 There's an Israeli academic now living in the United States. His name is Dan Ariely and In 2008 he published a book which became a best-seller. The book is called Predictably Irrational Predictably Irrational and it basically discusses and analyzes how human beings Although we think that everything we do is clearly thought out and rational He tries to explain how much of what we do is quite the opposite is irrational He's I mentioned in Israeli now living in the US who earned two doctorates one in the field of psychology and one in the field of Behavioral economics we call an underachiever and he's a very very prestigious Lecturer on a number of campuses in the United States He writes in his book that when he turned 30 we can 30 years of age and I guess he was beginning to raise his family His young family he decided it would be a good idea to trade in his motorcycle for a car The question is what car should he buy and when this took place? It was in the early days of the internet So he found a website that helped people locate an appropriate car and So the website asked him to fill out a questionnaire and asked him a long series of questions Such as what are his preferred? What is the preferred safety rating of the car that he wants does he want a car that has a very? secure safety rating How about the desired braking distance for the car and the turning radius and how many? Passengers he'd like the car to be able to carry and of course the price range but he had about 15 minutes of questions to fill out and after The questions were all completed. He pressed the button that says submit and He submitted his form and a few minutes later the computer program the software spit out its recommendation for his new car and it was a Ford Taurus Now after having driven a motorcycle for so many years He was very disappointed. He couldn't imagine Driving such a sedate car as a Ford Taurus. It was so middle-aged and it was not him So what did Dan Ariely do? Well, he went back to the computer program and he began clicking on the back button Back and back and back all the way he took the program to the very beginning of the questionnaire and He began changing many of the original answers that he submitted For example when asked about the safety rating that he was interested in So he clicked off now. He wasn't interested in necessarily the safest car on the road and He was not interested now in having so many passengers that he could take. He changed the answers to fit What he felt would point to a more appropriate? automobile choice for him to replace his motorcycle and As he was refilling out this questionnaire he kept checking to see How the different answers he was putting in now translated into different car recommendations He kept on doing this until The website recommended a Mazda Miata a small convertible sports car That was the right car for him He was very grateful. He wrote for this amazing software and The great advice that it gave him of course the original data that he entered Didn't yield the correct answer and so He had to fudge his responses Until they yielded a recommendation that met with his approval similarly many Christian apologists today in the world Engage in fantastic mental gymnastics and manipulations of data in order to bolster their doctrines For example Christian missionaries often find a very uncomfortable disconnect between what the Bible actually teaches and their beliefs for example Does the Bible teach that God should be understood as a trinity? no and increasing numbers of Christians realize this so if you really are Committed to believing in the doctrine of the trinity. What do you do despite the fact that the Bible points in another direction or What if you're a Christian who believes that the only way to be forgiven for your sins? is to believe that the Messiah had to be murdered on your behalf and you have to believe in that murdered Messiah and What if you feel that that's an important thing to believe? But the Bible doesn't seem to be pointing in that direction The Bible seems to be saying that you can be forgiven for your sins by turning away from them and repenting What is a Christian to do if they feel committed to those beliefs or What about a Christian Who believes that it's no longer critical To observe all the laws of the Bible In spite of the fact that the Bible repeats many many times that its laws must be observed forever Eternally throughout our generations unto a thousand generations as long as you're living on the earth What are you to do when your beliefs seem to run up against? exactly what the Bible teaches or What if you believe that the Jewish people would ultimately lose their status as The chosen people and become replaced by the church When the Bible teaches repeatedly that the Jewish people will be God's special people forever So it's very difficult sometimes to be a Christian committed to beliefs that seems so antithetical to what the Bible actually teaches and There are many many other issues especially Which will be focusing on tonight Especially the failure of Jesus to fulfill any of the messianic prophecies of the Bible What are you to do if you feel it's important to believe that he was the Messiah and Since the Bible does not clearly corroborate These Christian beliefs Many Christians desperately turn to rabbinic literature To find support They go through the Talmud the Midrashim the Targumim the Kabbalah Hasidic literature and They cherry-pick sources that are designed to help them Substantiate their beliefs what we'll be looking at tonight is What is often a very clumsy attempt To seize on the rabbinic concept of a Mashiach Ben Yoseph a Messiah from the house of Joseph as a red herring to muddy the waters Regarding Jesus's other failure to fulfill any of the messianic prophecies some missionaries point out That the Jews believe in this idea of Mashiach Ben Yoseph Messiah son of Joseph and they say look Jesus's father was named Joseph some Christian missionaries try to find parallels between the biblical character of Joseph and Jesus they try to go through and analyze the life of Joseph Yoseph at Sadik and they try to show the similarities between the Joseph story and the life of Jesus for example both Joseph and Jesus seemed to have been betrayed by their brethren or Joseph had his coat taken away from him and they say so did Jesus or Joseph was