Halakhah zu Bereschit 49:10

Out of all this it will be explained explicitly that the words are meant literally: about the actual flesh of Leviathan, about his actual skin.³¹In his insistence on the literal meaning of the Talmudic description of the banquets in the world to come, R. Bahya follows the position of his teacher, R. Solomon ben Adret (Chavel). However, there’s a certain irony here that R. Bahya uses rather non-literal midrashic interpretations of scriptural verses to support his contention that the statements about the food and setting of the banquets in the world to come are indeed to be taken quite literally. The actual flesh of Leviathan will be the food of the righteous who “bothered themselves” with the Torah and mitzvot, and his actual skin to make their dwelling place glow in order to proclaim their high status among the nations, how they served the Holy One Blessed be He and took hold of His Torah and His qualities, to what is written here refers: “And you shall come to see the difference between the righteous and the wicked, between him who has served God and him who has not served Him.”³²Mal 3:18. And likewise it is written, Behold my servants shall eat, and you shall hunger; My servants shall drink, and you shall thirst… My servants shall cry out in gladness and you shall cry out in anguish, howling in heartbreak.³³Is 65:13-14.

And you ought to understand now that is known, that because of Adam’s sin his height was diminished, as our rabbis z”l taught in a midrash:⁴³B. Sanhedrin 38b. “But when he sinned, the Holy One Blessed be He, set His eyes upon him and diminished him and reduced him to one thousand cubits,⁴⁴From his original height which originally stretched from one end of the earth to the other, according to this midrash! for it is written, ‘You hedge me before and behind; You lay your hand upon me.’⁴⁵Ps 129:5. You need not wonder that when the sin has been atoned for and the decree has been cancelled that his height will return to its original measure, for indeed the height was diminished only because of the sin, which caused the climate to go bad, but at this time the whole work of creation will be changed for the better, and return to its perfection and virtue, just as it was in the time of Adam before the sin, and then the heights will get bigger and return to their original measure, and all of Israel will be elated and enjoy the kingdom of Shaddai, and there will be a flow of perception and pleasure into the body and soul, a huge “King’s share” of blessing.⁴⁶Literally, “great as the hand of the King (may He be blessed)” [could give]. And now that I have explained all this to you, no rationalist ought to doubt from now on that the physical meal prepared for the righteous, because these things had been created back then with this intention – that from them would come in the future the reward for the righteous – that they will delight in these meals with their bodies. And already our sages z”l said that Moses Our Teacher (peace be upon him) will be with them serving these meals. You will find a hint of this matter in the Torah in the blessings of Jacob (peace be upon him) when he said, “Until Shiloh will come,”⁴⁷Gen 49:10. that is to say, until Moses will come. For he wanted to hint at the coming of the “nearer” redeemer by whom Israel would be redeemed from Egypt; and the last, more distant redeemer is included in this who will come at the future redemption And this is also: “Until Shiloh will come.”⁴⁸Ibid. The expression will serve to refer to the two redemptions: the first, which is nearer in time, and the last, which is more distant. And thus they said in a midrash about Moses our Teacher (may he rest in peace): “shihula kardona – the skinner for preparing a meal, who was pulled out,” – the explanation of “shihula,” is Moses, which is from the Aramaic [shihaltay] for the Hebrew, “I drew him out” (Ex: 2:10).⁴⁹The etymology which the Torah has Pharoah’s daughter give for Moses’ name: “Moshe because I drew him out [mashiti-hu] of the water.” However, the Aramaic for mashiti-hu, shihaltay, is related to the word shilulah, which sounds like “Shiloh;” hence Shiloh refers to Moses, according to the midrash. And a “skinner” (for preparing a meal) is a type of butcher or cook. So here the goal of the intention of these bodily meals is to be a device to refine the body and matter and to sharpen the mind so that it will attain knowledge of the Creator (May He be blessed) and meditate upon the purely intelligible beings, and then the souls by this looking of their bodies will become fit for the intellectual banquet from which the ministering angels themselves who are near the Shekhinah eat – for then the soul will perceive the brilliant light which it is impossible to perceive as long as it is stuck in matter.