Tuesday Night Gemara - Arithmetic and Moshiach

One thing after another, the days were created, and not one of them is the seventh day forever, according to this world six thousand years, two thousand years, two thousand Torah, two thousand years, the son of David will die, and in our seasons many will go out, what went out, and will come in to work within two thousand years of the death of the son of David (more than 100 years) as it is said God did what he planned (Lamentations 2:17) and just as we make a shemitah once every seven years, so the Almighty will make a shemitah for the world one day which is a thousand years as it is said that a thousand years are in your eyes as yesterday (Psalms 90:4). And says And there was one day (Zechariah 14:7), this is the seventh day of the world, and at evening there was light (Zechariah 14:7), this is the world to come, which is said to be every month in its month, and every Sabbath in its Sabbath (Isaiah 66:23 ) And a psalm is said for the Sabbath day to the world that is all Sabbath. Another thing is a psalm a song for the Sabbath day that shuts off from the world. Another thing is a psalm a song for the Sabbath day is the seventh day to the world. And for the evening of the Sabbath it is the world to come in which there is no death for the eternal and the eternal, and in it there is neither sin nor iniquity nor plagues And no rebellions, but each and every one rejoices with his wisdom and understanding. How do you know that he did go out and learn from the Holy One, blessed be He, who rejoices in David in this world and the glory of heaven in the next world that was said and these are David's last words and ending "The utterance of is David the son of Ishai, and he utterance of the person who stands" on the mountains of learning, who accepted upon themselves the yoke of Torah and the yoke of mitzvot. What is your payment in front of Me? That you will be called 'the anointed of the God of Yaakov, and the sweet singer of Israel'. Happy is the person who sets themselves as an ox to the yoke, and as a donkey to the burden, and sits and meditates every day in Torah, always, immediately the Spirit of God rests on them, and the their Torah gets inside them, as it is written "Ho, everyone who thirsts, come for water" (Isaiah 55:1), and any mention of water really means Torah. How so? Explanation: a person reads Torah, prophets, writings, Mishnah, Halakhot, Agadot, and Midrash; and spends much time sitting, and little time in business, immediately the spirit of God is within that person, and His message are in that person's tongue, as it is written "The spirit of Ad-nai has spoken through me, His message is on my tongue" (II Sam 23:2). Happy is the person that plays with the words of the Torah and sits and chews on them like an animal that chews the cud on the field. ...

§ Rav Ketina says: Six thousand years is the duration of the world, and it is in ruins for one thousand years. The duration of the period during which the world is in ruins is derived from a verse, as it is stated: “And the Lord alone shall be exalted on that day” (Isaiah 2:11), and the day of God lasts one thousand years. Abaye says: It is in ruins for two thousand years, as it is stated: “After two days He will revive us; in the third day He will revive us, and we shall live in His presence” (Hosea 6:2).

It is taught in a baraita in accordance with the opinion of Rav Ketina: Just as the Sabbatical Year abrogates debts once in seven years, so too, the world abrogates its typical existence for one thousand years in every seven thousand years, as it is stated: “And the Lord alone shall be exalted on that day,” and it states: “A psalm, a song for the Shabbat day” (Psalms 92:1), meaning a day, i.e., one thousand years, that is entirely Shabbat. And it says in explanation of the equation between one day and one thousand years: “For a thousand years in Your eyes are but like yesterday when it is past, and like a watch in the night” (Psalms 90:4).

Elijah the prophet said to Rav Yehuda, brother of Rav Sala Ḥasida: The world will exist no fewer than eighty-five Jubilee cycles, or 4,250 years. And during the final Jubilee, the son of David will come. Rav Yehuda said to Elijah: Will the Messiah come during the beginning of the Jubilee or during its end? Elijah said to Rav Yehuda: I do not know. Rav Yehuda asked: Will this last Jubilee cycle end before the Messiah comes or will it not yet end before his coming? Elijah said to him: I do not know. Rav Ashi says: This is what Elijah said to him: Until that time do not anticipate his coming; from this point forward anticipate his coming. Elijah did not inform Rav Yehuda of the date of the coming of the Messiah.