locked up in a prison with two men and Jesus is crucified between two men and they try to find these kind of parallels Between the life of Joseph and the life of Jesus Of course, they ignore all of the differences Between the Joseph story and the Jesus story, but more importantly The story of Joseph the life of Joseph is not the paradigm. It's not the source It's not the template for the rabbinic concept of Mashiach Ben Yoseph It's not relevant to the entire concept from a rabbinic point of view It's also worth pointing out that Jesus was not a descendant of joseph The whole idea of Mashiach Ben Yoseph means it's a messiah who descends from the line of joseph And the christian bible goes to great lengths to show that jesus is a descendant of yehuda Joseph's brother we're going to see That other christians take a different approach And they use the concept of Mashiach Ben Yoseph Not to find direct support for jesus But as a way of critiquing The jewish concept of Mashiach Ben Yoseph In order to support their belief in the idea of a second coming of the messiah We'll look at that in a moment If you can turn to your source sheets on page one We have here a passage from the Babylonian Talmud tractates on hedrin 98a I mean side a And in this passage rabbi alexandri said Rabbi joshua opposed two verses meaning rabbi joshua took two verses in the bible that seemed to contradict He took two verses and he contrasted them one to the other Let's look underneath for a moment to look at these two verses in their entirety We have a verse from the book of daniel chapter seven verse 13 Where daniel writes that he was watching in the night visions and behold With the clouds of heaven One like a son of man came And he came up to the ancient of days And they brought him before him So we see that there's someone a character Referred to as a son of man coming with the clouds of heaven It seems to be incredible supernatural majestic And yet we have a passage in the prophet zacharia Chapter nine verse nine Rejoice greatly. Oh daughter of zion shout for joy. Oh daughter of jerusalem for behold Your king will come to you righteous and victorious is he But he is a humble man riding upon a donkey upon a foe a calf of she dunkeys This character is not coming from the heavens grand and majestic A simple humble person riding on the back of a donkey And so the town would takes these two passages and sees them as possibly contradicting So rabbi joshua took these two verses and he says it is written And behold one like a son of man came with the clouds of heaven That's one verse While elsewhere it is written behold your king comes to you lowly and riding upon an ass What do you make of these two verses? So the town would answers If they the jewish people merit if we are meritorious He the messiah will come with the clouds of heaven But if not He will come lowly and riding upon an ass Now some christian missionaries take this passage of the town would And they say oh, you see These passages like the ones that speak about the messiah being humble and low And riding on the back of a donkey That's describing the missionaries assert That's describing the messiah son of joseph And they say and that's talking about jesus So there are some missionaries that try to insert jesus into this passage As the messiah son of joseph However the most common way in which missionaries use this passage of the town would Is as follows They say you know what the rabbis when they read the bible again, this is what the missionaries will say The rabbis when they read the bible The rabbis notice that there are different kinds of descriptions of the messiah Some seem to be miraculous and grand and glorious And some seem to be the messiah as humble and may be suffering and may be rejected And the missionaries say the rabbis resolve this Contradiction by proposing that there will be two messiahs A lowly messiah A messiah who suffers who's the messiah son of joseph and the glorious reigning kingly messiah son of david so that the missionaries Basically claim that we have this tension between two kinds of pictures of what the messiah's career will be like And the missionaries say how did the rabbis resolve this seemingly contradictory set of passages by proposing two kinds of messiahs a messiah son of joseph and messiah son of david And the missionaries say no, that's not correct. The rabbis are wrong And they say the rabbis fail to realize that it's not two different messiahs It's really one messiah who will come twice This is the christian doctrine of the second coming and the christians assert that the messiah will be fulfilling both pictures The messiah is going to come initially as a lowly degraded suffering messiah And then he will come back much later as the victorious king messiah Now the problem here Is that this passage in the talmud Does not try to reconcile these passages in the bible By proposing two different kinds of messiahs The talmud basically says that there's one davidic messiah. There'll be one reigning king messiah But he can come in two different ways If the jewish people are meritorious if we're worthy Then the davidic messiah will come among supernatural miracles and it'll be grand and glorious But if the jewish people are not worthy If we're not worthy the messiah will not come in a grand miraculous supernatural way He will come in a lowly humble Natural process which may be very difficult So I want you to understand that the entire christian analysis of this passage is faulty Again, they're insisting that the rabbis solve the tension Between these different kinds of passages. This is the missionary assertion that the rabbis solve the tension by proposing Two different messiahs That's not correct What the rabbis do to solve the tension between these two kinds of passages is to say no They're all talking about the davidic messiah The passages in the talmud here are not speaking about the messiah son of joseph The missionaries are inserting the messiah son of joseph in here when he doesn't belong This passage has nothing to do with the messiah the son of joseph We're going to see in a few minutes where the concept actually comes from But the passage here in the talmud is discussing two different ways In which the davidic messiah the kingly messiah will come so what I Will hope to do now Is share with you Where does this idea come from because there is