Three Donkeys

In the Torah there is a reference to three great people and their donkey. Abraham saddled his donkey. Moses put his family to ride his donkey and the Moshiach will ride and be revealed on his donkey. Our sages tell us that these three donkeys were one and the same donkey.

The word donkey in Hebrew Chamor is related to the word chomer which means material substance. The three stages of the donkey correspond to the three perspectives the world has of the physical and material realm.

In the days of Abraham, prior to the giving of the Torah at Sinai, there was a basic dichotomy between the spiritual and physical. The world was at the stage where the teacher (read: the soul) was just beginning to teach the student (read: the body and the material world). The only way the soul could deal with the body was to overwhelm it and thus not allow it to stand in the way of the soul. The body was not helpful. Thus the imagery used with regard to Abraham is that “he saddled his donkey” – he imposed himself on the material world.

When Moses was on his way to liberate the Jews from Egypt, he was paving the way for the subsequent revelation at Mount Sinai, where the spiritual would gradually make some inroads and the spiritual light of the soul would shine through the receptive physical entities. Thus. Moses did not have to “saddle” or impose on the “donkey” – it was receptive on its own.

To refer to our earlier analogy of the teacher and the student: In the times of Moses, the student was already expressing an interest in being a student. The student was able to transmit some of ideas of the teacher.

When Moshiach will usher in the Messianic Age, not only will the “donkey-material world” not stand in the way, not only will it be completely cooperative and reflect the light of the soul, but moreover. Moshiach will be revealed on this donkey. The material world will have become so refined that its own intrinsic light will begin to shine. Thus it does not just say that Moshiach will ride on the donkey, but that he will be revealed on it. The light of Moshiach is identified as the light that emerges from the material world – his donkey.

We can now appreciate why the belief in the Messianic Age is a cardinal principle of Judaism apart from the belief in the Afterlife. Whereas the Afterlife calls our attention to the basic Jewish belief that the Torah and its Mitzvot are what enable the soul to grow and realize its potential, the belief in the Messianic Age rivets our focus on the intrinsic value of the Torah and Mitzvot that involve physical actions. Judaism believes that our bodies are holy; that the entire physical universe is G-dly and that the Mitzvot that we do expose the essential unity and divinity of creation.

And this is what our sages had in mind when they said (Talmud, Sanhedrin) “the world was created for Moshiach.” The entire purpose of creation and of the giving of the torah was to lead the world to the point that we will all witness how the body and the entire world express the essential divine presence.

From the book Safe Kabbalah, Part Three: Journeys of the Soul by Rabbi Heschel Greenberg, published by the Jewish Discovery Center.