Our opinion, in support of which we have quoted these passages, is clearly established, namely, that no prophet or sage has ever announced the destruction of the Universe, or a change of its present condition, or a permanent change of any of its properties. When our Sages say, “The world remains six thousand years, and one thousand years it will be waste,” they do not mean a complete cessation of existing things; the phrase “one thousand years it will be waste” distinctly shows that time will continue: besides, this is the individual opinion of one Rabbi, and in accordance with one particular theory. But on the other hand the words, “There is nothing new under the sun” (Eccles. 1:9), in the sense that no new creation takes place in any way and under any circumstances, express the general opinion of our Sages, and include a principle which every one of the doctors of the Mishnah and the Talmud recognises and makes use of in his arguments. Even those who understand the words “new heavens and a new earth” in their literal sense hold that the heavens, which will in future be formed, have already been created and are in existence, and that for this reason the present tense “remain” is used, and not the future “will remain.” They support their view by citing the text, “There is nothing new under the sun.” Do not imagine that this is opposed to our opinion. They mean, perhaps, to say that the natural laws, by which the promised future condition of Israel will be effected, have been in existence since the days of the Creation, and in that they are perfectly correct.

Death and resurrection: However besides all of this, His trait of [strict] judgement, may He be blessed, decreed that from now on, man and the world could not reach perfection so long as they are in a corrupted state - meaning, the form they have now, in which evil grew. Rather they perforce need a transformation beyond the perdition - meaning, death for man and destruction for all of the other things in existence that became corrupted with him. And the soul can [no longer] purify the body until after it first goes out of it and the body dies and decomposes. And then [the body] returns and is built [as] a new structure, and the soul enters it and purifies it. And likewise the whole world will become destroyed from its current form, and it will return and be built in a different form that is fitting for perfection. And therefore it was decreed upon man that he die, and [then] come back and live [again]. And this is the matter of the revival of the dead. And [it was decreed] about the world that it will be destroyed and [then] come back and be renewed - and this is the matter that they, may their memory be blessed, said (Sanhedrin 97a), "The world will [exist] for six thousand years, and be destroyed for one [thousand]; but at the end of a thousand years, the Holy One, blessed be He, returns and renews the world.

ויהי בנסוע הארון, “When the Ark would journey,” the Torah interrupted its narrative with these two verses. By rights the Torah should have continued writing here ויהי העם כמתאוננים וגו', i.e. the first verse of chapter 11 which would have made the proper continuation for the words בנסעם מן המחנה, “when they journeyed from the camp.” As long as the Israelites were encamped around Mount Sinai they were not far from civilization, whereas the direction the cloud traveled took them deeper and deeper into the desert. The people reacted negatively to this journey becoming afraid of the discomforts they expected to encounter. Seeing that chapter 11 is a direct continuation of verse 35 in chapter 10 there should not have been any interruption of the subject matter. The reason for this insertion of verses 36-37 according to the plain meaning of the text is this: we know that the terrestrial world is divided into three parts, i.e. sea, civilised areas, desert. Our sages in Pessachim 94 (Tossaphot) said: “one third of the surface of the globe is oceans, one third is land that is cultivated, and inhabited; one third is desert. When the Israelites entered the land of Israel they had already traversed all three kinds of the globe. The Israelites had had a visible manifestation of the fact that G’d created the world as something entirely new seeing G’d had demonstrated miracles both on sea, on land and the miracles which occurred when the seven Canaanite nations were driven out of the land of Canaan.
