And Do You Know What Else Rav Kaduri Said?

Now that I got your attention, this post really has no new information from Rav Kaduri ZTVK"L. I'm just employing the tactic of Kalev Ben Yefuneh to get people's attention.

Unfortunately, there are those in the Xtian and messianic community who are lying to themselves by what they think is a handwritten letter by Rav Kaduri that "proves" that the name of Mashiah is their human deity. What baloney! Has Veshalom! He allegedly spelled it יהושוע which is most definitely NOT the same as their deity (see here how they distorted the name in translation and also see parshablog's explanation on Rav Kaduri's note).

Also unfortunately, many Xtian and messianic websites, including a few youtube videos (please don't go searching for them), have linked to my post about Rav Kaduri to show that he is predicting bringing back their deity as the messiah. אוי לנו מיום הדין if my blog contributed to anyone thinking such nonsense. I hereby protest the use of my blog for such nefarious purposes.

While we're talking about Oto Ha'ish, there is an interesting Yalkut Shimoni that is only found in the original printing of Yalkut Shimoni in Salonika (but later also in the Mosad Harav Kook edition) that can be viewed on the Hebrew University website at this link on page 335 if you have the DJVU plugin installed. It was censored from subsequent versions of the Yalkut Shimoni.

Translated, it reads:

How much was the sound of Bil'am? Ribbi Yohanan said: 60 Milin. Ribbi Yehoshua ben Levi said: 70 nations heard the voice of Bil'am. Ribbi El'azar Hakefar says: Hashem put power in his voice and it would rise up from one end of the earth to the other end - because he foresaw the nations bowing down to the sun and to the moon and to the stars and to wood and to stone. And he foresaw that there was a man, the son of a woman, who in the future will rise because he wants to make himself a god and to cause the entire world to stray. Therefore, He gave power in his voice that all the nations of the world would hear. And he would also say, "Pay attention so as not to stray after that man (Oto Ha'Ish), as it is written, "God is not a man, that He should lie," and if he says that he is a god, then he lies. And he is destined to lead people astray and say that he is going away and coming back at the end times. [For this, it is written,] "When He hath said, will He not do it?"  See what is written, "And he took up his parable, and said: Alas, who shall live after God hath appointed him?"  Bil'am said, "Alas, who shall live from that nation that followed after that man (Oto Ha'Ish) who made himself a god?"

See also Wikipedia's entry on Bil'am which has this text as well.

Also, Rabbeinu Bahye brings down this Midrash.  Later versions of Rabbeinu Bahye like this substitute the word אלוה (god) with נביא (prophet) and add the word בישמעאל - also done by the censors.  Some versions have whitespace where this text was.  And then there is this bad job of censorship where the word אלוה is pretty clear.

Despite Bil'am's prophecy against such a future figure, there are some interesting similarities between Bil'am himself and Oto Ha'Ish:

• The gemara in Gittin 57a has Onkelos asking both Bil'am and Posh'ei Yisrael (which is widely interpreted as Oto Ha'Ish) whether to join the Jews.  That gemara describes the punishment for both Bil'am and Oto Ha'Ish - the former in boiling semen and the latter in boiling excrement.
• Both were known to fly and both had Jewish adversaries who also flew and caused them to lose their flying power.  Regarding Bil'am and Pinhas, see here.  Regarding Oto Ha'Ish and his Jewish adversary, see here.

We are awaiting the day when the real Mashiah will come when it will be known to the entire world that it will be a pious Jew (and of course not Oto Ha'Ish) - when יהיה ה' אחד ושמו אחד.