a jewish concept of a mashiach ben yoseph It's not from this passage that we just studied But where does it come from? So I want to share with you a passage in the beginning of the book of zikariah Some people call him zakariah In the second chapter of zikariah The prophet writes the following He writes I lifted my eyes and looked and behold I saw four horns This is a a vision. This is a A symbol that often comes up in apocalyptic prophetic literature And so zikariah says he saw four horns And he says I said to the angel who was speaking to me. What are these? Again, he's seeing these in a vision in a dream and he doesn't know what they represent. What are they? What are these horns? And so he said to me the angel explained to him These are the horns that dispersed juda Israel and jerusalem These horns are the horns that dispersed Judah is real and jerusalem The commentaries explain that what it's referring to these four horns Are the four kingdoms the four empires that exiled the jewish people The kingdom of babel babalon The kingdom of paras Persia The kingdom of yavan greece And then finally the kingdom of edom rom So the four horns are understood to refer to these four kingdoms that dispersed and persecuted the jewish people But then god then showed me zikariah says Hashem then showed me four craftsmen four craftsmen Rashi understands this to mean four carpenters And I asked zikariah asks again What are they coming to do? What are these four carpenters these four craftsmen coming to do? And he spoke saying these horns that dispersed juda until no man could raise his head So these have come meaning these four craftsmen have come To terrify them to terrify these four horns To cast down the horns of the nations who raise a horn against the land of juda to disperse it it's a very difficult passage in the prophet much of the book of zikariah these prophetic dreams are not easy to understand Some commentaries say that these four craftsmen That will basically take retribution Against the four horns the four kingdoms that dispersed the jewish people So these four carpenters some commentaries say refer to the four Powers in the world that dispersed those four powers. So for example Who dispersed who conquered greece? It was rom and who conquered persia? It was greece So some commentaries say that the four craftsmen Refer to the four powers in the world that basically dealt with these four horns that exile the jewish people. However the talmud Babylonian talmud tractate sukkah page 52b asks Who are these four craftsmen? Revchuna the son of business said in the name of rabbi shimon chasigda These are the mashiach ben david the davidic messiah The mashiach ben yosef the messiah from the family from the house of joseph Elijah the prophet and the righteous priest these will be the four craftsmen Now let's try to see Who these four craftsmen are and where they come from? On page two of your source sheets the next page We will see that in the jewish bible in our scriptures There are many references many references clear References to the davidic messiah we call mashiach ben david the truth is that There are hundreds of passages in the bible hundreds That speak about not so much the davidic messiah But they describe what the world will look like when he comes So most of the references in the jewish bible Don't directly describe the person of the messiah the messiah himself But they obliquely describe what the world will look like when he's here However, there are approximately 10 passages that directly speak about the davidic messiah for example In isiah chapter 11 We were told by the prophet isiah A staff will emerge from the stump of jesse jesse yishai was the father of david So a star a staff will emerge from the stump of jesse and a chute will sprout from his roots There will be a descendant of jesse And the spirit of a shem the spirit of god will rest upon him A spirit of wisdom and understanding a spirit of counsel and strength A spirit of knowledge and the fear of god This will be a special person He will judge the destitute with righteousness and decide with fairness for the humble of the earth Righteousness will be the girdle around his loins and faith will be the girdle around his waist We're describing here a person that is righteous that is wise. That's a great judge And then we're told that when he is judging when he is ruling The wolf will live with the sheep and the leopard will lie down with the kid the prophet goes on I'm not giving you the whole passage And isiah says they will neither hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain. There'll be no more violence in the world For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of hashem as the waters cover the seas Here isiah is describing What we refer to in judaism as the messianic age an age of universal peace an age of universal knowledge of god an age when we will have a Totally utopian world And we're told that presiding over this world will be this descendant of jesse a wise and righteous ruler and judge The prophet yermio who Jeremiah chapter 23 verses five to six Predicts behold days are coming The word of god says when I will establish a righteous sprout from david There'll be a righteous descendant from david again exactly what isiah said He'll be a king who will reign and prosper He'll be a prospering reigning king And he will administer justice and righteousness in the land again just as isiah said And in his days juda will be saved and israel will dwell securely So during the reigning of this Davidic king the jewish people will finally be at peace And then the prophet yecheskel is equal chapter 37 Speaks also about this david a king He writes my servant david will be king over them over the jewish people And there will be one shepherd for all of them. They will follow my ordinances and keep my decrees and fulfill them Another element of the messianic world will be a world in which all the jewish people are loyal to observe the Torah They will dwell on the land that I gave to my servant jacob they and their children and their children's children will dwell on it forever Another element of the messianic promise is that the jewish people will return to their homeland and live there for Live there peacefully forever And my servant david who will be this messiah will be a leader for them forever And I will seal a covenant of peace