The Lubavitcher Rebbe very famously and perhaps to traditional Orthodox Jews who have been waiting for the messiah’s arrival for two thousand years – praying many times daily – in fact, I believe without the belief, as sung by perhaps my own family being marched to the notorious gas chambers, “I believe in complete faith in the coming of the messiah and though it may tarry I await his coming daily” – the ability to withstand persecution would have gone to despair (as we see all nations that unfortunately suffered their own “holocausts” have –    be it American Indians who lost their hope and pride, and have become drunks, and many others.)

 

In fact, when we think about the messiah, perhaps it is one of the greatest, even current, hopes, of all of humanity! –  Who wishes to see suffering?!  and who doesn’t wish for utopia!?!

 

Now Christians as we know said the messiah came; the only trouble is, that where is the utopia? so they say he’s coming back.

 

But for the Rebbe whose knowledge is undisputed – perhaps the greatest Jewish leader not only in terms of leadership but scholarship, of all time; his words should not be taken lightly.

 

Conversely, the same lips that said the messiah is here, said that we are in exile – we need the messiah!!?

 

Are there perhaps two separate messiahs??

 

As we had occasion to mention, it is my belief (based primarily on source material, though somewhat collected, hence not that well-known) that there is two; though one is an extension of the other, messiah.

 

As in everything, there is a soul and a body (the body being the external manifestation, though often concealing its internal source.)

 

So when the Rebbe said the messiah is here, what it means is, something so remarkable and extraordinary that it is changing the very landscape of reality!

 

The last four years of the Rebbes teachings – which he himself remarked are on the messianic level of “light in container” (the highest wisdom; yet in understandable format –  something never really descended, for though once one gets this point, one sees it all through, all Chassidic teachings; I believe it fair to say, it was secretly woven, like a hidden golden thread; similar to the adage “A new Torah – meaning secrets of the Torah concealed previously – will manifest in the messianic era.”

 

And though this is a Kabbalistic idea, it has practical ramifications – it goes like this:

 

There are three paradigms our reality can function under.

 

Paradigm one – nature – this is what we interact with and hence sense.

 

Paradigm two, God (or more precisely what people think of as God) this is revelation – to a Jew this would be the knowledge that God is all powerful – the messiah will come… however there is a fundamental flaw, namely that “if I see it, it is real…” – in other words, “when I get healed… I see God’s hand!” – it is evidence based.

 

Then there is truth.

 

The truth is far more complex:

 

For it is the same God who created the illness and the healing… nature and the miracle…

 

Perhaps there is a third paradigm: namely, the messianic one, and this is where through the process of seeking truth (an awesome concept, for it means a. I must have found darkness (in other words, what I thought was true – paradigm a., is not; or at least not meaningful). b. I must have found b.; But finally I realize, it is the same God who created a. and b., for there is C. namely an infinite growth process.

 

This is a very big subject on its own, but fundamentally the idea is that God, as the Baal Shem Tov revealed, is always communicating new growth steps.

 

In essence, the messiah was always here, as the very first verse states, that in the beginning “the spirit of God – which Rashi teaches was the spirit of the messiah – hovered over the waters.”