In Yemos HaMoshiach, will there be different levels of understanding Torah? Will the way of learning change? What will be more important – learning Torah or doing mitzvos? Is it permissible to teach abstract subjects, such as Geula and Moshiach, to little children or will their immaturity give them a mistaken understanding? What does “a new Torah will go forth from Me” really mean? * A compilation of questions and answers about Torah presented for Shavuos
Question: In Yemos HaMoshiach, will there still be differences in levels of understanding of Torah?
Answer: The Rebbe writes that the fact that it says, “All will know Me from their smallest to their greatest” (Yirmiyahu 31:33) shows that then too, there will be those called “small” in knowledge and those who will be called “great.”
Of course, those who are “small” will be called that relative to the great ones, but relative to the Torah scholars of today, even the greatest of people nowadays, they will be “great,” because in Yemos HaMoshiach even the simplest Jews will skyrocket to great heights of knowledge of Torah.
One can ask that the first half of the verse seems to imply the contrary, “a man will no longer teach his fellow and a man his brother” – which means everyone will know the Torah well and won’t need anyone’s tutelage, suggesting that the Torah comprehension of Yemos HaMoshiach will be equal by all Jews. The Rebbe answers that this part of the verse refers to this that everyone will attain an equal understanding of Hashem, but in knowledge of Torah there will be great and small and the small will need the help of the great.
Question: What will the format of Torah study be in Yemos HaMoshiach?
Answer: The Mitteler Rebbe explains that it will be a completely different format from that which is familiar to us. This explanation appears as an answer to a question: how will it happen that Moshiach will personally teach all the Jewish people deep chiddushei Torah? How will tens of millions of people (each of them on a different level) learn from one person, especially after the Resurrection of the Dead when there will be so many more Jews?
The Rebbe answers that in the Future, intellectual-spiritual ideas won’t need to be described in letters, words, and sentences for us to absorb them. Rather, physical eyes will be refined to the point that they will literally see the ideas. A fraction of a second will be enough to absorb a lofty concept. So the time it takes to learn will be cut drastically and it won’t be a problem even for millions of people to understand (see) the ideas that will be heard (shown) from Moshiach.
To illustrate, how long does it take a person to describe to his friend how something looks when it is comprised of many little parts as opposed to the amount of time it takes to just look at the item? Aside from the vast difference in time, the utter recognition and complete absorption via vision are far more tangible and all-encompassing.
This is how our intellectual understanding will be in the Future. We will see the ideas and absorb them in their entirety, with all their details, in a moment.
We, who never experienced this, find it hard to imagine. But there is testimony to learning like this by the Arizal. The Arizal once said to one of his students that when he slept for half an hour on Shabbos, from heaven they showed him wondrous Torah secrets that if he wanted to reveal them orally or in writing, it would take him sixty to eighty years! The spiritual concepts were shown to him like pictures seen one after another and in order to describe this astronomical number of spiritual “pictures” in all their details, it would take decades.
Question: What will be more important in the era of Geula, learning Torah or doing mitzvos?
Answer: First, let us see what is more important today. In the Gemara it says that learning is more important because without it, we would not know how to do mitzvos.
However, the Alter Rebbe has a surprising chiddush which is, all this is for now, but in the Future, it will be the opposite. Mitzvos will be greater than Torah; action will be greater than learning.
The explanation for the change that will take place is deep and lengthy. The gist of it is, Torah study and mitzva fulfillment are meant to unite a person with the G-dly will and wisdom. When a person learns Torah, he connects to the holiness with his intellect and the power of his understanding. When a person does mitzvos, his connection is with his power of action. The ability to understand is a far deeper and far loftier power than the power of action. Therefore, when a person connects to holiness through it, the connection is deeper and higher. This is the inner meaning of “learning is greater” – the learning effectuates a more potent and loftier bond.
However, in the Future will be revealed that soul level which motivates a Jew to do mitzvos with absolute kabbalas ol, a level which is rooted more deeply in the soul than the ability to understand. This is because the inclination to obey punctiliously and without question every G-dly command, even without understanding the logic of it, comes from the essence of the Jewish soul being connected to G-d Himself on an amazing level of unification which has no comparison. Today, however, this cleaving is concealed, but in the Future it will be revealed in all its glory and then “action” will be much higher than “study.”
Question: In the time of Geula, will anything change in the way Torah is learned?
