The Five Most Likeliest Candidates to be Moshiach

Reb e, we don’t ask Hashem to get tzadikim to help us: where did you get that idea from?

@n0mesorah It makes all the difference in the world how powerful and influential they are! In many community you say that there are people who break the rules and claim divinity. That’s a problem that can be dealt with by a Rov or trusted person speaking with these individuals and (if needed) openly refuting their claims. However, when the Rov or trusted person is the one making the claims (or amplifying them, or at the very least, not refuting them) it’s a very different issue.

Nom, what do you think “you have permission to look at all of the talmidei chachamim’s thrones, besides the throne of rebbe chiyah” means? Looking where you don’t belong is chutzpah. Afterwards, he asked for mechilah. It’s the simple pshat in the gemara.

As for beseeching dead people, it most definitely is addressed in halacha – see above. It’s also a pasuk in chumash; necromancy is strictly forbidden.

And i don’t know what jihad has to do with anything; i posited a svara – take it or leave it, but it doesn’t change the simple halacha that one is not permitted to pray to something else besides Hashem.

ADA, we know that the structure of Davening is Praise, Requests & then Thanks.

So my question is, if a powerful Melech basar vadam made a Gezaira against the Yidden chv”Sh, and the Yidden chose a Yiras Shomayim to go for an audience with the King to petition him to annul the Gezaira…

Is it ok for him to praise the King, then express his bakasha, and then express thanks for what good he may have done, or is doing by ranting the audience, or with Siata Dishmaya will do by annulling the Gezaira..???

Even when alive, one is supposed to trust only in Hashem and ask others only as hishtadlus, as we see from yosef hatzadik, that even asking twice was already more than acceptable hishtadlus on his level.

Certainly to beg a person – tzadik or otherwise – would be largely lacking in bitachon.

And when they’re deceased? It’s just ridiculous, because even bederech hateva they can’t help. The only way they can help is if you ascribe powers to them that they do not possess.

Or if you ask them to daven for you, which is perfectly fine.

We are not allowed to daven to dead tzadikim directly. So see the MB:
משנה ברורה סימן תקפא ס”ק כז
(כז) הקברות – דביה”ק [לט] הוא מקום מנוחת הצדיקים והתפלה נתקבלה שם יותר אך אל ישים מגמתו נגד המתים אך יבקש מהש”י שיתן עליו רחמים בזכות הצדיקים שוכני עפר ויקיף הקברות ויתן צדקה קודם שיאמר התחנות. ואין לילך על קבר אחד ב”פ ביום אחד:

Avira: You are right, we daven to Hashem bizchus the tzadikim but not that they intervene in our behalf.

Aveira,

I’m quite aware that they had nevi’im and we don’t. I was responding to your post on another thread where you claimed that “everyone knew bayis sheni was temporary” and that the state “holds back the true geulah”.

Your “halacha” of not going up en masse is the opinion of a daas yachid and not so “simple”. Which of the seven million Jews currently in Eretz Yisrael are violating it and where do you suggest they go?

Dofi, good questions – the population in eretz yisroel is under no obligation to leave, because the individuals aren’t violating the oaths by living there. They don’t have to to anywhere. But they should dismantle the state and accept being a state of the US or whatever.

Also, while it “could” have been permanent, it was never intended to be; i believe the gaon writes that. Same way chizkiyahu was fit to be moshiach, but it clearly was not the Divine plan.

Reb Eliezer, you quoted the Mishna Brurah. However, this is actually a great machlokes haposkim, with MANY poskim clearly ruling that one is allowed to ask deceased tzadikim (their neshamos) to intercede on their behalf.

For example:
חמדת ימים, פחד יצחק, פרי מגדים, מנחת יצחק, בצל החכמה, חוות יאיר, מנחת אלעזר, יראים, ועוד ועוד

These poskim explain clearly why this is not דורש אל המתים.

The poskim who don’t allow it have many מאמרי חז”ל to answer, where it clearly mentions תנאים ואמוראים (and Kalev) who went to קברים and spoke to the מת with various requests.
סוטה לד, ב. פסיקתא רבתי ג. ברכות יח,ב. חגיגה כב, ב. ועוד ועוד
And of course the Zohar.

Everyone should follow their minhag and their rov.

>ths ONLY thing you find chazal advocating is asking for the niftar to daven on your behalf.

Avira, when I mentioned the poskim I clearly wrote “to intercede on their behalf” – because that is what most of the poskim whom I mentioned discuss.

However, when I mentioned chazal, I intentionally wrote “various requests” because if you go through those gemaras you’ll see that they did NOT only advocate for the niftar to daven on your behalf, rather they came to ask various other things from the dead (either seeking information (such as with Abaye in Brachos), or for the niftar to move his body (such as with Moshe and Yosef in סוטה יג), or to ask questions in learning, etc.)
The Rama clearly rules (יו”ד סי’ קעט סי”ד) that one is allowed to ask the neshama of a deceased person to swear that it will come to him and answer his questions.

