 Who is Mashiach? According to Jewish tradition, Mashiach is a plain, simple human being like you and I. Flesh and blood. Born of a mother and a father, same as you and I. He will be an exceptional individual. To our certain qualifications that he has, he must be a descendant of the royal house of David. In straight, paternal line. A successor to the throne. Because Mashiach is going to be the king of Israel. And God has vouchsafed the royalty, kingship in Israel, to David and his descendants. He will be an extraordinarily wise person like no one before him. Wiser than King Solomon. He will be a great prophet, not quite as great as Moses. There never was a prophet like Moses and never will be a prophet like Moses. But he will be close to the prophecy of Moses. But in all other things he will excel him. And what Mashiach will do, Mashiach comes initially basically exclusively for the Jewish people. The king of Israel, to redeem the people of Israel. But once he has redeemed the people of Israel, he has re-established the Jewish Commonwealth in the Jewish land, the land of Israel. He has rebuilt the temple, brought back together all the exiles of Israel. These are the basic fundamental primary functions of the Messiah. The whole world will come to recognize his wisdom, his insight, respecting for it and accepting as the guide. The whole world will come and accepting as their king. The whole world will come to acknowledge and worship God and God alone. All other religions will literally fade away. The Gentiles will not become Jewish. Those who are Jews will remain Jews. Those who are not Jews will remain Gentiles. Not only that, but when Mashiach will come, there will be no more conversions to Judaism. So if you have any non-Jewish friends and they have interest in Judaism, tell them to hurry up. If Mashiach comes tomorrow, the game is over. He can't become Jewish anymore. But no harm, no harm. Gentiles have salvation as well. Even nowadays Gentiles have salvation. Any Gentile that observes the universal Norakite code, these seven commandments that were given to Noah and all mankind, is guaranteed salvation, eternal life. When Mashiach will come, these seven laws will be expanded to 30 laws. And Mashiach will rule and guide them as well. They will all come to the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, which will become some kind of a universal house of worship. And so on and on, especially as we have the prophecies, most of all in the 11th chapter in the book of Isaiah, and in all the messianic blaze that you have in Isaiah from chapter 4 to the end. And practically every other prophetic book in the Bible. Now, one more thing, very important to say here before we'll open it to questions. Mashiach is a fundamental principle in Judaism. Anybody who does not believe in the coming of Mashiach in messianic redemption, is in effect denying a basic principle of Judaism, denying the Torah. That's one side of the coin. The other side of the coin is that if anybody were to erase the whole concept of Mashiach from Jewish tradition, if anybody would tear out all the chapters and all the verses in the Bible speaking about Mashiach, guess what? Judaism would not change one iota. The concept of Mashiach, the importance of believing in the coming of Mashiach as a kind of an ultimate reward to look forward to, pretty much the same as we believe these are hereafter, is fundamental to Judaism. But it does not affect my day-to-day existence as a Jew. Here's again where Judaism differs drastically from all other religions. The messianic redemption, messianic personality, though crucial to Judaism in one way, is totally irrelevant to Judaism in the other way. Totally irrelevant. Like I said, if you're going to erase every reference to Mashiach in the Bible and in all our texts, you would see no difference in Jewish behavior, Jewish contact, Jewish observance, Jewish religious worship, Jewish ritual. You would not see one iota of change in anything. Mashiach is more a kind of a mental concept, affirming a fact of reality, of prophecy, about something which is going to happen eventually at a certain point in time. Nothing more. So it is fundamental, it is crucial, but not something except that I, as a Jew, have to affirm my belief. As somebody said, I believe it's absolute perfect faith that is going to come at a time when this redeeming will come. It is something to look forward to. It's something to anticipate. It's something which is going to change the world. It's something which will bring the world to its ultimate fruition, an ultimate purpose. But it is not something which affects again my day-to-day existence. Every day I affirm it. I'm excited about daily prayers. I should also give you a call of yoke. But here I stress this point simply because people think, well, all of a sudden this has become, you know, it has to affect what I do today, what I do tomorrow, etc., etc. like you have in other religions. Take, for example, Christianity. Take Christianity, erase the concept of Messiah. You have killed the whole religion. There's nothing left. There's nothing left. In Judaism, nothing has changed. That's also important to remember so that we do not be misled by this concept. The Messiah in Judaism is not a divine person. The Messiah in Judaism does not change one iota of the Torah. As a matter of fact, this is one of the standards to recognize the Messiah. Is he a God-fearing, God-tora-observant individual, strengthening Torah, promulgating Torah, or not? If he performs all the miracles under the sun that you can imagine. And he does this and he does that. But he veers even one iota from the Torah that you know at the very best is a false prophet, at the very best. So, to us, he's a human being, a very important one, an anticipated leader, like King David at his time, King Solomon at his time, and greater than both of them. That is Mashiach. One more thing to conclude. When will Mashiach come? When will he appear? When will the messianic