Seeing that when one comes face to face in nature with high mountains, etc., etc., one forms the impression that these phenomena have existed for eons of years and have preceded man and G’d historically, it is necessary to counter such impressions among the people. This is why the Torah inserted the two verses 36-37 at this point as it had become aware of the impression that the wilderness had begun to make on the Israelites. The words ויפוצו אויביך וינוסו משנאיך, “may Your enemies scatter and those who hate You be put to flight,” are aimed at the people who believed that forces in nature are more powerful than G’d. The Torah which is deposited inside the Holy Ark testifies to the fact that G’d preceded all phenomena known to man. When the enemies of the Israelites are scattered this is the most potent proof of G’d’s having preceded all. This is the reason G’d performed so many miracles in the desert in order to demonstrate precisely in an environment which would otherwise lead people to believe that it had existed forever, that our G’d exercises full control over such phenomena. This is also the reason that the members of the Great Assembly who formulated most of our liturgy included a statement in Berachot 54 that benedictions are to be recited when one sees the ocean, the mountains, and deserts. The formula is generally: “blessed be the One Who created the universe.” The point of such a benediction is to confirm that in spite of appearances to the contrary the universe was created out of “nothing,” not out of pre-existing bodies of matter. A Midrashic approach by our sages in Shabbat 115 concentrates on the inverted letters נ in order to demonstrate that this paragraph is not in its proper place. Rabbi said that these inverted letters did not really belong here but that they signal that what is within them is really a whole Book by itself. Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel does not agree with Rabbi seeing that he is on record as saying that in the future the Torah will be revised and these verses will be removed from here and be written at an appropriate place. The reason that they have been inserted here in the meanwhile is to provide a break between one disaster and the next. The first disaster was the fact that the physical departure from Mount Sinai coincided with a spiritual departure from what Mount Sinai stood for, something which occurred on the first day of the journey. The second disaster is the one commencing with verse 1 in chapter 11, that the people were looking for something to complain about. Thus far the Midrash.
There are three opinions concerning this subject among our sages (according to Rashi on that folio). The first opinion holds that the appropriate place for these two verses would have been where the flags are described, adjoining Numbers 2,17. This is where the journeys are described for the first time. There the Torah mentions the Tent of Meeting, and the Ark about which these verses speak, was in the tent of Meeting. If the Torah inserted the inverted letter נ it was to alert us that these verses really belonged elsewhere. If you will count the number of paragraphs between where these two verses should have appeared and where they did appear you will find that there are fifty paragraphs between them. This is alluded to by the Torah employing the letter נ whose numerical value is 50 as the dividing symbol. The second opinion is that of Rabbi who holds that this short paragraph was written in its appropriate place in the Torah. Seeing that it is part of the journeys of the Children of Israel it is in its proper place. The paragraph had commenced with the words: “it was in the second year in the second month on the twentieth of the month that the cloud rose... and the people journeyed” (10,11). The Torah continues here to enumerate the order in which the flags were journeying. Rabbi said: לא מן השם הוא that the reason that these two verses are enclosed in these inverted letters נ is not because they appear out of context but because the message is so important that the two verses constitute a whole Book of the Torah by itself. Rabbi holds that by means of these inverted letters נ the Torah was divided into a total of seven Books, or the Book of Numbers into three Books.
The Talmud in Shabbat 116 inquires who is the source for the opinion of Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachmeni who reported in the name of Rabbi Yochanan that the words in Proverbs 9,1 חצבה עמודיה שבעה, ”she has hewn her seven pillars,” is a reference to the seven Books of the Torah. The answer given is that this was Rabbi’s interpretation of this verse in Proverbs.
Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel disagrees with Rabbi in a minor detail; he agrees that the two verses are in the right context, but believes that in the future, after the arrival of the Messiah, the sequence of these verses will be changed seeing there will no longer be any reason to recall all these disasters. Seeing that at that time the evil urge itself will have disappeared, recalling these disasters as a warning against the evil urge will no longer be necessary. The reason that these verses were inserted here in the manner in which they were inserted was to separate between one disaster and another. A kabbalistic approach: These two verses contain allusions to the entire history of this terrestrial universe, i.e. its existence of a total of 7,000 years. The hint consists of the seven times the letter א which is equivalent to אלף, 1,000, appears in these two verses. This is parallel to the very first verse in the Torah (Genesis 1,1) in which the letter א also appears seven times. [Actually in Genesis the letter א appears only 6 times in that verse, giving rise to the statement of the sages that the universe G’d created at that time was to endure in its present form for 6,000 years. (Compare Rosh Hashanah 31)]. After these 6,000 years there will be another 1,000 years during which the universe will be in ruins. We have to understand that seeing the entire Torah is built on the premise of creation ex nihilo, that just as the universe came into existence, had a beginning, it will also have an end. This is what is meant by Isaiah 44,6 quoting G’d as saying: “I am the first and therefore I am the last.” The prophet meant that just as G’d was first, i.e. before any creatures, so He will survive all creatures. This verse in Isaiah is proof that the terrestrial universe as we know it will have an end. If there would be a single surviving creature in the universe, how could G’d describe Himself as being the last?