with them again a major theme It will be an everlasting covenant with them and I will increase them And I will set my sanctuary among them forever Another element of the messianic picture is that we will have not just our homeland and peace We're going to have our rebuilt holy temple My dwelling place will be among them and I will be a god to them and they will be my people Then the nations will know That I am Hashem who sanctifies israel when my sanctuary will be among them forevermore So here we have three passages There are many more but three passages that describe a utopian world And describe a king from the family that will descend from david That's what we refer to in judaism as the mashiach ben david the davidic messiah and truthfully every reference in the bible and in the talmud Virtually every reference to the messiah is describing the messiah ben david the davidic messiah One of the four craftsmen will be elijah the prophet Does the bible speak about elijah the prophet in the end days? Well the last of the prophets malachi chapter three The last two verses of his book He says behold I will send you elijah the prophet Before the coming of the great and awesome day of Hashem What does it mean the awesome day of Hashem? It means that day as the prophet zekhariah says payom hahoog iya adonai akharu shmoh akharan that day when god will be one in the entire world and the whole world will believe in him That's what it means to say the awesome day of Hashem So we're told here That the prophet elijah is going to come back to the jewish people And he will turn back the hearts of the fathers with their sons and the hearts of sons with their fathers lest I come and strike the land without a destruction so we see again when the prophet zekhariah Speaks about the four carpenters And the talmud says it's the messiah son of david or we know that's in the bible And when it says the prophet elijah the bible speaks about that as well But then the talmud said that we're going to have the this righteous priest Now that's something for which we don't have any Clear source in the bible The bible doesn't really speak about some special priest who will emerge in the times of the messiah The only reference that we really could find is in the dead sea scrolls And in the community rule one qs There's a reference to the prophet and the messiahs The prophet would be obviously elijah But the prophet and the messiahs in the plural messiahs of erin well erin was the high priest And isreal So here the dead sea scrolls seems to speak about during the time of the future Elijah the prophet The messiah and this righteous priest Who refers to as messiah of erin messiah by the way means anointed And we know that the high priests were anointed So to refer to someone as a messiah Does not mean that they're one kind of special person in the jewish bible There are many messiahs anyone who was anointed would be called a messiah the problem is That the talmud and tractate sukkah refer to a fourth Of the craftsmen and that was the messiah son of joseph Where do we see that? Where is the precedent for that? So if you turn to page three We have here a passage from the prophet zacharia In the 12th chapter now i didn't Site for you the beginning of the chapter The beginning of the chapter speaks about A time when the land of israel will be invaded By all the nations of the world Now this is a major theme in the bible and in rabbinic literature This is the idea that in the end times Is going to be a tremendous wars That are called the wars of gog and magog What christians sometimes call gog and magog But it's gog and magog Gog is a person a ruler And magog is the nation that he will be coming from And somehow this gog from magog Will be leading a Universal confederation of nations Some people point out that the gematria the numerical value of gog and magog is 70 And he'll be leading all 70 nations of the world To attack jerusalem It'll be a huge array of nations that will be coming up against the jewish people in the land of israel Actually the rabbis explain to us That there will not just be one war of gog and magog According to rabbinic tradition, there'll be at least three wars Some people like the villanagone say there might even be more And many of our sages try to figure out maybe world war one was the first of these wars And maybe world war two was the second of these wars and who knows what's going to be the third This is open to tremendous speculation In any event it's a normative teaching that there won't just be one war of gog and magog There'll be several and The prophet zikarya here describes One of these great wars One of the analogies that our rabbis give to explain these many wars Because this is supposed to be in jewish literature called chevle masiach The birth pangs of the messiah The rabbis speak about great suffering That will take place For the jewish people before the coming of the messiah And part of this great suffering will be these horrible wars and great persecution And the rabbi has given a mashal an analogy to a king that got very angry with his son And the king passed sentence on his son that the son should be killed by having a huge boulder thrown at him But then later on when the king his anger rebated And he feel he felt that it really does not does not want to kill his son So he basically took the sentence He couldn't wipe it away But he said we'll take this big boulder and we'll break it into small tiny rocks and pebbles And we'll just throw those rocks and pebbles at the boy. They won't kill him But they'll make him suffer So in the prophet here is zikhariah chapter 12 We read that on that day when there's this great war going on Hashem will protect the inhabitants of Jerusalem Even though the whole world is going to attack us God will protect Jerusalem And on that day even the weakest among them will be like david Even the weakest jew will be as brave like david Who was a great warrior And the house of david will be like divine beings. They'll even be like angels. That's how Inconquerable they will be Like an angel of Hashem before them and it shall be on that day That I will seek to destroy all the nations that come up upon jerusalem God said that even though the whole world is going to try and destroy jerusalem God said i'm going to destroy all these nations And I will pour out upon the house of david And