Okay guys, welcome everybody. We're going to continue our discussion through Daniel the prophet. And today is going to be a big one because at the end of the class I'm going to share with you the most famous verse in the book of Daniel that is unique in all of scriptures that has within it somehow, in some way, shape or form encoded the arrival date of Mashiach.
And that is where a number of the Rabbanim Famous ones that you've all heard of, tried very hard to double-click on, as it were, and discover the final date, but we're not there yet. We're going to go back a little bit to the days of Belshazzar. If you remember, last week we spoke about two individuals, Cyrus and Darius. Cyrus and Darius the Mede, not Darius the Persian, who we're going to meet later on, who's going to be the one. who was the child of Esther and Ahasuerus.
Not that Darius, a different one. Cyrus was a Median, and his son-in-law, Dayavish Darius, conquered Belshazzar and pretty much ended the Babylonian aspect of the exile and started the Persian one. That was all last week.
Sound familiar? Fabulous. This week, we're going to go back to Belshazzar.
Because in his day something happened, so this is not chronological, meaning the book itself is not chronological. We're going to go back to a time when Belshazzar was still alive, and while Belshazzar was alive, Daniel the prophet had a vision. Now this is the first vision that was an interpretation of somebody else.
And in it is probably the most famous exile messianic vision that he or... anyone else in world history has ever had. And it's called the four beasts, the four creatures.
It's called that, or it's referred to that, but actually it's three and another one, which we can't even name, as we're going to see. So it goes like this. If you remember, Jacob has a dream.
Remember Jacob, the grandson of Abraham, the son of Isaac, has a dream, and he's a ladder. And he sees four angels go up and going down. These four angels, he was told, are going to represent the four exiles the Jewish people are going to go through. Good? Very good.
He also had the years locked up into that vision by the amount of rungs on the ladder that the angels went up and went down. So he knew the amount of time that each exile would last. He also knew the exact arrival time of Moshiach and he was going to reveal it But he wasn't allowed to, and it was stum, it was closed off for him, and he wasn't permitted to reveal the time. We jump forward to the second and only other person that we know about. He knew the arrival time of Moshiach, and that is Daniel the prophet.
Now if you remember, he ready interpreted a dream that Nebuchadnezzar had. Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king who destroyed the first temple. In that dream, in that dream that Nebuchadnezzar had that he interpreted, He saw a big statue, sound familiar? And it was in four metals.
There was gold, there was silver, there was copper, and there was iron. And a little bit of clay thrown in at the end in the feet. And these represented, he told me, the four exiles that my great-great-great-grandfather, Yaakov, saw in his dream. Fabulous.
But that's all he saw. There wasn't a time frame. There were no details.
He just knew there were going to be four exiles the Jewish people would go through with a fifth one somewhere at the end. A fifth one somewhere at the end, and then Moshiach would come and redeem us. And that's all he told Nebuchadnezzar, and Nebuchadnezzar got very excited because in the dream that he had, the statue that he saw in this dream had a head made of gold.
And he's like, whoa, I'm Mr. Gold. It then went to his head, and he built a statue made entirely of gold. gold saying, come and, you know, respect me for who I am. He gets killed off, and then we jump down two generations to Belshazzar.
While Belshazzar is alive, and remember, Belshazzar is the last Babylonian king before we leave the Babylonian exile and start the Persian one, right? Which is going to be the whole Ahasuerus Purim story. That's going to be two of four.
Are we following so far? You still with me, my friends? I know we're doing a lot over here. I've got a lot more to tell you. So you better put your phones away and open your heads.
Great. Here is the revelation that he had, and it's a bit more detailed than this statue of four metals and Jacob's vision of the ladder. It's the third in a sequence.
And this is what Daniel, the prophet, sees. He sees four beasts coming out of the ocean, one by one. And each one is scarier than the one that came before it. And the vision happened at night. And nighttime...
always represents galut, exile, which is why Yaakov, Jacob, had his dream, his vision, at night time. Avraham is Mr. Morning, Yitzchak is Mr. Afternoon, Yaakov, Jacob is Mr. Night Time. Because night time is Erev, things are dark, difficult, you don't know where you're going, you don't know where you've been. So that represents exile galut. With me.
So already, we know just from learning that this vision occurs at night time, is going to be very much about the exiles the Jewish people are going to go into. The first beast that comes out of the sea, and the sea is going to represent the stormy seas that cover the earth, that are going to be the forces that are going to be attacking the Jewish people wherever they are around the world, but specifically in the land of Israel. And the first beast he saw was a lion, and the lion had on it two eagle's wings.
