Ask the Rabbi with Rabbi Chaim Mintz
I have heard that Mashiach (the Messiah) will be related to God. Is that true, and if yes, how?
Rabbi Chaim Mintz responds:
“NO!”
The answer is “NO.” The idea of a Messianic figure “related” to God is a Christian concept. No one is related to God, because we are human, and God is not. The Jewish concept of the Messiah, to whom we refer in Hebrew as Mashiach (Anointed One), is a human being born in a normal manner from a mother and father of flesh and blood. He will be a descendant of King David and King Solomon, from the tribe of Yehudah. The Jewish kings in Biblical times were their progeny, and in the era of the Final Redemption, this lineage will resume.
Human Like the Rest of Us
Mashiach will be a great person and a great prophet, whose level of prophecy will be close to that of Moshe Rabbeinu (Moses), but he will be a person of flesh and blood. The only way in which Mashiach will be Godly is in the way in which every Jew is Godly. We are each a creation of three partners; mother, father, and Hashem, who invests us with our soul (neshamah). He will be a Jew who faces choices and difficulties, just as Moshe Rabbeinu did, and will work on his service to God, and grow to higher and higher levels of spiritual accomplishment. Through these struggles, he will rise to his role of leadership, and be accepted by the entire world as its leader.
In short: The Messiah will be a great human being, but not related to God.
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