This is what I meant by “various requests,” and I stand by what I wrote.

>But i hope we can agree that bakashos . . . are tefilos which are only for Hashem or for tzadikim to bring to Hashem.”

I definitely agree.

>many in your community believe that the lubavitcher rebbe is capable of fulfilling an individual’s bakashos.

I don’t know any Lubavitchers who believe that. No one says that the Rebbe has his own kochos so we don’t need Hashem’s koach (chas v’shalom chas v’shalom. I have never heard such a thing in my life, aside from non Lubavitchers telling me that this is chas v’shalom the opinion of Lubavitchers היל”ת עפ”ל).
Everyone I know believes that we go to a tzaddik (in this case the Rebbe) to channel HASHEM’s brochos, because a tzaddik has a more direct line (as is explained in many places. There is also an interesting Chasam Sofer that explains the difference in this regard between a tzaddik and a malach (whom it is problematic to ask brochos from).

Anyone who learns chassidus will tell you that the very meaning of beracha is hamshacha (המבריך את הגפן). We go to a tzaddik to draw down the Hashem’s brochos which already exist limaala.

When a Lubavitcher says “I did this with the Rebbe’s kochos” and people jump and him and scream “avoda zorah” – I think it comes from ignorance and suspicion of Yidden who are different.
It is the same as someone saying “I made a great deal for 10,000 dollars yesterday” – no one says that the businessman doesn’t believe in Hashem ch”v, rather they understand that he means that he made a KELI for Hashem’s brochos of $10,000.

If your mindset is set that a group of people have a certain wrong belief, it can be very easy to misinterpret everything they say to fit your conception of them.

“When a Lubavitcher says “I did this with the Rebbe’s kochos” and people jump and him and scream “avoda zorah” – I think it comes from ignorance and suspicion of Yidden who are different.
It is the same as someone saying “I made a great deal for 10,000 dollars yesterday” – no one says that the businessman doesn’t believe in Hashem ch”v, rather they understand that he means that he made a KELI for Hashem’s brochos of $10,000”

Then they should say it was in their rebbe’s zchus, like literally every other chasidus does.

People aren’t “ignorant” for listening to english or yiddish words and saying that people mean what they say. When someone says that a rebbe’s kochos brought him salvation, that IS avodah zara. It’s not ignorance, and it’s not because chabad people are “different.” That’s a defense mechanism that chabad teaches people to resort to when their views are challenged or criticized. Satmar, Breslov, and many others are “different” from the majority of klal yisroel, but not in ways that make people think that they are ovdei avodah zara.

I’m not reading anything into the words that lubavitchers use; i’m using my chush ha’shmiah and hearing the words. I’m hearing shlomo cunin say that his deceased rebbe “runs the world,” I’m hearing children asked “what did you do for the rebbe today,” I’m hearing people say that their rebbe protects them(not his zchus, as in zchuso yagen aleinu), I’m hearing people ask their rebbe for bakashos, “rebbe save me,” etc..

And then sometimes I hear apologetics and explanations that make it less avodah zara-dik; if chabad meant nothing different than other chasidim, who go to rebbes, give kvitilach, pour their hearts out, and go to kvarim, then why don’t they say what they mean and talk like everyone else?

Some chabadniks think that their rebbe had indepedent power, which is shituf – a worse form of avodah zara, however, are those who say that the rebbe helping you is the same as god helping you, because he is basically god wrapped in a body, as their rebbe told them in likutei sichos. That youre alloweds to daven at a kever because youre “really” davening to god, r”l.

Then there are people like you who say that a tzadik has no independent power at all, and only channels brochos from Hashem, an idea that nobody has a real problem with.

So why don’t people like you:

1. change the way chabad talks, to reflect what you actually think
2. stop teaching kids to do things “for the rebbe”
3. completely and unequivocally denounce, and put into cherem, anyone who says that the rebbe was god, calls him boreinu like the tzfas-niks, or part of god or the essence of god wrapped in a body. Thrown out to the point where you say that they’re practicing a different religion.

But no, you’re probably going to talk about achdus and how we have enough rifts as it is. Which is what chabad teaches its students to say when talking to “snags.”

No, there can and needs to be another rift if the other side is idolatrous.

Would chabad not want to make a rift if some of its adherents started worshipping yushke, while keeping the mitzvos?

Dofi

Ouch! And what is if he even learned in Ponovetz?

Gadol,

I will happily follow whomever Hashem appoints to be Melech Hamoshiach, and of course, I will join the rest of Klal Yisroel in accepting him as king.