Two wings of an eagle. Why a lion? So a lion represents royalty and strength. So this lion represents the Babylonian exile, which as Daniel is seeing it, is about to end.
He's like, ah, so now I know, he says, that this is the end of the lion exile. Why wings of an eagle? Well, it's based upon other verses in the Torah that talk about this very powerful regal, right?
Because the Babylonians were a very powerful regal nation. That was a monarchy. The lion represents that. If you ask the Jewish people, Yehudah, that Moshiach comes from, is also a lion, is the image. That's why you see the land in Eretz-Hadron, Yerushalayim, you see lions everywhere.
The lion is the king of the beasts and it represents royalty and majesty, okay? And kingship. So that's why he saw it as that. And the wings represent, what do you think?
Movement goes around. And the Babylonians were able to do that. Unfortunately, in this...
vision that he has, which he probably shared with Belshazzar, the last Babylonian king, because he was alive at the time. The feathers from the wings get plucked out, the lion stands up, and it stands on its two feet, and it was given a human heart, which means it's no longer what it was before. Its impact is still there, but it wasn't what it was. So this was the first of four beasts, which are going to represent... the end of the Babylonian exile.
Then another beast came out of the ocean, out of the seas, and this was a bear. And the bear is going to represent the next exile, the next, when I say exile, I mean the next large, powerful nation that are going to be controlling a lot of the world, but specifically where the Jewish people are and the land of Israel, and have the control over that. And that's going to be the Persian exile. And the Persians are represented as a bear.
Why? Don't get offended if you're Persian. Please. I don't know if there's any correlation between the Persians today.
Well, there isn't geographically, probably. But that exile at that time represented a nation who were a little hairy and big and a little sovereignly and not so royal. So they weren't at the level of the Babylonians. Don't be offended.
That's just the way it is. Okay? That's the way they're described. this Persian exile at that time. I don't believe there's any correlation between the Persians back then and the Persians that are in Persia today.
That actually is Yishmael that we're going to talk about a little bit later. Okay, it's a different nation because everyone got mixed up. Okay, so out came this bear and in its mouth were three, I'll get this right one second, three ribs in its mouth between its teeth.
Okay. Three ribs, like animal ribs. Now, generally speaking, as far as I know, most bears, and we actually have bears in my neighborhood, actually two mornings ago, all my garbage cans were on the floor with garbage everywhere, and there was actually bears come around, and they're harmless, you just shout at them, they run away, because mostly they're not carnivorous, they just, you know, want, you know, like garbage and food and stuff.
So it's unusual that this bear happened to have ribs in its mouth. Meat. And they say that because of this, It was led to want to devour flesh, and that's what it did. Ahashverosh, who's the king of Persia, that's this exile we're describing right now, was very powerful, and he used his power to hurt a lot of people.
He wasn't real royalty. He's a bear, right? He didn't come from royalty. That's why he married Vashti, who was a granddaughter of Nebuchadnezzar, in order to give himself more prestige, make himself more important.
But he wasn't of any royal blood whatsoever. A lot of the fight between him and Vashti, that's actually why he killed Vashti, because she's like, you're nothing. It's all about me.
And that's where they had it killed. He was powerful and he ruled 120 provinces, including Israel. Remember that? That's where he promised that he wouldn't even give Esther, right? The land of Israel.
That remained his and only his. So that was the second beast. And that's the second exile the Jewish people are going to go through.
Then another beast came out of the water. And that beast was a little bit more scary. And that was a leopard. with four bird's wings on its back, and it had four heads. So what does that represent?
Well, what does a leopard represent? Fast movement. And before we said we've got two wings, this has got four wings.
So what are four wings? Fast movement everywhere. We've got a leopard with four wings. So what exile, who is that referring to?
That's referring to Alexander the Great. He was like a leopard. And he covered a vast amount of territory in a very short amount of time. And he was extremely powerful, and he conquered so much. I mean, he died in his 30s.
And all these stories in Jewish history and world history, Alexander the Great from Macedonia. How did he do so much in such a short amount of time? There's a lot of Gemara that discusses him. He actually had a very good relationship with the Jewish people.
