One of Judaism’s basic goals is the unification of the physical and spiritual realms, both on the practical and mystical levels. The relationship between the physical and the spiritual can be compared to that of matter and energy. Science changed our perception of reality forever when it revealed that matter is in essence pure energy. Similarly, when physicality is stripped of its exterior form, we find an inner core brimming with spiritual potential. The physical and the spiritual, like matter and energy, are two sides of the same coin, intrinsically bound together.
The pursuit of this profound truth not only has implications for how a Jew serves God and lives every day of his or her life but is intimately bound up with the final redemption and Mashiach’s task in the world. For Mashiach’s primary goal is not political power or military domination, it is to educate humanity, to introduce an irreversible sea change in human consciousness. In the Messianic era, the entire world will finally perceive the Divine unity underlying reality and the consummate union between the physical and spiritual spheres.
Rashi alludes to this future reality in an intriguing commentary on the verse that describes Moses’ preparations to return to Egypt and redeem Israel: “And Moses took his wife and his sons and put them on a donkey and he returned to the land of Egypt” (Exodus 4:20). Rashi explains that this was no ordinary donkey: rather, it was the same donkey that Abraham saddled before the binding of Isaac, and it is the same donkey that the Mashiach will ride in the future. Obviously this statement is not to be taken literally. The same donkey has not lived thousands of years! Rather this Midrashic tradition alludes to the ongoing historical development of an idea. Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh explains that the letters comprising the Hebrew word for donkey (chamor) are the same as those comprising the Hebrew word for “physicality” or “materiality” (chomer). Mastering and transforming physicality so that it may serve the spiritual is both humanity’s and, in particular, the Jewish people’s ongoing mission. Abraham symbolically began the process by saddling the donkey, while Moses went further by placing his wife and children on the donkey. The Mashiach will complete the process by riding on the donkey himself, symbolizing his mastery of the material in the service of the spiritual. (The Maharal also alluded to the connection between the Hebrew word for donkey and the notion of materiality in Tiferet Yisrael 37 where he declared that “the slave in bondage is [tied to the] physical [realm], just as the donkey is [inherently of the] physical [realm]”).
As the Midrash states, Moses “is the first redeemer and he [his soul reincarnated as Mashiach] will be the last redeemer” (Shemot Rabbah 4:2). This statement links the souls of Moses and Mashiach together. The connection between Moses and Mashiach is further stressed by both their Hebrew names beginning with the letters mem and shin. This link hints that both men are entrusted with the same basic mission: leading the Jewish people from slavery to freedom and from exile to redemption by revealing God’s essential unity and the harmony and union of the physical and the spiritual.
