Sanhedrin 98: Moshiach/Messiah

Amud (a) focuses on Moshiach, the messiah.  How will we know when the messiah has arrived?  What will it take for the messiah to arrive?  How might we hasten that coming?  The rabbis share their ideas, all with prooftexts, of course.  They have numerous thoughts about when the messiah will come, including when the vast majority of Jews are not interested in halacha any longer, or when all of the Jewish community is naive and innocent.  The rabbis take for granted that the messiah will be of the line of King David.  They wonder if he might enter the community from the main gates in Rome.  They also suggest that he might sit with other paupers on the steps of Rome, bandaging his feet differently from others because he will be working toward healing so many people for the remainder of the day.  

Amud (b) shows the rabbis wondering about the pain that will come before and after the messiah arrives.  Will it be like labour pains?  Each rabbi shares his thoughts about who might be the messiah.  The students of each rabbi are certain that their teacher is the one who will be the messiah in the end. One rabbi, Rav Nachman, states that the messiah would be person like himself, where the messiah to come at the time of their conversation.  Again, prooftext are provided for all assertions.   

When people in a certain era focus on the coming of the messiah, it suggests that things are not going well.  When things are going well, generally we do not wish for life to change.  But when many people speak about what it will take to bring on the end of the world - so that we can eventually live on in the World-to-Come - we can assume that life is difficult. 

What a relief it is to think about a messiah.  Especially a messiah in our own lifetime!  But if a messiah were to come when our people are without connection to Torah and halacha, well, now would be the time.  And if a messiah were to come when our people are vulnerable or naive, well, what time was better than the holocaust?  Why wouldn't that warrant the change that the messiah would herald?  So it is though to believe that a messiah is coming any time soon. And I would love to be able to hang onto that luxurious thought.  But I just can't.