You know that... The year that he made peace with the Jewish people, right, with Shimon HaTzadik, in the land of Israel, there was a decree that every Jewish boy who was born that year should be called Alexander. So when you meet a Jewish Alexander and Alex today, they are probably named all the way back to that original year where all the Jewish boys were named Alexander in honor of Alexander the Great.
He was extremely powerful. But in addition to a leopard, right, he's a leopard, he's moving around. Four bird wings. He also had four heads.
Four heads. I know it's like a scary image. It's actually very scary, what he was having. But the four heads represent the four kings who were going to take over when he died.
Because his, the whole Greek empire, by this is the whole Hanukkah story. So now we're in to the second temple period where the Greeks, the Syrian Greeks, took over the land of Israel. This is what Daniel is predicting because it hasn't happened yet. So he's predicting that the Greeks will take over That's what's going to happen, and this was put into print for us, the Jewish people, so we'd recognize it when we saw it. So there were four kings who took over after his death, and the empire was split among four generals, right?
We have Ptolemy from Egypt, you have Seleucus from Assyria and Babylonia, Antigonus, Persia, and Asia Minor, and Philip Alexander's brother took Macedonia. And that is how the Ababonel, if you remember, anyone who's been with us, were following the Ababonel's interpretation and understanding. of Safer Daniel, because that's the person I'm connected to, okay? That's who we're following over here. So he said this third one is actually the Greek exile that Daniel was talking about.
That's three beasts. The last one, so what have we had? So far we've had a lion, kingship, yeah, with wings. We've had a bear, big, large, slumbering creature.
And we've had the leopard, which is the Greek one. So what's left? What comes after the Greeks? in Jewish history, who really took over from the Greeks, actually. We have the Romans, the Roman Empire.
Now, that is big, and we are still feeling the after effects, the thousands of years later, of the Roman Empire. Now, it's going to turn into the Christian nation, which is why the center of Christendom is in Rome. So we're going to talk about that in a few moments. But this fourth one appeared in the following way. This...
The fourth beast hasn't got a name. We don't know what creature it was. It's going to be described to us, but it's really scary because the Roman Empire, Daniel was basically saying, is beyond description. It's so big and so powerful and going to cause so much damage to the Jewish people of the world and take over so much of the world, as he's going to describe in a second, that we can't even ascribe an animal to it. That's how big and mega this...
creature was. And it was terrifying, says Daniel. It was awesome. And it was strong terrifying awesome and strong which means had great brutality extremely brutal individuals they didn't care they wiped things out they were meticulous at strategy and a tremendous great foresight and finally they were very very careful in their judgment with tremendous strength and power everything the romans did strong and powerful and we still feel that today really the whole Western world is just a continuation, right?
A form of government and language, everything else, and studying, the way we study, what we study, comes from this Roman world. I read somewhere recently that your average male thinks about Rome and the Roman Empire. You hear this whole thing?
Did you hear this? I mentioned it to my wife, and I said, how often do you think about the Roman Empire? She's like, never.
I'm like, probably like three or four times a week. Well, as Jews we do because it really impacted us. We see ourselves as still living under the power of the Roman Empire, whether through now it's Christendom, as it were, right, or then by the destruction of the temple. Well, that's going to the three weeks tomorrow morning. Who did that?
Right, well, it's the Romans. So as a Jew, we talk every time there's a fast, every time we talk about the temple, at Tisha B'Av and everything else, it's Rome, Rome, Rome. Rome was a major thorn in our sides for a long, long time. There's a lot of Gemara, and there's a lot describing, a lot of ink has been written about Rome, fasted Jewish people.
and a lot of blood has been spilled more than anything else from the Romans as well. So for us, the Jewish people, we're always thinking about it. And this is the Roman exile. So he saw this immense creature, which he doesn't describe as an actual animal. It had large, immense iron teeth.
The teeth were iron, okay? So if you remember, iron was the metal of Rome, of the last of the four exiles that Nebuchadnezzar saw in the statue. Remember that?
And it's strong. And it's powerful. Why teeth?
Well, what do teeth do? They devour things. They smash them up. But you can smash things up with your foot, right?
Or your fist. Or your head. So from here, the rabbis learn, the Babanel says, that it's going to crush and consume peoples and nations in order to make itself bigger.
Because when you crush them with your teeth, you take it in, and it becomes part of you. this is the idea that the Roman Empire was just going to get bigger and bigger, and it's going to swallow up, like, you know, it works in English too, swallow up using these iron teeth all these other nations, okay? And anything that remained of it was going to be in trouble. Then he saw on this large creature with the iron teeth, which was terrifying to him, he's probably freaking out with having this vision, it had 10 horns, 10 horns. So the rabbis come along, and they want to figure out, what these ten horns actually refer to.