David explained this in greater detail when he said (Psalms 102, 26-27): “of old You established the earth; the heavens are the work of Your hands. They shall perish but You shall endure; they shall all wear out like a garment; You change them like clothing and they pass away. But You are the same and Your years never end.”
The letter relating to the sixth millennium is the letter א in the word אלפי of the sequence רבבות אלפי ישראל. This is the sixth word in that verse. The seventh word, i.e. ישראל, in this instance alludes to a withdrawal of the forces which had kept the universe a going concern during the previous six thousand years, and a hint that during that millennium there would be ruin. This millennium is the one of which the Talmud said חד חריב, “one which is desolation.” We also find an interesting anomaly in Hoseah 9,12 where the prophet writes the word בשורי מהם spelling the word with the letter sin instead of with the shin. The idea is that the “turning away by G’d from Israel” will not be total. Seeing that the wordישראל can depict the absence of positive forces or the presence of positive forces depending on the context in which the word appears, it is possible that just as on occasion that word alludes to destruction, it may allude to reconstruction on occasion, i.e. a marshaling of positive, constructive forces. The word in our verse would therefore also allude to a rebuilding of the universe including the people of Israel. This is the mystical dimension of Psalms 24,2 על נהרות יכוננה, “He founded it on subterranean streams.” The psalmist did not write כוננה, “He founded it,” in the past, parallel to the word יסדה, in the same line where we read: “for He founded it on the oceans,” כי הוא על ימים יסדה, but יכוננה, “He will found it,” in the future. This reflects that at the beginning of this psalm David spoke about the fact that eventually the whole universe would return to the state it was in before the Creator created light. All of this proves that G’d had originated the universe not merely improved it or expanded it.
You will also find that in the hymn dedicated to the Sabbath (Psalms 92,1) David said in verse 13: “the righteous bloom like the date-palm,” an allusion to an existence after the Sabbath (the seventh millennium). This is the mystical dimension of the verse in Genesis 2,3. I have already mentioned this concept when commenting on that verse commencing with the words ויכלו השמים והארץ, a verse which concludes with אשר ברא אלו-הים לעשות, “which the Lord had created in order to continue to perfect it.” The time when this will occur is “after the Sabbath,” i.e. after the seventh millennium. When David said in Psalms 72,7 that יפרח צדיק בימיו ורב שלום עד בלי ירח, “the righteous will bloom in his days and there will be much peace (well-being) until the cessation of the moon,” the meaning is that the world as we know it will continue until the great Yovel at which time the forces of nature as we know them will cease to exist. This cessation of the forces of nature will include the function of the sun and the moon. At that time the earth will revert to its state of Tohu Vavohu prior to G’d having given the directive: “let there be light.” As to the verse in Genesis 8,22: “as long as the earth will exist, seed-time, harvest-time, cold and heat, summer and winter, shall not cease” is concerned, this is merely confirmation that there is a time limit to the phenomena mentioned in that verse. The time set for these phenomena expires during the great Yovel, i.e. the seventh millennium. This is also the opinion of Solomon who said in Kohelet 1,4 “and the universe continues forever.” The word עולם used by Solomon in that verse is the עולם היובל, the “world” as perceived of as a cycle of seven Shemittah cycles followed by a year of Yovel as spelled out in Leviticus 25,8-10, where the microcosm is discussed, whereas Solomon referred to the macrocosm. All of this is due to the principle that things which have a beginning must be perceived to have an end. Solomon’s father David was of the same opinion as his son when he wrote about G’d’s handiwork perishing in Psalm 102, 26-7 whereas G’d Himself would endure.
There are some verses in Psalms which at first glance appear to contradict the concept we have outlined, such as Psalms 145,1, 65-6 or Psalm 104,5 When the psalmist speaks about the phenomena mentioned enduring forever, he does not mean that they will actually endure forever but that they have been so constructed that they would not disintegrate on their own unless by an act of G’d.