upon the inhabitants of jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplications And they the jewish people will look toward me Because of the one they have stabbed And they will mourn over him as one mourns over an only child And be embittered over him like the embitterment over a firstborn And that day the mourning will become as intense in jerusalem Like the mourning of hadad remone and the mourning at the valley of megidan Now the way many of our commentaries understand this passage Is that even though the language describes one person who is stabbed And the mourning over one person Many of the commentaries point out that in our bible The bible often describes the jewish people as a singular corporate entity The bible often describes the entire nation with the pronoun he and him And so many commentaries point out that what the jewish people will look to god for in this passage We're going to turn to god because not of the one that was stabbed But we're going to turn to god because of all the jews who would have fallen in battle It's quite likely that in this entire war where the whole world is attacking us We're going to lose more than one person And so according to many commentaries The way they understand this is that we will turn to god because of those that were stabbed those that were killed in this war And we're going to mourn for him meaning we're going to mourn for them like we're mourning for a firstborn son however The babelonian talmud and tractate tsukka page 52 a Understands it differently and understands it literally is speaking about one person And talmud says what is the nature of this morning this great morning? Rabbi dosa and the rabbis disagreed about it. So there was a disagreement between rabidosa and the rabbis One said that the morning will be for the messiah from the tribe of joseph Who was killed in battle? While the other said it will be for the evil inclination the yatsuhara That will be slaughtered at that time Now tonight we're not going to Analyze what it means that the evil inclination will be slaughtered. That's an entire lecture onto itself But according to one opinion in the talmud here The passage in the in zacharia is describing The death of masiach ben yoseph Who will be killed in this end time battle? Now it's important to know That the whole concept of masiach ben yoseph The entire concept is very tenuous Because in the entire talmud A huge work 63 volumes 63 tractates There's only one mention actually two if you want to take the previous passage about the four craftsmen We're according to the talmud one of them is masiach ben yoseph, but it told you nothing about him But if you want to find the one place in the entire talmud Where we're told anything about masiach ben yoseph Who is he? What does he do? This is it the one place And we're told that he will be killed in this end time war And there'll be tremendous mourning And eulogizing of him Because this concept is so tenuous you should know That my manatees for example who wrote the definitive work on what the concept of messiah is in judeism The rambam doesn't mention one word about masiach ben yoseph For him the entire concept is just not even discussed And i've looked at many contemporary works many contemporary books that discuss the concept of the messiah And they don't get into the second idea of the messiah son of joseph So it's obviously whatever the concept is it's a very very very minor character in the scheme of things But this war this war that we're describing This is discussed many times in the bible in the book of ezekiel chapters 38 and 39 It discusses this war of gogle magog It's discussed in the book of zikarya here in chapter 12 in chapter 14 of the book of zikarya It's discussed in the book of jeremiah yur meyahu chapter 30 It's discussed in the prophet daniel chapters 11 to 12. It's mentioned in the prophet of yoel This is a topic that comes up often in jewish literature this end time war of gogle magog We're told that it's going to start when is this war going to start This might sound very very relevant It's going to start when the world sees The success that the jewish people have had Coming back to their homeland and settling their homeland Now if you want to see something which is so current That the jewish people came back from the ashes of the holocaust To a land that was barren and empty basically to make it one of the superpowers of the world Start up nation The place that is just revolutionizing life on this planet And we're told by the rabbis that when the world sees The jewish people return to their homeland and begin resettling it and becoming successful there It will provoke them to attack the land of israel Now it's possible That this masiach ben yosef Had been instrumental before this war In regathering the 10 tribes of the northern kingdom of israel We know that in jewish history The 10 northern tribes After the rule of king salomon the jewish nation split into two nations The southern kingdom of juda and the northern kingdom It was called the kingdom of israel the 10 northern tribes and we know that they were exiled about 700 bce by the assyrians And they're known as the lost tribes of israel We don't know where they are who they are But one of the themes of biblical prophecy one of the themes that the bible repeats Numerous times when it speaks about what's going to be in the times of the messiah in this utopian age One of the themes that is repeated over and over again Is that the nation of the jewish people will be reunited The tribes of juda and the tribes of israel these 10 tribes will come back It's quite possible that one of the things that masiach ben yosef will be As a descendant of yosef Is that he will be a leader of these peoples That are emerging from the world and coming back and reclaiming their position amongst the jewish people You should know by the way we have many many people in the world today That insist they are from the 10 lost tribes We have a filmmaker from torano here simbriag ababach wrote made a home movie about the 10 lost tribes And there are people today in the world from israel who are working with different tribal groups all over the world That say we are part of the jewish people who want to come home So this that i'm describing is taking place now Now who is this Leader from the family of joseph that's leading them. We don't know who