So at the time when he gave this prediction, nobody knew because it hadn't happened yet. Because remember, Daniel is alive at the end of the Babylonian exile, and he's going to live during the second exile of Persia. But he's not alive at this point.
But later on, the rabbis came along and said, ah, now we know. There were basically ten emperors that ruled over Rome, and these ten represent the... the ten horns that Daniel saw on the back of this creature. And they were Julius Caesar, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, some of these names should mean something to you, Claudius, Nero, very famous, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, and Vespasian.
So these are the ten horns they saw, and the later rabbis, including the Abarbanel, comes along and says, I got it. That's what it is. This is the Roman Empire. And these horns that Daniel saw, now we know what they are.
They represent these large, powerful ten generals. Okay, then he saw something else on this creature. He saw another small horn come out and uproot three of the previous ten horns. So what's that? Now when Daniel saw this, Did he know exactly?
Maybe he did, maybe he didn't, but he didn't print it. There's a lot of different opinions of who this 11th small horn represents. Some say, Rashi and others say, it represents, this last horn represents Titus. Titus was the son of Vespasian. And if you remember, we're about to talk about the next three weeks, all we're going to talk about is Titus.
Titus was the one who destroyed the second temple. So that's how Rashi understands it. The Ababernel that we're going through says this actually is a reference to the transition from Rome as being the Roman Empire and moving into the papacy, moving to the whole pope thing. And he says that's what it's referring to.
He's referring to the popes and their power and their control over the Roman Empire that we're still feeling today. Others, like the Malbim, says no. No, no. Titus, and that's all included in that 10. Nothing to do that whatsoever.
This new horn is a new religion that actually rose up and is going to become a challenge to the previous ten horns because it uprooted them and to the future. And what is that? Islam.
That's what the Maldives says. Islam. This final horn is kind of part of this last beast, but it's coming at the end of it and it's going to cause a lot of trouble to the world and to the Christian, the Roman Empire, which becomes the Christian Empire at the end of days.
Okay? And that's what he says, and he wrote that like in the 1400s. So he already saw the Christian and Islamic world having trouble with each other, which, in case you missed it, we're still having today.
Okay? That's his understanding of it. And the three, according to the Ababonel, the three horns that were rooted were actually the original Roman Empire, which was made with kings. and was made up of a republic that's two and the third one is julius caesar beginning with the emperors all of that was going to be uprooted by this small horn and the papacy according to the ababonell it's the papacy it's the popes and according to the melbourne and others it's actually islam's going to come along and start to cause a lot of warring and challenge and trouble with the christian roman world that's going to last right to the end of days if you remember i know you're going back a little bit we spoke about that statue that Belshazzar's grandfather saw and had those four metals, but there was a bit of clay, earthenware, at the end.
Right at the end, and it appeared on the feet and the toes, right? And usually iron and earthenware don't go together. But here they did, because they're actually going to be contesting and fighting at the end of days. I will mention, there is one commentator which stands apart from all the others, because everyone else agrees that these four beasts represent what I just told you. Babylonian, Greek, sorry, Persian, Greek, and Rome.
That's pretty much accepted, the Babanel and everyone else. The Ibn Israel, I must mention, he was a great, great rabbi, he says no. The fourth one that he saw, this big scary one, is Islam.
So what about Rome? Rome and Greece go together, he say. So the third one, which was the leopard, are one and the same thing. That's just his understanding. And the whole fourth one, the scary, which is the big teeth, and the holes in the back.
Because that's all Islam. But there's ten horns. It represents the different divisions within Islam.
That's what he says. He's unique in saying that. But he's a very big rabbi. But I had to mention it.
But no one else agrees with that. If you go to any Jewish school in Yeshiva, they say the four exiles represent the four that I just told you. But he does actually say that.
So he sees this. He sees in this horn human eyes and a mouth speaking. So the rabbis learn from this that this little horn, which represents...
Islam is going to be a speaking thing, going to be very erudite and they're going to control the world Not always through power, but through speech. Okay, they're going to speak and they're going to be very persuasive Right when you see a mouth, it's a it's a persuasion and eyes means it see things So it's going to be like an eye to the world and it's going to be a lot of Persuasion of this final whether it's the Pope's or Islam is going to persuade people to join it Right when Muhammad started right? He spoke people to actually Killed a lot of people too, but we'll leave that aside for now.