redemption take place? No one human being knows that. That is a secret known to one and one only, and that is God himself. The Messiah himself does not know that he is the Messiah. The Messiah will not fall out of heaven. The Messiah is a living human being in our midst in every generation. And when the time of redemption comes, God will say to him, he doesn't even know himself that he is the Messiah. God will certainly appear to him in whatever way of revelation, say, I have chosen you, now go do your job. The same as we find in the Bible with Moses. Moses was the shepherd. Moses was a very prominent individual. But he thought, I'm just a shepherd, I'm just doing my job, I'm earning my living there, he's living with his father-in-law, he's tending to his sheep. And as one day he's out in the field, suddenly he sees there's something funny, there's a thorn bush burning there. Big fire, but the thorn bush remains in existence. It's not affected. Wow, what's going on there? He goes close there and suddenly he has a voice from there. Don't get any closer. And God's saying, this is not God speaking to you. And I have a job for you, go down to Egypt. Tell old Pharaoh, let my people go. That's when Moses, at the age of 80 years, 80, discovered that he is a unique individual, which before that he did not know. That's what the Bible tells us about the first king of Israel, King Saul. King Saul went to see the prophet Samuel. He had a problem. He needed some help. What? His father's donkeys were lost. So he wants the prophetic insight. Could the prophet please help me, give me with his prophetic spirit where I can find those donkeys? The moment he appears before Samuel, the prophet, Samuel is hit with lightning from heaven. The prophetic spirit upon him. The man that just now has appeared to you, tell him he has been chosen to be king of Israel. He looks for donkeys and says he's anointed king of Israel. And he was the king of Israel. That's exactly how it will happen, is Mashiach. That certain individual, certain human being flesh and blood, could be you, could be me. I'm not telling you now who. Humility and modesty goes as perfection. So my humility prevents me from revealing to you what's what. That when the moment comes, and lightning is like this particular individual and say to him, you are the one, that's when we will know who is Mashiach. And it's really irrelevant. It's totally irrelevant to know who is Mashiach. Totally irrelevant to know that. When it happens, you will know. How will know? The same as the Jews found out when Moses came. The same as the Jews found out when King Saul came. The same as the Jews found out when King David came, etc., etc. What is important is to know that it's going to happen. What is also important, that if we know that that is going to happen, we have a moral obligation to look forward to it, to anticipate it. We have to want Mashiach. We have to desire Mashiach. We have to anticipate Mashiach. If we do so, then God says, now you're ready. But if it's, we shrug our shoulders and say, okay, when he comes, I'll come and welcome him. Hi, Mashiach, how are you? And then turn around and continue with my business. Or you're eager to look forward to it, and once you study what Mashiach is all about, and you realize what will happen in the messianic age, then there's no sane person who could not possibly look forward and anticipate and want Mashiach to come right now. We want Mashiach now. But you have to believe in it. And not only believe in it, you have to want it. And not only want it, but do whatever you can to bring it about. What can you do to bring it about? Become better yourselves. Any act of kindness or goodness that we perform in our part brings Mashiach closer. The Talmud discusses what will hasten the coming Mashiach. In the Bible, in the messianic prophecies of Isaiah, there is a self-contradictory verse, an expression, that God speaks about the coming of the Messiah and says, When will it happen? Be ito achisheno. In its time, I shall hasten it. And the Talmud points out that's a self-contradictory statement. Be ito means in its time, there's a set time. If it's in its time, it is not hasten. They didn't come earlier. Hasten means earlier. If it's earlier, it's not its time. It's much earlier. How do you reconcile that? And our tradition answers. There are two post-potential times for Mashiach to come and to appear. One is Be ito in its time. A time predetermined before the world was even created. That God said, I am going to create the world and the purpose of the world is to complete a certain thing and when that job has been completed, then I'll bring the world to its ultimate end, to its ultimate destiny, which is the messianic age. However, you do not have to wait for that date. It's up to you to make this happen literally any time. Any time. When you are ready by doing the right thing, that's when it will happen. So it's ultimately really left to us. It hasn't happened to this day, which means it's still ahead of us. It could be happened tonight. It's in the next half hour, it's in the next five minutes, if we are ready. And that is what Mashiach is all about, to first of all make ourselves conscious and here I'll bring this to a final conclusion. Mashiach again is not about the big ball, the big party riding on donkeys on the beach from drinking wine and just saying l'chaim. Mashiach is about altered states of consciousness. Mashiach is about a completely new perception of who I am, what I am, what the world is all about, what life is all about. Mashiach is all about bliss. Whatever you have heard about messianic age, messianic calmness, it's all true. But it's something more on the spiritual level where I have to first transform myself and as I transform myself, each one as an individual and the community at large, that when we are able to transform the whole world as the world as a whole and that's when the world is indeed ready to receive Mashiach and that's when it will happen.