What the Rabbis Know about the Messiah

The following is taken from Rachmiel Frydland's What the Rabbis Know about the Messiah: A Study of Genealogy and Prophecy, published by Messianic Publishing Co., 1993.

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As a religious Jew raised in the yeshivot [institutes of learning; cf. also yeshiva] of Poland, like my peers, I knew that the secrets of Israel's redemption and the Messianic Days lay hidden in the book of Daniel. I also knew that some of the great Talmudic and post-Talmudic Rabbis had plunged into the study of this book and even plummeted the hidden secrets of its symbolic signs and cyphers.

The Talmud and Midrash [Jewish writings and commentaries respectively], discussing Israel's redemption, often refer to the book of Daniel as the revealer of the secret time of Messiah's coming. However, at the yeshiva I was ominously reminded of a warning and a curse pronounced against those who try to figure out the end. The Talmud says:

May they drop who try to figure out the end; for they say, since the time of his [Messiah's] coming has already arrived yet he did not come, therefore he will not come at all.

This extreme condemnation can be understood when the error of Rabbi Akibah designating Bar Kosiba the Messiah is considered. . . . In the yeshiva I was therefore forewarned that the secrets are in the Scriptures, but that it was dangerous to make assumptions or to figure them out lest we come to the wrong conclusion, as did Rabbi Akibah. . . .

The study of our greatest sages brought them to the conclusion that if the dates in the Scriptures are correct, then Messiah should have come in the first century of our era, or thereabouts. In a Talmudic portion it is written concerning the timing of the Messianic Age:

The school of Elijah taught: The world is to be for six thousand years; two thousand years empty without Torah; two thousand years with Torah; and two thousand years Messianic Times. . . .

The many [would-be] Messiahs who flourished during that period, claiming themselves to be redeemers, were all great disappointments. Finally, Simon Bar Kosiba, whom Rabbi Akibah called "Bar Kochba," came. Though he was active in the first part of the second century, Rabbi Akibah nonetheless adjusted him to the Messianic claim. For the majority of the Jewish people Bar Kosibah was a tragedy and a disappointment. Apart from the loss of tens of thousands of Jews at his defeat in Betar C.E. 135, his activities resulted in untold sufferings for the surviving Jews.

In an eleventh century rabbinic portion we read:

Woe, for the salvation of Israel has perished! But a voice came from heaven saying, "Elijah, it is not as you think, but He will be 400 years in the Great Sea, and eighty years with the Sons of Korah where the smoke ascends, and eighty years at Rome's gate, and the rest of the years He will travel about the great Cities until the end.

In another rabbinic portion, based in part upon a scripture in the book of Lamentations, ["she has none to comfort (Menachem) of all her friends,"] the name of the Messiah is identified as Menachem Ben Ami-el. Messiah, then, is clearly "alive and well" for the last nineteen hundred years, according to these rabbinic writings. His name is Menachem (the Comforter) Ben Amiel (God is with his People). He started to work around the great Mediterranean Sea, went to Samaria (Korah), then Rome and the ends of the world.

We may ask: Why was He expected during the first century? Clearly there was a certainty that Messiah had to appear at that period. This conviction was probably based upon the . . . passages in the book of Daniel [Dan. 9:24-26]. . . . This revelation was a result of Daniel's prayers given to him by the angel Gabriel to explain the time, substance and circumstance of Israel's redemption.

The time embraced was "seventy sevens" [Dan. 9:24-26]. Within the sixty-nine heptads (weeks of years), that is within 483 years, there will be a building up of Jerusalem's streets and canals, though in troublous times. After these 483 years, "Messiah will be cut off and not for himself." After Messiah is cut off, the city of Jerusalem and the Holy Temple will be destroyed "by the people of the prince that shall come." Messiah was to come before the destruction of the Temple. This is the picture that the archangel Gabriel gave to Daniel.

It was Daniel's prophecy that challenged me many years ago to consider the Messiahship of Yeshua the Nazarene [Jesus of Nazareth]. Rabbinic authorities to whom I consulted said that the reference to Messiah in Daniel's prophecy was to King Agrippa, Herod's descendant, who is called "Messiah" here and who was "cut off" before the Temple's destruction. Hence, the term "Messiah" is transferred to a carnal king, like Agrippa, or to the unknown Menachem Ben Amiel as recorded in the Midrash. On the other hand, I learned of Yeshua the Nazarene, who was "cut off" forty years before the Second Temple was destroyed.

The revelation given to Daniel also deals with the substance and the circumstances of Messiah's activity, "to finish the transgression, to make an end of sins and to make reconciliation for iniquity and to bring in everlasting righteousness." In other words, Messiah's death is distinctly connected with the atoning work that the Temple sacrifices were to accomplish, except that it would be a work of completion and fulfillment far greater than any Temple sacrifices could possibly secure.

I was thus enabled to lay aside my fears and prejudices and to open the Brit Hadasha [i.e. New Covenant/Testament] and learn more of him, who, as the Prophet says:

Hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement for our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed.

Yeshua indeed fits perfectly into Daniel's timetable. No one else qualifies; neither King Agrippa nor the mystical Menachem fulfills Daniel's prophecy. Yeshua is the Messiah! He came to give peace to the individual who repents and accepts his atoning sacrifice. He is coming again in might to establish his Kingdom l'olam va'ed [i.e. for all the world eternal]. Amen!

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Rachmiel Frydland, What the Rabbis Know about the Messiah: A Study of Genealogy and Prophecy, second edition, ed. Elliot Klayman (Columbus: Messianic Publishing Co., 1993), 73-77. (The link provided is for the third edition.) From the back cover: "Rachmiel Frydland (1919-1985) studied in the religious learning institutes of Poland. He suffered through the Nazi invasion of Poland and escaped to tell his story of how he came to know the Messiah, recorded in his autobiography, When Being Jewish was a Crime. His extensive knowledge of Jewish Scripture and rabbinic writings made him particularly qualified to write this book."