Probably shouldn't, actually. There's a very good book which I recommend called Jerusalem by Simon Sabag Montefiore. Thick book. Amazing book. Highly recommended.
Jerusalem. You're not going to forget. That's it.
A history. And it is thick and you cannot stop reading it. It's unbelievable. Well worth reading.
He does have a chapter there, obviously, on Muhammad. And I should tell you, much to my own... Possible threat by putting this on video, but he mentions in the book. He says that one day when he moved to Medina Because he was kicked out of Mecca, went to Medina. Medina is actually a Jewish name, Medina, right?
There were many Jews living there, and they weren't buying into the early Islam as he was promoting it. And he killed 700 men in one day, Jewish men, took their wives in one day. Actually beheaded them, if you want to know. So this was the start of all that.
It's represented, according to Ibn Isra, the fourth one. According to others, it's the end part, the little horn that came along to uproot. Yeah. Yeah.
So, according to... He doesn't mention it. He just says it's Titus. He mentions it's Titus, he says.
He seems to think that they're going to come along and they're going to succeed, take over the Roman armies in the Holy Land. And he's only a small horn, because when he did it, he wasn't an emperor yet. So he wasn't part of the original.
But he uprooted previous work of the people that came before him. He doesn't go into any more detail, as far as I know, that I've seen so far. Okay? So we covered the Ebenezer.
I wonder if this is the Melbourne we saw. I mentioned that already. Three horns.
We saw the ten, and we saw the one, and we saw white eyes. Okay. So now, it's not looking good for the Jewish people. So far, we've seen these four beasts, right?
maybe a fifth one, they're going to come and hurt us. Well, what about us? So immediately he starts talking about the end of all the exiles, which, in case you're wondering, is happening now.
So this is Daniel talking to us in 578-4, going into 578-5, 2024, and about to see what we're about to see. And he says, at the same time I saw thrones are set up. Thrones are set up and an ancient one came and he describes his garment is white as snow, his hair is like clean wool, his throne was made of very enigmatic language, fiery flames, the wheels are blazing fire. This actually, say the commentators, is a reference to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, to God. So Hashem is getting involved right now and white always represents...
purity. So it's going to be a cleansing that's going to occur at that time. Okay.
And he sees that there was a judgment that was set up and books are open. That's what it says. A judgment was set.
So God is going to judge all these nations and everything's happened to us over thousands of years and books were opened. I must mention, I can't go into too much now, but from this one verse, all the rabbis... make a whole thing. You know they talk about Rosh Hashanah. The books are open to be judged.
It comes from here. There's a judgment that happens. Actually there are three judgments that happen and the Abba Banal has a whole description of what these three judgments are.
But basically there's three judgments everyone goes through. Number one, every Rosh Hashanah, the books are over, we're judged. That's number one. Okay, that's number two. When a person dies, their soul is judged, that's judgment number two.
And number three, at the end of days, there's going to be a final Yom Hadin Hagadol, the great big judgment. Those three judgments. The Ramban goes into a lot of detail about this, what the judgment is, how it works, what we're judged for, what are they judged for.
There's a lot to discuss over here. I can't get into it because I'm discussing with Sheikh Daniel, but it's very, very interesting. But there is, according to him, going to be a big final judgment at the end of days.
Happens to be that Barbanel says it doesn't make sense. Because if a person is judged over Rosh Hashanah, and by the way, every person, Colbert and the entire world has judged Rosh Hashanah, not just the Jewish people, right? It's Rosh Hashanah for the entire world.
And if we're all judged, everyone when they die, then what's the final judgment? They've already had that in judgment number two. You hear the question of the Barbanel?
He says this final judgment isn't a judgment per se, it's just a reading out of what the actual judgment is. Basically, it's going to be a final day of reckoning that is going to be spoken out, and that's the final one. In other words, the judgment's already happened, because everyone's judged when they die.
But that's now going to come to fruition, and we're going to see the final great judgment that is going to take place for the entire world. And everything's happened to us at the hands of the Romans and the Greeks and the Babylonians and the Nazis and Hamas, and all this is going to come into equation, and it's going to be a final... great judgment of reward and punishment. It's just a lot written on that. It's based upon this.