Seeing that we cannot perceive of the sequence of Shemittah cycles followed by the Yovel as being something which continues indefinitely, this small paragraph is encapsulated in the inverted letters נ, to indicate that such a progression as we experience will come to an end after 50 cycles. The great Yovel occurs at the end of 1,000 generations at which time the earth will revert to a state of chaos. The reason why the letter נ has been reversed is that just as when letters are written in the normal manner this is an indication of matters described by these letters continuing to exist, when you turn the letter upside down you are giving notice that what had been perceived as continuing indefinitely does in fact come to an end. In order to reinforce our appreciation of what these inverted letters mean the Torah wrote two of them in order to drive home the point, as well as in order to hint that not only earth as we know it will undergo the metamorphosis described but heaven will too. [‎After all, heaven was created on the second day, after the light. Ed.] The reason that the Torah wrote the word ויהי “it came to pass,” each time after one of these inverted letters נ appears is to convince us that there will be a new existence after the great Yovel during which this metamorphosis will occur. The Torah wanted us to appreciate these concepts. In order for this to become easier for us it legislated in the microcosm, i.e. in our life cycles the Shemittah and Yovel legislation concerning the sale of slaves, return of land which had been sold as the result of the owner’s distress, etc., etc. Once concepts such as Shemittah and Yovel, both of which represent different degrees of reversals of natural processes have become part of our daily lives, the macrocosmic principles which we described are much easier to visualize. Let me now try and explain to you the underlying reason for these cataclysmic events which will occur at the end of each cycle of 6,000 years and again at the end of 49,000 years. It is generally known that six of the ten emanations were active during the six days of creation. The first day was under the aegis of the emanation בינה, whereas the second day was under the aegis of the emanation חסד. The third day was associated with the emanation גבורה, and so on until the seventh day, the Sabbath, was under the aegis of the emanation יסוד. This emanation commenced its work which was to provide עונג ומנוחה, Sabbath entertainment and creative rest. The rest provided by this emanation was both in respect of the Sabbath itself and in respect of the preceding six days. When the emanation יסוד was at rest on the Sabbath, all the other emanations were at rest also. This is the meaning of Exodus 20,11 כי ששת ימים עשה ה' את השמים ואת הארץ וינח ביום השביעי, “for during (a unit of) six days the Lord made heaven and earth and on the seventh day He rested.” The words ששת ימים describe the six emanations which G’d created and employed to do His work; the “rest” occurred on the seventh day by means of the emanation יסוד. Something similar will occur at the end of the six thousand years when the cycle will repeat itself with the interval being a period corresponding to the rest of the original Sabbath. Each millennium will be under the aegis of the respective six emanations we already referred to. Seeing that every emanation has completed its work at the end of one thousand years, it follows that the world will then become chaotic seeing all the emanations are inactive.
This means that in our terrestrial, or “lower” world, a world governed by the relatively low emanation בינה, continuity has come to an end, all the “lower” emanations striving to return to the emanation בינה, their immediate origin. Once this has occurred the cycle renews itself; this whole cycle of 6,000 plus 1,000 years repeats itself six times until at the end of the seventh such cycle we come to the “great” Yovel. One of the reasons that during the first six such cycles there was a relative חורבן at the end of each 6,000 years is that the emanations תפארת and כבוד which govern the orbits of sun and moon respectively, return to their immediate origin the emanation בינה, and terrestrial earth cannot function unless both sun and moon are active in their orbits. Nonetheless the seventh millennium during these six cycles does not mean total chaos, i.e. תהו ובהו, seeing that these forces will rejuvenate themselves forthwith after having received input from the emanation בינה. At the end of the seventh such cycle all emanations including the ones above בינה revert to the אין סוף, G’d’s essence, necessitating a return to total תהו ובהו in the process. This is what Isaiah referred to when he wrote: “all the host of heaven shall molder, the heavens shall be rolled up like a scroll and all their host shall wither like leaf withering on a vine, etc”. Another verse in Isaiah 51,6 describes something similar happening to earth. The reason for these phenomena is the withdrawal of sun and moon, i.e. the emanation תפארת and כבוד.
This subject was revealed to David in Psalm 24 where he speaks about “the earth being the Lord’s as well as all that it contains, the world and its inhabitants.” The author proceeds to show that verses 7 and 9 in that hymn describe the developments which we have been describing. [Since the author himself imposes restrictions upon himself in going into details, I will also refrain from translating the remainder of his comments on that psalm. Ed.]