The Kadoorie Mekor Haim synagogue continues to compete with community museums in receiving groups from Portuguese schools. Today was a day like any other. Students from São Pedro do Sul, in Viseu, visited the city's central synagogue and bombarded Dr. Hugo Vaz with questions about Judaism, the history of Portuguese Jews, and... the coming of the Messiah.
Although in most cases, school visits do not provide significant challenges for the guides of the Jewish Community, sometimes there are delicate questions that are raised by students individually or at the request of teachers. This was the case today, as there was a need to satisfy a curiosity regarding the coming of the Messiah. "If Jews and Christians believe in the coming of the Messiah and take it for granted that he is a descendant of King David, of the Tribe of Judah, why can't it be Jesus, whose life led his Jewish followers to found Christianity?"
Despite the accuracy of the intelligent question, the students from Viseu learned that, according to Jewish tradition, all Jews will head towards Jerusalem when the Messiah arrives, unlike what happened in Yoshua's time, as Israel was under Roman occupation and the Jews were eventually expelled from their ancestral land.
When will the Messiah arrive?
In the time of King Afonso III of Portugal, there was a great Jewish sage who lived in Girona, Spain. Nachmanides dedicated a good part of his life to interpreting the Shir Hashirim of King Solomon and concluded that the Messiah will arrive by the Hebrew year 5800, that is, by the year 2040 of the Common Era. This is the limit. It could arrive today, next year, or at the latest in 14 years. And the Talmud explains that upon the arrival of the Messiah, the world will experience turbulent times, with wars, moral conflicts, and global instability.
In the final of the day, the students from São Pedro do Sul took three fundamental ideas back to their hometown. The first is that Rua de Santa Catarina (which they visited) is full of beautiful objects to buy. The second is that the Kadoorie synagogue is an extraordinary religious temple. The third is that the Messiah, whom Jews and Christians await, will probably arrive in the next 14 years.
