The Messiah of Levi

I think what made the Jewish journey through the Hellenistic period particularly challenging was that the Greeks cherished a notion of the perfected human being. They developed it into a wide ranging package which included philosophy, art, drama, poetry and athletics. They claimed to offer perfection to every detail of the human being.

Their notions of human perfection very often either outright contradicted the Torah’s notion on the topic or were similar, but proportioned differently.

No other exile that the Jewish people journeyed through ever centered almost entirely on this particular issue. The Egyptians didn't particularly care whether humans reached a perfected ideal or not. The Babylonians, while intellectually driven, mostly diverted their ideas to enhance the occult arts. The Persians seemed to be mostly pleasure seekers. And the Romans were into the craft of government and were obsessed with power. They were happy to import their ideas about the various arts and wisdoms from those whom they conquered. Strangely, even their religion wasn't their own.

So, really it was only Greece which tried to challenge the Torah's notion of the perfected human. Though we clearly met their challenge, I wonder whether in the process we really excavated the fullness of the Torah's notion of the perfected human. I think the fact that the allure of Hellenism continued among Jews even after the Hasmonean victory and even among the Hasmoneans themselves, indicates that there were still lingering gaps which Hellenism purported to fill.  

I believe some years ago that I saw the following question in Bnei Yissachar, “Generally, Jewish royalty comes from either the tribe of Joseph or Judah. Indeed, with the exception of Saul, this was the case for all the Jewish monarchs in the Bible. Consistent with this pattern, we also have a tradition that there will be a Messiah hailing from the tribe of Joseph, who will be  immediately followed by one hailing from Judah, a descendant of King David. On the other hand, Levi is not a tribe reputed to be gifted with royalty. So how did the Hasmoneans, tribesmen of Levi, rise to monarchy?”

If I remember correctly, the answer was that following the periods of the Messiahs from Joseph and then David (Judah) their will be a third Messiah. He will be from Levi! It will likely be a period when we will be led by the priestly class.

The self sacrifice of the Hasmoneans brought them to a spiritual level where they ascended time, as we know it, allowing them to draw spiritual power from the distant future into their immediate present. In this beyond time state, they drew power from the third Messiah, the Messiah from Levi. His spiritual light of gave them the power to overthrow the Hellenist and enthrone themselves as monarchs. It wouldn't surprise me if, when lighting our menorahs, in a small way we too access lights from the Messiah of Levi.

According to Jewish mystical thought, what makes up darkness is light which is in a deep state of suppression. Since everything begins with the Infinite Light, darkness itself has to somehow be crafted from light, as there’s no other ingredient to work with. Since suppression takes a lot more energy than expression, it’s the suppressed states which contain the deepest and most powerful lights.  Essentially, suppressed light is “exiled light”!

Each exile the Jewish people underwent was created by the suppression of a unique light. There are two ways out of an exile. One way is simply a successful escape and the other way is an exposure of the suppressed light. The latter is more transformative and hence, a lot more powerful.

What I am about to express is a broad generality. Obviously, there are level upon levels and levels included in levels. So, it’s not intended to be taken in a “black and white” way. It seems to me that broadly speaking the three Messiahs will accomplish the following.

In most cases our exodus from exiles in the past, to the extent they were successful, were “great escapes”. They weren’t really weighted on the side of being transformations of darkness to light.  

The Messiahs of Joseph and David (of Judah) will introduce the approach of leaving exile by transforming it. Each Messiah will have his own set of aspects of the Roman exile he will work on transforming. These aspects are traditionally encoded by the terms “Esau” and “Ishmael”. The Messiahs will establish and solidify a Jewish government in accordance with the Torah. In doing so, they will excavate their unique aspects of the suppressed light which made the Roman exile, unleashing them to build an amazing government dedicated to God.  

Next the Messiah of Levi will revisit the Hellenic exile, transforming it to bring forth a gushing fountain of wisdom from that exile itself to develop perfected human beings.

In my mind it’s possible that these three Messiahs will reign one after another. It’s also possible that, to one extent or another, their reigns will overlap and be concurrent in cooperation and harmony. It’s even possible that they are somehow different levels within the same person. Time will tell.

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