Hora’ah – הוראה – Teaching
“… our Mashiach is destined to be hidden after he is revealed and to be revealed again. So we find in Midrash Ruth”
Rashi on Sefer Daniel 12:12
“The redeemer will be revealed and he will again be concealed… for so we find with redemption from Egypt that Moshe was revealed to them and he was again concealed from them.
Rabbeinu Bachya, Shemos 4:9
And so says the midrash… so did the first redeemer appear to them and was again concealed from them, and once again revealed to them. The future redeemer (Mashiach) wil be revealed and again concealed”
Chasam Sofer, Zohar Shemos 7a-9b, Ohr Hachama, Arizal
My beloved is like a gazelle ; as the gazelle appears and then disappears, so the first redeemer appeared and then disappeared. R. Berekiah in the name of R. Levi said: Like the first redeemer so will the final redeemer be. The first redeemer was Moses, who appeared to them and then disappeared.
Midrash Rabba Bamidbar 11:2]
Many sources describe a dramatic difference between the first time Mashiach is revealed, when “Mashiach will be revealed but they won’t recognize him,” after which ‘he will be concealed, like Moshe, and body and soul” and the final revelation of Mashiach when “after this, he will be revealed completely and all Israel will recognize him and gather to him…”
Zohar Shemos 7a, quoted in Sha’ar Hagilgulim ch.13, Arba Me’os Shekel Kesef, p.68. Ohr Hachama on the Zohar
And after his coming and revelation there’s an interruption, and then he completes the process – this is found in a number of places in Torah. Let me just mention a few. One is Midrash Rabba Shir HaShirim 2:22, on the pasuk “Domeh dodi l’tzvi.” And the Midrash says, just like a deer is revealed, and hidden, and again hidden. I guess it means that when it runs, it runs between the trees – you see it and then you don’t see it. That’s what happened with Moshe Rabbeinu in Egypt. He came, and then he was concealed for a few months – there are different opinions how many months – and then he was revealed again and took the Jews out of Mitzrayim. The Midrash concludes the same thing will be with Moshiach: He will be revealed, then he will be hidden, and then he will be revealed again. In fact, the Midrash says that when he will be hidden, it will be a very difficult time. There will be people who will stop believing in him because of that, and that ultimately he will come. This message is also in Rashi, in Daniel 12:12. The pasuk says, “Ashrei ha’m’chakim” (fortunate are those who will wait for Moshiach). Rashi says this is not just talking about people in general who wait for Moshiach…fortunate are those who will wait for Moshiach after he is revealed, and then he will be hidden, and then revealed again. In that in-between time: fortunate are those who persevere in their emuna. In fact, Rashi says this is brought down in the davening, in the siddur, the “Yotzer” for Parshas HaChodesh. Anyone can look it up. It’s in the Rav Yaakov Emden Siddur. It says the same thing: Moshiach will come, be revealed, then he’ll be hidden, and revealed again. It’s also found in this week’s parsha, Parshas Shmos. Rabbeinu Bechaye, at the end of the parsha, says, “Moshe Rabbeinu came, then he was hidden, and then he came back to take the Yidden out of Mitzrayim.” And he writes that the same will be with Moshiach, as it says, “Kimei tzeis’cha m’Eretz Mitzrayim ar’enu niflaos.” This redemption will be similar to the redemption in the times of Mitzrayim. The Chasam Sofer, one of the greatest masters of halacha in our recent generations, also wrote in his seifer, Toras Moshe, on this parsha, Shmos. At the end of the parsha, he says that the fact that Moshe was gone for six months was a very big test. The same will be b’yimei Moshiach Tzidkeinu, yinelam achar nisgaleh (in the days of Moshiach Tzidkeinu, he will be concealed after he is revealed), and we will need special assistance from Hashem to stand up to this test. As mentioned before, the Arizal in Seifer Shaar HaGilgulim also says the same thing – that he’ll come, and like Moshe Rabbeinu, he will disappear, go away, we won’t have him. Then he’ll come back and take all the Yidden out of Galus.”