it is. There have been many suggestions And just like in every generation we're told there has to be someone who could become the davidic messiah So in every generation there has to be someone that could be potentially the messiah from the house of joseph There could be someone today that will become instrumental in bringing back these 10 tribes to the land of israel But we're told that after he achieved some success in helping bring back these tribes There's going to be this terrible attack on the jewish nation The tomlitex sources tell us that this messiah from the house of joseph will function for 45 years His involvement in the world stage will last for 45 years according to most sources And then he will be serving as the paver of the way For the davidic messiah for the ultimate messiah king mashiach ben david If you look in the prophet ovadia Chapter one verses 17 to 21 The prophet ovadia says right here in the middle of the page On mount zion there will be a remnant and it will be holy and the house of jacob will inherit those who had dispossessed them The house of jacob will be fire And the house of joseph will be aflame And the house of asov for straw And they will ignite them and consume them And there will be a remnant left to the house of asov for hashem has spoken And saviors in the plural saviors Will ascend mount zion to judge mount asov And hashem will have total dominion There could be according to many commentaries here With this plural term saviors redeemers To the two messiahs the messiah son of joseph and the messiah son of david and they will each play a role So what is the role of the messiah son of joseph? We saw that one of the things he might be involved in doing is helping to regather the exiles But the talmud says in tractate bababatra 123b That the progeny of asov will only be delivered into the hands of the progeny of joseph And that's why in this passage in ovadia It says who will be the fire to ignite the straw of asov? It will be the house of joseph who will be that flame So for some reason we're told that who is going to fight the wars on behalf of the jewish people It's going to be joseph and the talmud says that we have a tradition That the enemies of the jewish people will only fall to a descendant of joseph It's interesting that jacob our ancestor only felt comfortable rashi points this out He only felt comfortable finally meeting up with his brother asov Who he was so afraid of when did jacob finally feel he could do it after the birth of joseph? And that's why we're told that when moshe Was going to need someone to fight a mulek Who did he choose? He chose yehoshua Yehoshua is from the tribe of Ephraim who comes from joseph And one of the reasons for this is that we have an idea in jewish literature That the people who will be successful in fighting the wars for the jewish people will be children who come from the tribes of rachel Leia is the mother ultimately of juda Who was going to be the progenitor of the meshiach ben david? Because david comes from juda But that was a descendant of leia But what's interesting is When you look throughout the bible and i mentioned there are many times the bible speaks about the davidic messiah It never speaks about him as a warrior. It never mentions him fighting any battles But we're taught that the victory Against the enemies of the jewish people will come not from the descendants of leia But from the descendants of rachel So for example, who is the first king of israel who fought a mulek and a mulek again is the That symbolic enemy of the jewish people that wants to wipe us out The first king was shaul who is from benjamin benjamin is the son of rachel And in the times of ester The the the person who again was the leader against a mulek come on from a mulek was Mordecai again from benjamin So all of these defenders of the jewish people against their enemies come from rachel from rachel And so we have this idea that aside from gathering the exiles to the land of israel This meshiach ben yosef will be someone who will fight the wars for us And to a great extent he will be victorious, but unfortunately He will not see complete victory because we're taught that he will be killed in one of the final battles It could be also That one of the reasons because it's a good question. Why does god have to have two messiahs just have one messiah doing everything so we saw That the bible never describes the davidic messiah as a warrior and fighting wars and it could be one of the reasons Is that although king david himself Wanted to build the temple god told king david you cannot build my temple Because you fought so many wars and you have so much blood on your hands The temple is a place of peace the temple represents Peace throughout the world And so god tells david even though you want to build my temple you cannot because you have too much blood on your hands And that's why it was david's son salomon who had to build the temple So it could be that one of the reasons that we have to have a different messiah Sometimes in rabbinic literature. He's called the messiah milchama the anointed for war He's referred to as the messiah ben yosef the messiah son of joseph also sometimes called The messiah benefit him because that's the tribe From joseph that this messiah will come from But it could be that he is needed to fight these wars so that the davidic messiah will not have to And that he'll be able to then rebuild god's temple We're told that even though there will be these two messianic figures They will cooperate. They won't be jealous of each other if you look in the prophet isiah chapter 11 verse 13 Ephraim's envy will depart and juda's adversaries will be cut off Ephraim Will not envy juda and juda will not harass Ephraim these two figures will get along perfectly but now we come to Probably the most significant part of understanding this concept of messiah ben yosef if you turn to page four We have a quote at the top of the page from rebeinu sadi agaon He was a great Talmudic legal authority who lived About a thousand years ago a little more than a thousand years ago He wrote a very famous book of jewish philosophy Called emunot videot the book of beliefs and opinions And he writes at length about this concept of messiah ben yosef And he says the following in treatise eight chapter six He says let next let me say that in either case. I mean