Halakhah zu Ijow 40:30

And now that I have explained all of this to you, you ought to meditate on the idea that if in this world you will find that things are so according to nature and their inherent virtues, how much the more so will it be the case at the end of time when nature will be made anew and be changed for the better to meet the needs of everything that has been created based on its status! And it goes without saying for the status of the people of Israel and the righteous among them, that the Holy One Blessed be He will make anew the kinds of pleasures and meals, just as He will make them a new creation, in whom the flow of intelligence and the capacity for prophecy has been strengthened. And if the heart of man who thinks he’s so smart objects to this idea, and says the words of the sages z”l are based on the pillars of science and the splendor of the intellect, and that all of them are in accordance with reason, and that they did not speak or say a word except by means of allegory, and the meal of the Leviathan is not physical but only an allegory for intellectual capacity and “the bundle of eternal life,” we will say to him in reply: we are compelled by necessity to believe that the words about a physical meal words refer literally to a physical meal, and not just an intellectual experience. For see what they said in the Perek Ha-Sefinah (“The Ship”):²²B. Baba Batra 75a. R. Yohanan said, The Holy One, blessed be He, will in time to come make a banquet for the righteous from the flesh of Leviathan; for it is said: “Companions will make a banquet of it [yikhru ‘alav habarim].”²³Job 40:30: literally, “Shall traders traffic in him?” (JSB). Kerah must mean a banquet; for it is said: “And he prepared [va-yikhreh] for them a great banquet [kerah] and they ate and drank.”²⁴2 Kg 6:23. “Companions” [habarim] must mean scholars for it is said: “the companions hearken for your voice; cause me to hear it.”²⁵Song of Songs 8:13. The rest [of Leviathan] will be distributed and sold out in the markets of Jerusalem; for it is said: “They will part him among the Kena’anim.”²⁶Job 40:30. R. Bahya omits the Talmud’s explanation of kena’anim: “Kena’anim must mean merchants, for it is said: “a trader [kena’an] with balances of deceit in his hand; he loves to oppress.’ (Hos 12:8) And if you wish, you may infer it from the following: ‘Whose merchants are princes, whose traffickers [kena’anim] are the honorable of the earth.'(Is 23:8)” b. Baba Batra 75a.