That's all I'm going to say about it because I want to get to the final piece before we finish. We only have a few minutes left and that is the final aspect. Daniel saw in this revelation, and it goes like this.
He sees a man. in night visions, so once again, night time again, and he sees this man arriving, a man of flesh and blood, with the clouds of heaven, okay? And he basically sees this man consulting with God, who he refers to, it's all in Aramaic, as the one of ancient days. So who is this man? So everyone agrees, and Rashi says it, Zoh Mashiach, who? Melech HaMashiach.
That's who he sees. This Inesh, this man is Mashiach. So he sees Mashiach in this dream, in this revelation, in this prophecy, arriving.
I will mention again that he did know the final arrival date of Mashiach. There is no Aramaic understanding of the understanding because all the rabbis were convinced Everyone, that the arrival date is actually recorded in this book, in this chapter, in the verse I'm about to read to you. Okay? So it's numerical, most likely.
People understand numerically based upon events from history. I'm going to give it to you in a second. Hold on. So he sees this person come, and this person was a very impressive individual. He was given dominion and honor and kingship.
Okay? Layehiv shaltan vi'ikar umalchu. He's a great... titles to be given to someone if you look in the other prophets when they describe Moshiach that they do same kind of thing a very impressive individual a person is very charismatic who's gonna bring kingship because Moshiach is gonna be a king he's gonna return peace to the world and it's got tremendous kavod okay and all the people right the whole Amma Maya every Am it works in Hebrew and Aramaic Um Maya the Lishnaya and every language everyone sees every language is gonna say oh that's Moshiach It's not going to be a question. Everyone's going to agree it's going to take time until we get there.
It's going to have to be a big breakdown of the old order that we're seeing right now. And then a new order is going to begin and everyone's going to be like, that's Mashiach. Actually, Isaiah the prophet says, this isn't a class on Isaiah because that's much more difficult, but he says that all the nations of the world are going to stream to Israel, like rivers, coming to seek advice, to see the one true Mashiach in the land of Israel.
of Israel in Yerushalayim. That's going to be there, and all the other religions are going to disappear. You won't have any need for them.
Every human is going to believe in the one true God of Israel, which is everyone's God. As I mentioned before, we don't have a monopoly on God. You should know that that one comment is going to get 35 comments on YouTube right now. Believe me, look at it, but I wouldn't recommend it, okay? And we know, he says, that's going to be the final...
Basically, all the other times kings have come, they've been replaced. He's like, Make no mistakes, says Daniel. When this Mashiach comes, that's the end of all the galos.
It's done. No more war ever again. No more hardship ever again. It's all done, he's saying. It's going to happen forever and ever.
It's everlasting dominion, and its kingship is never going to be destroyed. That means there's always going to be safety and peace in the land of Israel, actually in the entire world. The $4 trillion of Islamic money, which I heard recently, that is spent... militarily, right, throughout the world, maybe it's just America, I don't even know, is done.
That's done. No more war and no more bloodshed and Moshiach is going to be here for the entire world. Daniel got uneasy and he said, as for me, you know, I became uneasy, right, because all these visions started to get to me.
He's a normal man, flesh and blood, whatever happened to the guy, right? And I wanted to know what these beasts were, they represent, I wanted to know the truth about them, right? And that's when...
Everything was revealed to him at that time. Okay? Everything was revealed to him at that time.
We are not privy to that information. But he does say the following, and this is important. I'm going to read through the verse.
And if you want to know, we're in chapter 7, verse 25. And it goes like this. He will speak words against the Supreme One. Okay? He will exhaust the Holy One.
That means he's going to really come forward and do great things. He's going to... plan, alter the seasons.
He's describing the tremendous upheaval that's going to happen in the world once Moshiach comes. And all these other nations that I mentioned, he's told, Daniel is told in this dream, are going to fall to the hand of Moshiach, which fits in very well with all the other prophets and the Rambam that says one of the main jobs of Moshiach is to fight the wars of Hashem, the Milchem at Hashem. Right now there's potential Moshiach.
And right now, the plenipotentiary could be fighting the wars of God. It could well be. It could well be. Okay?
And all going to be given to his hand. And here's the verse. Until a time, and times, and half a time. Anybody?
That's when Moshiach is coming. I'm going to say it again. It's going to be a time for when he's speaking.
And times, and half a time. Rashi, this is very out of character with Rashi. Let me just talk, before I get to that, I'm going to get to it. I want to talk to you about predicting when Moshiach comes.
