LESSON 32: Ideal Time
Monday, February 11, 2008
![If the yetzer hara is eliminated during Yemos HaMoshiach, then so is the Malach HaMaves — the Angel of Death, as it says:
Reish Lakish said: Satan, the yetzer hara, and the Angel of Death are all one. (Bava Basra 16a)
Does that mean that death will also be eliminated? No, as Rabbi Shlomo Eliyashiv, the “Ba’al HaLeshem” explains:
Death will not come from the Angel of Death, God forbid, because he will have been eliminated completely, as it says: In the Time-to-Come, The Holy One, Blessed is He, will bring the yetzer hara and slaughter it before the righteous and the evil … (Succah 52a). Then the world will be completely purified … and the matter of death then will be through The Holy One, Blessed is He, alone … as was the death of Moshe Rabbeinu, the deaths of the Forefathers, Aharon, and Miriam … (Drushei Olam HaTohu, 2:4:12:9)
This is known as the concept of “Neshikah”, or “Divine Kiss”. According to the Talmud, there are 903 forms of death (Brochos 8a), of which Neshikah is the most pleasant of all of them. It is the way that God takes the souls of the righteous, for whom death does not need to be a form of atonement. It is the way that all people will die in Yemos HaMoshiach.
As promised, war will be an evil of the past. Amalek, and everything Amalekian, will also belong to the past, allowing for the fulfillment of the verse:
On that day, God will be one and His Name, one. (Zechariah 14:9)
As Rashi explains at the end of Parashas Beshallach (Shemos 17:16), Amalek “divides” the Name of God into two parts: Yud-Heh and Vav-Heh. This means, in everyday terms, that he causes results that make men question the reality of God, and His involvement in the affairs of man.
The Torah says:
You saw [the events of Mt. Sinai] in order to know that Hashem is Elokim, and there is nothing else besides Him. (Devarim 4:35)
This is the sum total of all that a Jew is supposed to believe with all of his heart. Amalek comes to confuse us, to create doubt in our minds as to the extent that God is involved in our everyday affairs. Hence, the gematria of his name — 240 — is the same as the Hebrew word for “doubt”, suffek.
Everything that we do is for the sake of unifying the Divine Name, whether we are saying the “Shema”, performing a basic mitzvah, or just taking time for ourselves. And, nothing does this more than acting in such a way that shows one’s trust and faith in God, something that is not always so easy to do in this world.
However, in Yemos HaMoshiach, the struggle will be over. At that time of intense Divine revelation, Divine Providence will no longer be theoretical, on any level, but perfectly apparent in every aspect of Creation. This is what the Midrash means when it says:
At this time, if a man goes out to collect figs on Shabbos, the figs say nothing. However, in the future, if a man collects figs on Shabbos, the figs will yell at him, “Shabbos!” (Midrash Shochar Tov, Mizmor 73)
We will probably have to wait until that time to see exactly what this midrash means. One thing is for certain: in Yemos HaMoshiach, the reality of God and His holy Torah will be all pervasive, making even accidental sins impossible. The clarity of the Divine Presence we enjoyed at Mt. Sinai will be even greater in Yemos HaMoshiach, making the experience of it already an aspect of the absolute pleasure we are destined to enjoy in Olam HaBah.](A7103D71-5886-4F9D-B399-158336CCCD67_files/shapeimage_1.png)
