Ma'amar HaGeulah (The Visitation, Ch. 6)

Ma'amar HaGeulah

-- "The Great Redemption", a reworking of Ramchal's "Ma'amar HaGeulah"

Rabbi Yaakov Feldman's series on www.torah.org

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"The Great Redemption"

The Visitation: Ch. 6

The last thing to be done in the course of The Visitation, we're told, will be to prepare the world for the all-important Remembrance. That will involve getting Moshiach Ben David -- the ultimate redeemer -- ready for his role. Let's see what that's all about.

Near the beginning of this work Ramchal compared the redemption from Egypt to the ultimate, great one. And he said there that while the two redemptive experiences "have a lot in common, (nonetheless) the latter will be greater yet" (see para. 2).

Drawing on that analogy, he underscores the fact that there came a point in the Egyptian exile when “G-d heard (the Jewish Nation) groaning and ... remembered His covenant” (Exodus 2:24) with us. For "enough was enough" and it was time to set-off the exile. Now, Ramchal notes that the very next verse reads that “Moses had been tending ... flock” (Exodus 3:1) at that very same time off in the background, and he posits that the two verses are next to each other for a good reason.

For the point is that despite the horrors and repugnancies of the exile, Moses was "lurking" in the background near the end, ready to assume his role as redeemer or shepherd of the Jewish Nation when he was needed. And we're to know that that will be true of Moshiach Ben David, the final redeemer, as well. He too will prove to have been lurking in the background and to have been made ready for his mission..

As Ramchal put it, sooner or later somewhere "between the time of The Visitation and The Remembrance, the man who'll be adjudged (fit) to redeem (the Jewish Nation)" -- Moshiach Ben David -- "will be made eligible to be amended and readied for his task. And he’ll then be elevated to infinitely great heights." The implication of course is that he'll be elevated to great *spiritual* heights -- the sort that one would expect of the one who will inaugurate in the Messianic Era and The World to Come.

A "crown will begin to be fashioned for the Moshiach" at that point (see para. 23), which signifies the fact that he'd then be set to fulfill his ultimate raison d'être of being king-redeemer of the Jewish Nation. And G-d Almighty "will then crown him with the crown of His Glory" (ibid.), which alludes to a great and utterly sublime coronation. (Ramchal points to that when he identifies the Moshiach's crown with "the Yechida", the most sublime level of the soul.)

And it will then be "time for him to ... redeem (the Jewish Nation)" (ibid.), which will finally come about in full in the course of The Remembrance. So let's start to explore that.

(c) 2006 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman and Torah.org

(Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org )

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