The Gemara, okay, I'm going to tell you what it is, and then I'm going to reverse everything I'm going to say. The Gemara says that trying to establish the arrival time of Moshiach, a person is cursed for doing it. Those people who try to find the exact time of Moshiach's arrival should be cursed.
It literally means their bones should rot. But the Gemara curses such individuals. Okay?
It's not a good thing. Why? So the Gemara mentions it, and Rashi answers and says, because they're going to say, this is the time, according to my calculation, reading the words of the prophets, I came with the calculation, I saw the signs that all the rabbis gave us, I saw the signs the prophets gave us, and that's the time. But let's say that time comes and goes, because they miscalculated. Is that possible?
Could great people miscalculate? Absolutely. I'll give you an example from history.
We know there was a tribe called Ephraim, who were with the rest of the Jewish people in Egypt. Now, they had a tradition that the Jewish people would be in Egypt for 400 years. Ends up being 210. Now, they...
when they heard that that was a prediction given to our Avot, they miscalculated and they were off by 30 years. So a lot of people in this tribe of Ephraim left Egypt 30 years too early and end up being killed in the desert and didn't make it into Israel. So you can have great people who try to calculate a prediction from the prophets and still get it wrong, such as... Oh, very good. So that's right.
But that's a one-day miscalculation. You're right. But it ended up being the whole chet e'ig, the whole sin of the golden calf came from a one-day, very good, miscalculation. Do I start the 40 days today? Or do I start tomorrow?
How do you start the calculation? They started that day. I actually started the full day.
Very good. So there's many miscalculations. According to Gemara, it seems absolutely forbidden to calculate Moshiach's arrival.
Not that it's impossible. It may well be possible and you're able to do it. All the rabbis agree, and they say you shouldn't do it. The most fiercest one that says you should not do it is actually the one we probably quote the most. That's the Rambam, Maimonides.
He says, don't do it. Tell them what to do. Don't make this your big study.
And then he wrote a letter to the Jews of Yemen, and he gave his calculation. And then the Gaon did the same thing. Rav Sadia Gaon said, don't do it, not to do it. And then he gave his calculation.
And the Ramban, and everyone's at it. They're all giving calculations. The Rashi does it as well. And Rashi quotes and says, oh, we have a tradition that Rav Sadegon, he had his calculation, but that time passed. How can it pass that calculation?
goes like this is very important. There could well be windows, pockets of time that are open to redemption. Certain times in history through certain events, certain challenges may have gone through certain merits that we've accrued kind of open up certain windows and there are possibilities for the redemption to happen at that time. Maybe we don't merit it at that time. Maybe we're not worthy of it at that time.
Whatever it is, it doesn't happen at that time. That doesn't take away from the idea that there is a calculation. I'm going to add to that that maybe there isn't one time.
Maybe there's two times. Two times Meshach's arrival. Yeah!
Because we know Isaiah the prophet in chapter 60 uses... two words, and those two words describe two possible times of the arrival of Mashiach. Be'ito Achishena.
He's going to come in his time. Or Achishena, if he decides to speed it up. Be'ito Achishena. Those are the words of Isaiah the Prophet, chapter 60. Be'ito means he's going to come.
And he must come by a certain time. And that's a fixed date. Many people believe that to be by the 6,000th year.
It doesn't have to be. But it's a fixed time. But we have the ability through our actions to do certain things, including Shabbat and Chesed.
to each other to achishena expedite bring early the redemption and make it come earlier okay okay hold on we also have a prophecy we just saw of daniel that this great king is coming from the clouds all the other creatures if you remember came out the sea very physical though beasts our Redeemer, our King, is coming from clouds. That's very, very nice. Isn't that beautiful?
Coming out of the clouds, out of the spiritual realm. But wait a minute. We know, and all of you have heard this, that Zechariah the prophet says in chapter 9, verse 9, that Moshiach is going to come like a poor person riding on a donkey. So the rabbis are like, well, the rabbis of the Gemara are like, well, which one is it?
Says Rabbi Yeshua ben Levi, is he going to be coming out of the clouds, like all fancy with great miracles, out of heaven? Or is he coming, do-do-do-do-do-do, like a poor person, like an ani rochav, al chamor, on a donkey? Well, which one is it?
And he answers and says, it depends whether we merit it. Or it just happens. Where do you get that from? From Isaiah. Isaiah gave two time frames.