Answer: There will be a change, mainly in terms of the section of Torah that will be focused on. Torah is divided into the tangible part, known as Nigleh of Torah, and the spiritual, abstract dimension, known as Nistar of Torah. Nigleh includes practical, everyday halachos, what is forbidden and permitted, what is kosher and pasul, who is obligated and who is exempt. It deals with material things and even negative things like damages, fights, lies, etc. and this is the focus before the Geula.
Nistar deals with hidden things, s’firos, spiritual worlds by which Hashem transmits G-dly energy and sustains us, and the various forms of expression of divine life forces. This will be the focus of Torah study in the Geula era.
Even before the Geula we learn Nistar but the emphasis is on Nigleh. In the Future it will be reversed.
The reason for the difference has to do with the change that will take place in the world with the Geula. As long as the Geula hasn’t happened, there is a lot of spiritual evil scattered about the world which manifests in all the forbidden, pasul, tamei things. When studying these matters in Torah, a spiritual process takes place which causes the evil to lose its ability to exist, and it is destroyed.
For this reason, as long as we don’t have the Geula, the Torah study is concentrated on topics that deal with bad too, in order to destroy evil’s ability to exist. When this process ends, and evil is completely obliterated, the Geula comes. Therefore, it will no longer be necessary to focus on learning that deals with the forbidden, the pasul and the tamei.
With the Geula, G-dliness will be apparent in the world and consequently, Torah study will be concentrated on that aspect which deals with pure G-dliness.
Question: The Rebbe encourages learning inyanei Moshiach and Geula. What is special about learning these things as opposed to any other part of Torah?
Answer: A person, by nature, even the most introverted, is subject to changes from the environment and atmosphere he lives in. Things that he looks at askance can eventually become acceptable and even desirable when the atmosphere promotes them. Similarly, when we analyze concepts and ideas in our minds that are unfamiliar to us, even those which were completely foreign to us until now, we develop an affinity for them, and we live with them in our imagination until we almost seem to experience them.
This is precisely the purpose of being involved with inyanei Geula. It draws closer those things that are being learned and enable the person, as it were, to live them. When a person’s mind is immersed in understanding topics about the wondrous promises of the Geula, this naturally develops within him a strong desire to experience them. He naturally tries to do all he can to make it happen and improves his behavior and does mitzvos and good deeds.
These feelings are augmented by learning in a group. The participants feed off each other with their inner experiences and yearnings for the coming of the Geula.
According to the Rebbe, there is an additional specialized spiritual segula in learning inyanei Moshiach and Geula, that it hastens the coming of Moshiach. When ten Jews convene and learn together, the segula is that much more potent.
Question: What does “a new Torah will go forth from Me” mean?
Answer: The saying is based on a verse in Yeshaya which says, “Torah will go forth from Me.” Chazal say on this verse that in the Future, “a new Torah will go forth from Me” – an innovative Torah will go forth from Me. In another place it says, “In the Future, Hashem will sit and explicate a new Torah that will be given through Moshiach.” That Torah will be wondrous to the point that “the Torah that a person learned in this world is hevel (insignificant) before the Torah of Moshiach.”
This does not mean there will be a new Mattan Torah. As Chassidus puts it, “There won’t be another Mattan Torah.” Rather, in the Future, new dimensions will be revealed in the Torah and its secrets will be taught to the people. The foundation will be the existing Torah, but Moshiach will reveal whole new dimensions such that it will be experienced as something completely new.
Certain halachos will be innovated, the most well-known of them being that the slaughtering of the Shor HaBor with the fin of the Leviasan will be ruled permissible. According to the laws of sh’chita today, this sh’chita is invalid but in the Future, Hashem will permit it.
These chiddushim will not, G-d forbid, be breaches in halacha. They will all be anchored in the classic rules of halacha. How? We don’t know. In the Geula we will find out.
Question: There are many Midrashim about Har Sinai. Is there any mention about what will happen with the mountain in the Geula?
Answer: In the Midrash it says, “In the Future, Hashem will bring Sinai, Tavor, and Carmel, to build the Beis HaMikdash on them,” as it says in Yeshaya 2:2, “And it will be at the End of Days, that the mountain of Hashem’s house shall be firmly established at the top of the mountains” – the plural term is referring to these three mountains.
