As the Talmud often does, today’s daf Megillah 3 goes off on a tangent because once it cites a relevant teaching by Rabbi Yirmeya, and some say that it was Rabbi Ḥiyya bar Abba explaining that the distance of one mil is the distance between from Ḥamtan to Tiberias, the Gemara shares two other teachings of Rabbi Yirmeya, and some say that it was Rabbi Ḥiyya bar Abba. Here is the second citation.
“Rabbi Yirmeya said, and some say that it was Rabbi
Ḥiyya bar Abba who said: The Aramaic translation of the Torah
used in the synagogues was composed by Onkelos the convert based on the
teachings of Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua. The Aramaic translation
of the Prophets was composed by Yonatan ben Uzziel based on a tradition
going back to the last prophets, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. The
Gemara relates that when Yonatan ben Uzziel wrote his translation, Eretz
Yisrael quaked over an area of four hundred parasangs [parsa] by
four hundred parasangs, and a Divine Voice emerged and said: Who is this
who has revealed My secrets to mankind?
“Yonatan ben Uzziel stood up on his feet
and said: I am the one who has revealed Your secrets to mankind through my translation. However, it
is revealed and known to You that I did this not for my own honor, and
not for the honor of the house of my father, but rather it was for
Your honor that I did this, so that discord not increase among the
Jewish people. In the absence of an accepted translation, people will
disagree about the meaning of obscure verses, but with a translation, the
meaning will be clear.
“And Yonatan ben Uzziel also sought to reveal a translation of the Writings, but a Divine Voice emerged and said to him: It is enough for you that you translated the Prophets. The Gemara explains: What is the reason that he was denied permission to translate the Writings? Because it has in it a revelation of the end, when the Messiah will arrive. The end is foretold in a cryptic manner in the book of Daniel, and were the book of Daniel translated, the end would become manifestly revealed to all.” (Sefaria.org translation)
Jacob Neusner in his book There We Sat Down: The Story of Classical Judaism in the Period in which It Was Taking Shape discusses the disastrous results of messianic revolves starting with the 132-5 C.E. Bar Kokhba revolt in Palestine. That was just the first of many failed disasters.
“In the background of every Jewish act of political or religious violence lies the messianic expectation. Therefore the conviction that the Messiah would come in 468 or in 471 must be taken very seriously. In the days of Shapur II, in 362-363, a movement similar to that in Isfahani took shape in Mahoza, and the king was compelled to send troops to massacre the messianists. Later more movements appeared, coalescing around local figures in Babylonia and Mesopotamia as well as in Byzantine territories. In the second and third decades of the fifth century, messianic movements were rampant both in Jewish Palestine and in the Greek diaspora. Obviously messianism constituted a powerful force in Babylonian Judaism, and Jewish messianists invariably took active measures in support of their convictions. A bloodied war was fought in Hadrianic times when they had believed Bar Kokhba to be the Messiah (a belief that had been confirmed by some rabbis). The natural result of this religion was repression not only of the war but also those Judaic religious practices which the Romans believed had caused it.” (Page 70)
Consequently, I’m not surprised that today’s daf tries to dampen active messianism by refusing to allow the book of Daniel to be translated into Aramaic lest the End of Days would become manifestly revealed to all, heightened expectations, and encouraged Jews to force the end of days. The hope of the Messiah coming and redemption remained alive, but not actively pursuing a course that would fulfill messianic expectations.
We see this happening in Jewish history a second time. Because Lurianic kabbalah was so widespread accepted, Jews all over the known world were performing acts of tikun, repair and restoration with the expectation once all the hidden sparks from the broken shards were retrieved, the Messiah will come. Thus the Jewish community worldwide was primed to accept Shabbatai Zvi as the Messiah. He proved to be another one in a long list of false Messiahs. Couple with the Chmielnicki revolt of 1648-1649, the Jewish community was devastated.[1] Hasidism arose to revive the Jewish spirit. It too kept alive the hope of the true Messiah alive, but purposefully did not actively encourage and pursue a course that would fulfill messianic expectations.
[1] In the course of their campaigns
Chmielnicki's followers acted with savage and unremitting cruelty against the
Jews. Chmielnicki aimed at establishing an autonomous Ukraine, if not under , then under the , Moscow, or . After his death, this plan ended with the
annexation of eastern Ukraine to Muscovite Russia (1667). Chmielnicki was bent
on eradicating the Jews from the Ukraine. For more information follow
this link: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/chmielnicki-khmelnitski-bogdan-x00b0
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