “shells,” or forces opposite to spirituality. We begin to see that the sensation of time and space is only a consequence of our handicaps.
When we begin to see the structure of the Upper Forces and their composition, we develop a completely different relationship with the outer world, and live in completely different dimensions of time and space. Then, our hard times or happy times are expressions of our spiritual situations, a consequence of the spiritual degree we are in, and not of a piece of paper in a calendar.
In the spiritual world, the degrees are called “years,” but they are not connected with our calendar. That is why, apart from the changing of the dates in our calendars, nothing happened on that date.
Prophecies That Did Not Come True
Q: Contrary to all predictions, nothing happened in 1984, or at the end of the millennium. Are there similar events that await us in the near future?
A: In 1984, as in 2000, many predicted the end of the world. Of course, those were only baseless speculations and human beliefs. In spiritual worlds there isn’t a unique root for 1984, or for 2000, because humans invented those dates. But people want change, and some of them also see pretty good business opportunities here.
Humans invented both the calendar and the dates. The millennium was just a date that mankind agreed upon. It went by just like all other dates. People want change because they are unhappy, and their desire for change stems from their will to delight themselves.
Humanity will gradually open its eyes to realize that the solution to its problems, and the way to perfection, wealth, and health, confidence and eternity, is not in the will to enjoy, but outside that will. According to the Zohar, there will indeed be great wars, but they will be internal ones, within each and every one of us.
The millennium has nothing to do with that process, which is why it went by so quietly, compared to the expectations it raised. I wish you the attainment of your own personal calendars, and that you will see all the dates in it, which are the spiritual degrees.
War and Redemption
Q: It says that the Messiah will come after Gog U Magog. What does this mean? Do we really have to wait for him, and if so, how do we prepare for his coming?
A: The Messiah is a Superior Force that shows man the worlds around him. The preparation for his coming is in the desire to live in both worlds, in ours and in the Upper One, develop awareness and recognition, want to attain correction, and equalize with the Creator.
The popular interpretation of the Messiah is that of a man-redeemer, who, when he comes, will bring us personal gain: monetary, health, power and control. There is no one who needs the Messiah in his actual form as the corrector of man. Messiah is a force that pulls one from our world to the spiritual world, the force that brings us to spirituality.
Q: What is the war of Gog U Magog?
A: The war of Gog U Magog is a spiritual term that relates to Kabbalah. It is not spoken of anywhere but in Kabbalah. Gog U Magog happens at a spiritual degree and not as it does in our world, where the wars and torments happen before our eyes.
Spirituality and the Temple
Q: During the days following Pesach (Passover) we mourn for 24,000 of Rabbi Akiva’s disciples who lost their lives in an epidemic. What does this tragedy tell us from a perspective of Kabbalah?
A: All of Rabbi Akiva’s disciples were great Torah sages and were to become Kabbalists. But instead of cultivating love, they devolved to irrationally hate each other. Such negative feelings in the midst of these sages led to the downfall of the entire people and, as a result, to a generally low level of the Jewish people. Their enemies gained strength from Above, attacked, conquered, destroyed and dispersed them.
Our condition is totally dependent on our spiritual level. It determines our strength and our destiny. If we want to feel better, we must ascend to a higher spiritual level. Hence it is said, “A generation in which the Temple is not built is as the generation in which it was ruined.”
If we could climb to a spiritual degree where the Temple could exist, in which people live in love, then the Temple would have to be rebuilt. The Higher Governing Force would instill the necessary desires in people and create general events that would lead to it.
However, the level of our people has hardly improved since the ruin of the Temple. The change can come only through the studying of Kabbalah, because it reveals to us the evil that reigns in us.
The ThirdTemple – First in Our Hearts, Then in Stone
Q: Do we have to look for the Ark? Rebuild one? How can we live without the Temple? The time has come.
A:What will you get if you find the ark, or build a new one? And if you do build the Temple, what will you do in it and with it? Will you display it to tourists? It may become good business, but nothing more than that.
We need to first reach the spiritual level of this Temple. The first Temple was of Light of Hochma (wisdom), the second Temple was the Light of Hassadim (mercy), but the third Temple has to be of Light of Yechida, the highest of all.
The Temple is built or destroyed according to how people in it match its spiritual level. Hence, in order to build the Temple we first need to reach the state of
the end of correction. This is what you have to worry about both for yourself and for others.
The Era of the “Secrets of the Torah”
Q: Sooner or later the six thousand years will pass, the arguments will subside, the days of the Messiah will come and we will all unite with the Creator. What will we do afterwards? What will we create? Will we have to raise the animals, the plants and the rocks to a higher level?
A: It is interesting to see how much a person wants to know of what awaits him beyond the highest degree, when he doesn’t even know what the lowest degree is like! The difference between the degrees, as between the worlds, is enormous. The number of degrees is 125. By completing his ascent, a creature only corrects himself, his own vessel. After the correction he is ready to perform his real task, unification with the Creator.
But what the soul does in the spiritual summit is not even conceived by our imagination – those are the “secrets of Torah.” The secrets are called “ Ma’ase Merkava,” and “ Ma’ase Bereshit. Those secrets cannot be disclosed because people in lower degrees (even one degree below the top) cannot understand what goes on there… therefore, let us dare to climb the first ones first!