Rabbi Majeski, A Preface to Moshiach: Setting the Record Straight, Moshiach & Geula, BeisMoshiach.org
Citing a passage in Tikunei hazohar (Zohar hadash, tikunim, 112d-113a), the Ramchal wrote that what was meant by Pharaoh’s decree that all newborn males were to be cast into the river, and by the concealment of Moshe in ‘the ark of bulrushes’ (Exo.1:22; 2:3), was the retention of ‘the light of the Torah’ and ‘the spirit of the Mashiach’ in Gan Eden (Adir bamarom, 27-9). This surprising exposition (‘into the river’ = to Gan Eden, ‘cast him’ = conceal the secrets of the Torah and the Mashiach in Gan Eden) has no support in the passage in the Zohar on which it is alleged to be based or in Luzzatto’s lame explanation of the subject matter of the exposition. (Zohar hadash, tikunim, 98b; Tikunei Zohar, tikun 21, 53b – the casting into the river is made to apply to the degradation of esoteric secrets; that is to say, Pharaoh’s order ‘Cast him into the river’ is understood as alluding to the decree that the decree that the secrets of the Torah should be cast out and besmirched in exile. None of the three passages contains any reference to ‘Gan Eden’). But it contains the key to the understanding of his TRUE INTENTION, which he declared he had purposely obscured. What he really meant by ‘the river’ was the abyssof the kelipot – the evil spirits known as the husks – and since the secrets of the Torah and the soul of the Mashiach were being held captive in the prison of the Sitra Achra for so long as the Temple lay in ruins and Israel was in exile, it was said of them that they were cast ‘into the river.’ As for the kabbalistic scholars who sought to attain a knowledge of the mysteries hidden in the river of the husks, they, too, must cast themselves into it in order to extract those mysteries. ‘The son that is born’ is the Moshe-Mashiach, by which designation is meant that ‘when the Temple was destroyed, truly the Mashiach was born, as is well known.’ Contained within the spirit of the Mashiach were secrets of the Torah and holy powers whihc had to be known and understood in order to bring about the Redemption, but the Holy One, blessed be He, decreed that during the Exile ‘the transmission of the divine spirit to the Mashiach will be blocked, and he will be unable to draw the emanation downt into Israel as he should, but will be cast into the river.’ Thus, so long as the Mashiach and the secrets of the Torah he carried within him remained plunged in the river of the husks of evil, the Exile would continue, and therefore ‘the reapers of the field’ [kabbalists] were given the ability to attach themselves to them and all to be contained within the spirit of Mashiach… and to hold strongly to him, so that they should all be cast into the river; and that is the tikun which I am expounding to you… and so they will receive there what is proper for them to receive and afterwards bring it down, and will be called maskilim [‘enlightened’ or ‘enlighteners’] … and the reason that the Scriptural expression tashikhuhu [‘cast him’] has become taskiluhu [‘enlighten him’] is that they are perfected through the mystical action of [the sefirah] Yesod, so as subsequently to bestow this bounty on others. In freeing the captive secrets from dominion of the husks they would also liberate the soul of the Mashiach and help him to complete the Redemption, ‘for the Mashiach is called tzadik [‘righteous’], as in the allusion in Scripture: “he is righteous and saved” (Zech.9:9), and those who hold fast to his strength are called tzadikim.’
Messianic Mysticism, Isaiah Tishby, pg.70,71
In both the Jerusalem and in Midrash Rabba we find the tale of Menachem son of Hezekiah who was born on the day that the Temple was destroyed and was named messiah. The infant was plucked from his mother’s arms by the wind and disappeard with no trace. The reader of this tale is left wondering whether the infant was snatched up to the heavens still alive – some day perhaps to return.
The Scroll of Secrets: The Hidden Messianic Vision of R. Nachman of Breslav, Zvi Mark, p.130
The Book of Kings relates the story of Aviah the son of Jeroboam son of Nabat. Aviah grew sick, and came together with his mother to the prophet Achiya so that he would pray for his recovery. Achiya, however, decreed that the child would die and after his death he was eulogized by ‘all of Israel…for some good thing for G-d, the G-d of Israel, was found in him. … The good found in the dead Aviah was the messianic potential within him – the Josephia (father of Efraim) messiah. … The Talmud interprets this as referring to the ‘Josephian messiah who was killed.’
The Scroll of Secrets: The Hidden Messianic Vision of R. Nachman of Breslav, Zvi Mark, pp.130,131
There is another messianic tradition based on the story from the book of Kings which tells of the prophet Elijah’s resurrection of the widow’s son. Concerning this child, a midrash states, ‘he was the Josephian messiah.” The analogy between this miraculously resurrrected child and the Josephian messiah is strengthened even more when we take into account the tradition that foretells of this messiah’s own future ressurection after death.
The Scroll of Secrets: The Hidden Messianic Vision of R. Nachman of Breslav, Zvi Mark, p.131
NEW TESTAMENT
“In my Father’s house are many rooms,” and “I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.”
John 14:2,3
“If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever— the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.”
John 14:15-18
“These things I have spoken to you while being present with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. You have heard Me say to you, ‘I am going away and coming back to you.’ If you loved Me, you would rejoice because I said, ‘I am going to the Father,’ for My Father is greater than I. “And now I have told you before it comes, that when it does come to pass, you may believe. I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in Me. But that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father gave Me commandment, so I do. Arise, let us go from here.”
John 14:25-31
“So then, after the Lord had spoken to them, He was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God.”
Mark 16:19
For Messiah also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to G-d, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit, by whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly were disobedient, when once the Divine longsuffering waited[f] in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water. There is also an antitype which now saves us—baptism (not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward G-d), through the resurrection of Yeshua the Messiah, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of G-d, angels and authorities and powers having been made subject to Him.
1Peter 3:18-22
“And said, y“Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”
Acts 1:11
“Yeshua said to him, “You have said so. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man is seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.”
Matthew 26:64
“If then you have been raised with Messiah, seek the things that are above, where Messiah is, seated at the right hand of G-d.”
Colossians 3:1
“Looking to Yeshua, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of G-d.
Hebrews 12:2