Wednesday, April 15, 2015

A Sobering Thought

Art Rob Gonsalves

Everything can change in the blink of an eye. [Rebbe Nachman of Breslov]


"Do not drink wine that will lead to intoxication, neither you nor your sons with you, when you go into the Tent of Meeting, so that you shall not die. [This is] an eternal statute for your generations..." [Shemini 10:9]

There is a view [see Rambam, Laws of Entering the Temple 1:7] that even nowadays a priest [kohen] may not drink a revi'is [86ml] of wine, for this is sufficient to cause some degree of intoxication, and since it is quite feasible that the Holy Temple will be rebuilt within the time it takes for him to become sober, the wine would thus render him unfit for service in the Temple.

Now, according to Jewish law, intoxication caused by a revi'is of wine can be removed by either a short sleep, or by waiting the time it would take to walk a mil. (There are different views as to precisely how long this is: either 18 or at most 24 minutes).

From here we see a remarkable ramification of the above principle: that Jewish law takes seriously into consideration the fact that it is possible for Moshiach to come, with a completed Holy Temple, within a maximum of 23 minutes and 59 seconds, thus requiring the priests to be ready for service immediately!

Based on Likutei Sichos Lubavitcher Rebbe [Gutnick Chumash]

2 comments:

Yosh55 said...

Please bring source from rebbe nachman

Devorah said...

This is a recycled blog post from a few years ago.... I can't find a source for this quote, although in other places on the internet it has been used and attributed to him. Interestingly, when I googled it, I came up with a page from Aish.com which says:
"Yeshuat Hashem k’heref ayin. The salvation of God is like the blink of an eye.” – Pesikta Zutreta, Esther 4:17.
Thanks for pointing it out Yosh.