All three mountains were not originally in Eretz Yisroel. During the Giving of the Torah, these mountains were uprooted from their places and approached Sinai in order to learn Torah. As a reward for this, Hashem took them and placed them permanently in Eretz Yisroel. From this, the Gemara concludes that also “shuls and study houses in which Torah was read and disseminated, will be established in Eretz Yisroel,” for if “Tavor and Carmel which did not come except to learn Torah for a brief period were established in Eretz Yisroel, then all the more so for shuls and study houses.”
Based on this, the Rebbe says that Har Sinai will also be uprooted and set down in Eretz Yisroel, for it was on this mountain that the entire reality of Torah was born.
The Torah learned in all the shuls and study houses is the Torah that was given at Sinai, so certainly its reward should be at least like them, if not greater.
However, with the conclusion of Mattan Torah, all the holiness departed from Sinai and it became as ordinary a place as anywhere else. You can climb on it or touch it which they were not allowed to do during the Giving of the Torah. But logic dictates that when all the shuls and study houses will be transported to Eretz Yisroel, holiness will return to Sinai and it too will go to Eretz Yisroel.
Question: Is it permissible to teach abstract ideas like Moshiach and Geula to children or should we be afraid lest their immaturity will give them a mistaken understanding?
Answer: The Midrash on the verse in Shir HaShirim, “And His banner (diglo) over me is love,” says, “If a child skips over the azkaros [the name of G-d mentioned in the Torah verses] several times – Hashem says, “And his skipping (dilugo) over Me is love.” Hashem enjoys and loves, as it were, the learning and skipping and mistakes of little children, like a baby charms his parents when he says a word with an incorrect pronunciation.
So too with Moshiach and Geula, we need to instill it in little children even though they may not understand certain details. Their understanding is cherished by Hashem even if it is incomplete, and there is no reason to refrain from teaching them altogether. In general, the Rebbe says that in these later generations we were given the ability to instill spiritual values in children.
Obviously, there is no need to focus just on abstract Geula ideas. There are material prophecies that the children can grasp. For example, children will like to hear about delicacies that will be available like dust, which will heighten their anticipation for that time.
If, as a result, children will want Moshiach for the sweets, that doesn’t matter. The Rambam writes that the chinuch of children to Torah and mitzvos can and should be encouraged with prizes that appeal to them, so too their yearning for Moshiach may be stirred by a promise of a reward of sweets and delicacies.
As mentioned above, Hashem loves even the mistakes of little children, so let them look forward to Moshiach because of sweets, the main thing being that they should ask for the Geula and think about it.
YEMOS HA’MOSHIACH AND CHAG HA’SHAVUOS
Question: is there anything about Shavuos that has a special connection to Yemos HaMoshiach?
Answer: The essence of the holiday is the giving of the Torah and this represents a truly significant connection to Yemos HaMoshiach at which time, the main novelty will be in the “new Torah” that will be revealed by Moshiach.
Beyond that, Shavuos stands out in that we brought chametz as an offering in the times of the Mikdash. The Sheloh writes that this has special significance which is connected with the Future Geula:
“The korban of the day (Shavuos) was chametz and matza – chametz corresponding to the body, and matza corresponding to the soul. The chametz and the matza are brought together on the altar – both the body and the soul will take pleasure together in the delight of that world (after the Resurrection of the Dead) which is ‘the glow of the Sh’china,’ as we find with Moshiach and Eliyahu.”
The materialistic chametz represents the body and the more refined matza represents the soul. Bringing them together on the altar represents the joining together of the body and soul before Hashem, a state that will prevail after the Resurrection of the Dead, when the body will be refined and it will be able to exist, like the soul, from the pleasure of “the glow of the Sh’china.” This is akin to Moshe Rabbeinu who existed for forty days on Mt Sinai without eating and drinking, and Eliyahu HaNavi who ascended to heaven with his body and exists without material nourishment.
It is interesting to note that on this explanation (which has a source in the Zohar too), the Rebbe was asked: The two loaves of Shavuos were eaten by the Kohanim and not brought on the altar, so why does it say that the chametz was brought on the altar on Shavuos?
The Rebbe answers that since along with the two loaves two sheep were brought, parts of which were brought up on the altar (and they are considered part of the korban of the loaves), there was one entity which was referred to as chametz, some of which (parts of the sheep) were put on the altar.