Regarding whom specifically Hashem will appoint:
I do have a belief of whom Hashem will appoint to be Moshiach according to my understanding of Torah in general, and more specifically Toras Hachassidus. This understanding was also confirmed to me by my Torah teachers and by my rebbe.
Therefore, in my mind this is as definite as the rest of the details and halachos in Torah. This does not mean I don’t respect those who disagree. I respect Shamai even though my teachers taught me that Hashem definitely wants me to increase in Chanukah candles every night.

I wouldn’t mind going into the specifics of what I understand and where I learn it from if I were talking to someone in person and we were both in a true state of being able to hear and understand each other’s viewpoint.

However, it would be naïve for me to think that this could be settled on an anonymous online forum (especially when there is a several-hour wait time between each response 😀), as is evident from the COUNTLESS threads repeating the same rhetoric on these topics.

מחלוקת לשם שמים סופה להתקיים

To clarify: I understand that I didn’t answer your question. However, I am not beating around the bush. I’m explaining why my answer would be pointless as we wouldn’t understand each other anyway and would just go in circles.

Towards the end of Sefer Mesilas Yesharim, I believe perek 25, the MS”Y has a description of the Melech HaMashiach. A Talmid Chacham commented, that his words do sound closest in our times to the Lubavitcher Rebbe z”l.
See it with an open mind, and see if you can come up with another in the past few years who meets that description. However, being as the Rebbe z”l was niftar, it will have to be another.

Someday – want a list?

The Chofetz chaim ,Rav moshe, the satmar rov, and The chazon ish all fit the bill just nicely,and they’re just the first to come to mind.

Are you a lubavitcher chosid and are you saying unequivocally that the lubavitcher rebbe was not and will not be moshiach?

Menachem,

Your answer to this vital question is not pointless and I don’t need to understand your reasoning, so with a “yes” or “no”:

Do you consider it within the realm of possibility that someone besides any of the seven Lubavitcher Rebbeim, zt”l will be Mashiach and would you accept this person as your King?

coffee – I read what he said, but I want to hear the word ‘no’ from a lubavitcher without the ability to be medayak their way out of it. And I’ve yet to hear this in person, or online. So I asked if he does, in fact, identify himself as a lubavitcher chossid, and if he will say the word “no” regarding the lubavitcher rebbe being moshiach.

I’ve asked this of many lubavitchers after building a friendly rapport; the conversation never ends with a simple “no.” Not once.

Menachem,

It will simply confirm whether an apparently knowledgeable Chabad chasid considers it within the realm of possibility that someone besides any of the seven Lubavitcher Rebbeim, zt”l will be Mashiach.

A one word answer will suffice without need of further explanation or going in circles. Why are you afraid to answer the question?

“coffee – I read what he said, but I want to hear the word ‘no’ from a lubavitcher without the ability to be medayak their way out of it. And I’ve yet to hear this in person, or online. “

This was someday’s comment

“However, being as the Rebbe z”l was niftar, it will have to be another.“

So he’s saying since the rebbe passed away he’s not moshiach

Someday – i was hoping that you’d be the first lubavitcher chossid to tell me that their rebbe was not moshiach; turns out that you’re a supporter of lubavitch, but not in the community fully. And that’s a very common approach that admirers of chabad will go with, and i respect that others, including some in the Yeshiva world, had or have a favorable view of the lubavitcher rebbe – that’s not a big deal to me. What is a big deal to me is the notion that the lubavitcher rebbe is the Messiah or worse…

Dear Avirah,

My apologies for bringing this unpleasant topic back. I was offline since before Yom Tov. If you want to move my point away from the general conversation, you can concede that he made a request of Rav Chiya which is not the same as davening to him. I don’t know if it is a good enough answer for the topic and I don’t care. But I am very sure that if you would have an actual recording of the Hienteger that when he dies it’s time to let go and realize that we are mere mortals, that it would have zero impact on any Meshechist.

Now to the gemara. The thrones moving on their own can’t have any relation to the Malachim Omdim of Kedusha. That would a more flagrant kefirah than we have here. I think you were just inferring, but I don’t have any reason to agree with you. Yeshiva shel maalah is past the decorum stage of honorable existence. I made that last sentence up. Please give me a sevara to the opposite effect.

With that admission. I don’t see anything in the gemara about chutzpa. It seems like his human eyes could not stand up to the eternal light of Rav Chiya’s Torah. A mashal would be to stare into the sun for a long time would burn our eyes beyond repair.

For the record. When L rebbe was not speaking already and meshugas started, one L rav called the secretariat and ask how he can be helpful
They told him to tell the velt that the meshugas was not coming from them, and he said that publicly

Menachem, your prove from Yoma 5 is according to the Yerushalmi quoted by Horav Tosfas Yom Tov in Maaser Sheni (5, 2) and discussed in great detail in Aim Habanim Semaicha, Perek 3, that the building of the Beis Hamikdash will be before the coming of Meshiach on which the one of fire will descend.