Whether we do not repent And the events associated with the messiah descended from joseph come to pass or We do repent and are able to dispense with them The messiah descended from david will manifest himself to us suddenly Now this is a massive statement that he's just made What her sadi agaon says Even though we have numerous prophecies About terrible wars that will take place Including the death of messiah ben yosef Resa agaon says that they do not have to transpire It is contingent It depends And resa agaon says that if the jewish people repent If we as a nation do chuva if we repent Then all of these negative prophecies about tremendous suffering and great wars And the death of messiah ben yosef doesn't have to happen But unfortunately he says if we do not repent Then he says the events associated with the messiah descended from joseph will have to come to pass Now it's important to understand That we have a principle in the bible That even though prophecies always come true If they were uttered by a true prophet That only applies to positive prophecies But not to negative prophecies. Let me give you a famous example We know that when god wanted to send jona Yona ben amitai when god wanted to send jona to dinvei to prophecy against that city Yona ran away. Yona did not want to go And our rabbis explained that the reason yona ran away was as follows He said to himself I could end up looking like a false prophet because i'm going to end up going to dinvei And telling them that you are about to be destroyed And yona said to himself But what if they listen to me and they repent and god forgives them and god will not destroy them So here i went out on a limb and i predicted that the people in dinvei will be destroyed And what's going to happen? They're not going to be destroyed. I'm going to look like a false prophet And the rabbis explained That the prophecy that jona uttered Will come true Because jona's prophecy basically says that in 40 days Dinvei will be overturned So it can happen in one of two ways If they don't repent They will be physically overturned. God will destroy the city But it could be that within 40 days These people will turn themselves over. They'll do chuva. They'll repent And so his words will come true regardless They could be interpreted in one of two ways So we have a principle here That a negative prophecy when a prophet utters a prediction Of calamity of war of tragedy of something negative It's always a prediction that is contingent. It depends If the people that hear this prophecy Take it to heart and they change and they've learned their lesson Then the horrible outcome does not have to come true It's only when a prophet utters a positive prediction that something positive is going to happen That has to take place So rafsadzagon is telling us That even though the bible has many prophecies about horrible things that will take place in the end times The chevle masiach the birth pangs of the messiah the wars of gogal mago the death of masiach ben yosef the terrible suffering He says that depends If the jewish people Wake up those things won't be necessary Let's see this supported in the talmud itself This goes back to the first passage we study tonight In the bablonian talmud again, we see this for the second time tractate sanhedrin page 98a rabbi alexandri said That rabbi yoshua opposed two verses it is written in the bible and behold one like a son of man came with clouds of heaven While elsewhere it's written behold your king comes to you lonely and riding upon a donkey So the talmud says you know what how will the end times transpire It depends it depends we're told that if the jewish people are meritorious Then he will come with the clouds of heaven But if not, then he will come in a more humble and normative kind of way We see this same teaching again on the same page of the bablonian talmud tractate sanhedrin 98a Rabbi alexandri said the same person That rabbi yoshua ben lavi pointed out a contradiction another contradiction What is it? It's based upon this verse in isaias look at it right now isaias chapter 60 verse 22 Where the prophet isaias says the smallest will increase a thousand fold and the youngest into a mighty nation I am hashem. I am god And in its time I will hasten it So this particular passage is understood by the talmud as being problematic Rabbi yoshua ben lavi pointed out a contradiction. It is written in its time The messiah will come in its time meaning there may be a set time A set time for when the messiah will have to finally come There might be this time that was already established that the messiah will come by a certain date And that's set But it's also written I the lord will hasten it That means that I god can make it happen earlier So the question is It can't be both It's either in its time or it's going to come earlier. Which one is it? Be ita in its time or achishena. I'll make it happen earlier So the talmud says again if they are worthy if the jewish people are worthy I will hasten it. I can make the messiah come earlier if the jewish people are meritorious, but if not He will come at the due time. He'll come at the set time We see this also taught In the Babylonian Talmud tractate sanhedrin 97b Rabbi Eliezer said If Israel repents They will be redeemed If the jewish people repent and duchuva Then we will be redeemed and if not they will not be redeemed Rabbi Oshoa said to him If they don't repent they will not be redeemed Is it possible to think he says That god will not redeem the jewish people. How could you say that? He challenges Rabbi Eliezer Rather The holy one blessed is he Will raise up for them a king Whose decrees will be as harsh as hamann and the jewish people will repent And in this way god will bring them back to the right path What the Talmud is saying here is that by hook or by crook The jewish people will repent We find the precedent for this if you go all the way back to the book of divarium deuteronomy chapter 30 The bible in divarium deuteronomy chapter 30 already teaches us That redemption comes to the jewish people After they repent repentant seems to be Absolutely required And so when the Talmud says if they repent if they don't repent no, there's no if they don't repent If they don't repent out of their own initiative Then god will make them an offer. They cannot refuse God will make life So difficult for them God