But those two time frames also describe two possible ways he can come. If we reach the Be'ito time, the time that's the fixed time that's set, he must come by that time, he's going to come in a very non-miraculous manner, like a poor person riding... He's coming for sure.
That's a given. That's a postulate. There's no doubt about that.
But he's going to come like a poor person riding on a donkey. Does that sound good to you? Do you want your redeemer coming to you riding on a donkey?
Right? If your, you know, parents or your husband or wife or whatever said, I've got a great gift for you, right? Here's a donkey. You're like, I don't want a donkey. I want a Ferrari.
I want a Tesla. Give me something good. So that's the Be'ito version. The Ahishenah version is if we merit it. If we don't merit it, it's going to happen anyway.
It's going to be very, very mundane. It's good, but not as good as it can be. The earlier version, which is Daniel's version of it, which is the Ahishenah version of Isaiah, you still with me?
That's miraculous. And that's going to be on par with Mitzrayim times 10. The plagues and all the rest. That's the much better version. And that's what we want.
So he's definitely coming. So we have two time frames, Isaiah the prophet, but... and two ways they can come.
Daniel's giving us the cloud one, which is delicious, perfect. And Zechariah, chapter 9, verse 9, is the donkey one. Good, but we want miracles.
Miracles stand out, and that's what wants to be with us. Rashi makes his own calculation, and I'm going to just read it out because I did promise this to you. And once again, everyone complains and says, don't do it, don't do it.
And then they come along, and... they actually do it. So Rashi explains the words v'idanin or flagidan as times, half a time, adidan, until a time. Thus, and I'm going to tell you what he says.
I'm reading in English. Thus a time, right, which is two times because it's plural. The plural form indicates at least two, and a half a time, which means we know that the first time refers to the Babylonian Jewish history that's up to that point, which is 480 years from the Exodus until the building of the first temple. That's one time.
Then, we have 410 years the temple stood. Let's add 410 to that. That's the second period.
Gives us a total of 890 years. Half of that is 455, because it's half a time. We have a time. Two is half a time. Comes to 445 years.
Adding this to the 890 we had originally, I'm not running through this, but trust me on this, Rashi brings us down over here on this Pasuk, comes down to 1,335 years. That's Rashi's understanding of this verse of Daniyah. Now it could be that time is gone, or it could not be. Question is, when do we start this 1,335-year clock that ends with Moshiach's arrival? That we're not told.
That's open to speculation and understanding. So that much I cannot tell you. But we do know that's the end of it. And at that point, he says, I understand, but the matter is guarded in my heart, which means that he knew. He knew more, but he wasn't opening.
We're going to see later on in chapter 12 when we get there, he's going to explicitly say that he deliberately kept it quiet so that people like us, this is Daniel's words, are going to have a lot of discussions trying to figure out when the final date is going to be. So he actually left it storm closed for that reason. Next week, we are going to continue with another vision that he has, and there are going to be more horns in that vision as well, representing more...
Details of the galut and the final redemption. Any questions, thoughts on comments? On anything we discussed tonight?
Because we did a lot tonight. Yeah. Yeah, he saw four beasts, one after the other, come out of water.
And the water represents the powers that control the world. And it caused a lot of storm and torment. It's going to come to the Jewish people.
And also from all four directions. So those are references to the four exiles, the four great kingships. And all the other ones are part of it that are going to come through Jewish history.
And going to impact us, the Jewish people, most predominantly. Yeah. So you said the bear had... Ribs in its mouth, yeah. So you said the significance of the ribs.
It does. It does have relevance. I didn't mention it, did I? I probably should have. These threes, a lot of threes actually in this book as well.
Notice, by the way, the Persians did not have wings because they didn't move around too much. They kind of stayed where they are and didn't do much over there. Hold on.
I want to answer that. Three ribs. Ah, basically there were three provinces that were continuously in a state of revolt, and the Persians came along and swallowed them up and incorporated them into the Persian Empire. That's what Rashi says based upon the Gemara. Others say they represent the three kings.
That are Cyrus, who allowed the Jews to go back to Israel. Achashverosh, who stopped it. And then Darius, who allowed it again. Those are the three ribs, represent those three leaders that are allowing us to go back to Israel to build the second temple.
That is Rashi. Anyone else? Fabulous.
We'll stop over there. Dinner's served and Robert Rubin will be speaking in a moment. We'll continue, God willing, next week with the next upcoming chapters.