The Coming of Moshiach Soon - Dovid Eidensohn

The Coming of Moshiach

Dovid Eidensohn

Jews await daily for the arrival of Moshiach. In recent times, much ado has taken place over remarks made by the greatest of the Kabbalists. Rav Yitschok Kaduri zt”l. He departed the world a few years ago at the age of 108. Rav Kaduri had a photographic memory. He would glance at any book and memorize it immediately. He made miracles. He was also the rebbe of great rabbis and rebbes. One of these was my rebbe, the Jerusalem Kabbalist Rav Shmuel Toledano zt”l. Rav Kaduri wrote an approbation for my rebbe who wrote eighty Kabbala books, that he wrote them Biruach HaKodesh, with heavenly inspiration. Throughout the world his words have been quoted that he spoke to Moshiach and knows when Moshich will arrive.

Now Rambam tells us in Mishneh Torah that the prophets and sages did not know exactly what will happen when Moshiach arrives. It is true that the prophet Eliyohu HaNovi declared in his work Tono Divei Eliyohu at the end in his discussion of Moshiach that Moshiaich's name will be Ephraim. And we want to discuss how this meshes with the teaching of Rav Yitchok Kaduri that he wrote the name of Moshiach. That name as I saw  people quoting it was Hebrew, the first letters of six words. The words forming the name of Moshiach are YUD HAY VOV SAMCEH VOV SAMECH in Hebrew יודסוס. The Hebrew name written by Rav Kaduri I interpret to mean that Moshiach will come to the Jews with heavenly light.

The first three letters are the classical Name of HaShem, YUD HAY VOV. The second letters, SAMECH and VOV, have a numerical value of 65, which in Hebrew can become GAL GAL, meaning, “revelation, revelation.” This means, that Moshiach, boosted by divine lights from heaven, will reveal, deeper and deeper, to elevate the human race to become very close to heaven.

It is sad that some people took this to mean that the name YUD HAY VOV indicates the Christian deity. But the following letters SAMECH HAY VOV have nothing to do with that. If they stretch Yud Hay Vov to be the first letters of YEHOSHUA they ignore the last three letters SAMECH HAY VOV which have nothing to do with Yehoshua.

Rav Yitschok Kaduri also mentioned something else about Moshiach. He will come soon, at a time when the Israeli government will have no government. And also, will come after the death of Ariel Sharon, a senior general of Israel and a Premier.

We know that now, June 24, 2019, Israel has no government, which is a very rare thing. We also know that Arial Sharon lived a long life, then suffered for at least seven years with loss of his faculties in a hospital, and died recently. We can surely arouse ourselves to pray for a speedily arrival of Moshiach.

I wish to add something to this.

The sages believed that the arrival would go in three stages. The first two revelations of Torah and Messianic forces, seem to be around the Second World War and the destruction of the Jews in Europe. At that time, a very saintly rabbi in Europe warned the Yeshiva students to go to Vilna, a city which was surely right in the line of the Nazi advance on Poland and elsewhere. Nobody understand what the logic in going to Vilna had in saving Jews. Because the only hope was running somewhere in Poland or Russia which no Jew wanted to do and stay alive. But a rabbi and a young Jewish man, Shmuel Shain, saved many Jews.

This was the miracle of the train from Vilna through Russia to Japan, known to posterity as the Shanghai express. At that point, Japan and Germany were at war with America. The rabbi, Avrohom Kalminowitz, couldn't get any wealthy people to give money for the train that was ready to leave Vilna and go to Japan. They felt that  the Japanese were at war with America, the Russians hated Jews, and if the Jews did land in Japan, Hitler would demand them back so he could kill them. But a young man, Shmuel Shain, contributed his and his wife's marriage money from his father-in-law, which paid the Russians to run the Shanghai express.

The rabbi who announced that Jews should come to Vilna was Rav Chaim Ozer. He died soon after he did this, as did another great, Reb Baruch Ber Levovitz. The one who actually saved the Jews was a Japanese official who had the book with permission to come to Japan. When his superiors heard about it, they told him to immediately return to Japan. He did, but not before he flung his book of tickets to the crowd of desperate rabbis outside his office. They boarded the train and were saved.