will make their life so difficult That god will force the jewish people to repent And so the whole purpose of the wars of gog and ma gog And the birth pangs of the messiah and the death of mashiach ben yosef It's all to serve as a catalyst to get the jewish people to repent if they haven't done so already Imagine this terrible tragedy When you have this great leader of the jewish people He was instrumental in bringing the jewish people back to the land of israel and settling the land of israel And defeating the enemies of the jewish people And then in this great battle, he's killed his life is snuffed out So the bible tells us according to the Talmud in this prophet zacharia That this is going to be a terrible shock to the jewish people When this messiah ben yosef dies tragically in battle It will be a terrible shock to the system And it will be a catalyst to propel the jewish people to repent It's all for the purpose all of these negative prophecies are for the purpose of bringing the jewish people to repentance, but The good news is We don't need these things to happen If we wake up ourselves And we smell the coffee and we're able to realize we don't need Our father in heaven to patch us to get us to do the right thing Let's do the right thing because it's the right thing to do it makes sense Finally, there's a very famous passage in the Talmud tractates on hedgeron 98a an amazing story Rabbi yoshua ben lavi met elijah the prophet Who was standing at the entrance of the grave of rab shimon bar yohai shimon bar yohai. We just had him on logba omer And rab yoshua ben lavi meets elijah the prophet at the entrance of the cave Of rab shimon bar yohai. I didn't put this piece in but the first question he asked him The first question he asked him was am I going to go to olam haba? Am I going to heaven And elijah the prophet says if god wants you to Okay, he didn't get much of an answer here So he now goes for his second question So he asked elijah the prophet When will the messiah come he wants to know when will the messiah finally come? And elijah answered him go and ask the messiah himself. What are you asking me for go ask the messiah? And rab yoshua ben lavi asked and where is he sitting? Where am I going to find him? And elijah said at the gate of the city Some people say he was the gates of Rome. Some people there were different versions of this story But he's sitting at the gate of the city And yoshua ben lavi asks elijah the prophet how am I going to recognize him? There are probably lots of people hanging out at the gates of the city So elijah says He is sitting among the porpers Afflicted with disease Some people say it with seraas leprosy some kind of leprosy He's afflicted with some kind of a horrible skin disease And elijah the prophet says each of them Untie all of their bandages And then retie them after they clean their wounds meaning all the porpers at the city gates They have all these wounds covering their body. What do they do? They first take off all the bandages They clean the wounds and then they rebandage themselves. How will you know who the messiah is? Because the messiah is someone who untyes one And then ties it back after he cleans the wound and then he untyes the next one He doesn't do them all at once. He does them one at a time Because he says the messiah says I might be needed at any moment And in this way, I won't be delayed if god wants to send me to redeem the jewish people I can't tell god. Look. I'm in the middle of rebandaging myself. So he does one at a time So rabbi yoshua ben lavi went to the messiah and said to him Peace be upon you my master and teacher And the messiah said to him peace be upon you son of lavi So yoshua ben lavi said to the messiah When is the master coming? When are you going to come? And the messiah answered him today hayom Ultimately rabbi yoshua ben lavi went back to elijah And he said to him he lied to me The messiah lied to me Because he said to me i'm coming today and he didn't come today So elijah said to him no This is what he was saying to you. He was quoting to you paraphrasing He was alluding to a verse in the bible a verse from the book of psalms That we actually say every friday evening in kabbalah shabbat Where the verse says today if you heed his voice The messiah says i can come today If you wake up if you turn to god if you start living like you should be living as jews i can come right now And that's why my monotheist says In his principles of jewish faith That even though the messiah might tarry meaning even though it's taking a long time for him to show up My monotheist says but every day i will anxiously await his coming I still expect he can be here any day even though it's taking a long time it can happen today It's important to remember that my monotheist teaches us in his laws of kings chapter 11 That we don't really know at this point. We don't have any clear information Any clear picture of exactly what's going to happen in the end of days If it was important for us to know Exactly what's going to happen and how it's going to happen god would have told us So my monotheist makes it clear because so much of the information in the bible and in the talmud is Contingent it depends there are many different scenarios that could take place It depends to a great extent upon what we do It's not all set out by god Regardless of what we do my monotheist says therefore We don't have a clear picture of exactly what's going to happen and how it's going to happen All we really know Is what the end game will be we know what the final chapter will be we know there's going to be a World of peace and universal knowledge of god Exactly how we're going to get from point a to point b and monotheist says we don't know To summarize What we know about mashiah ben yosef this character Of the messiah son of joseph is number one That the messiah son of joseph and the messiah son of david Are two different people From two different tribes And they're living at the same time The messiah son of joseph is basically there to prepare the way for the davidic messiah Number two this mashiah ben yoseph never rules as a king He is a warrior And in the only source we have in our literature he dies in an end time battle One thing is clear if anything is clear That our material and our sources about mashiah ben yoseph has absolutely nothing to do with jesus nazarene