Avodah Zarah, Daf Tet, Part 3
Introduction
Today s sugya continues with calculations related to time and history.
תנא דבי אליהו ששת אלפים שנה הוי העולם: שני אלפים תוהו, שני אלפים תורה, שני אלפים ימות המשיח. בעונותינו שרבו יצאו מהן מה שיצאו מהן.
The Tanna of the house of Eliyyahu taught: The world is to exist six thousand years; the first two thousand years were chaos; the next two thousand years are the period of the Torah, and the following two thousand years are the period of the Messiah. Through our many sins a number of these have already passed [and the Messiah is not yet].
The Messiah was supposed to come 2000 years after the Israelites accepted the Torah, which was given 2000 years after creation. But due to the sins of humanity (or the sins of Israel) the Messianic age has not yet arrived.
Another interesting note on this source is that without Torah, the world was chaos. Perhaps this is the Talmud s way of noting that without the ordering laws of the Torah, there would be chaos in the world.
שני אלפים תורה מאימת? אי נימא ממתן תורה עד השתא ליכא כולי האי.
דכי מעיינת בהו תרי אלפי פרטי דהאי אלפא הוא דהואי.
From when are the two thousand years of the Torah to be reckoned? If we say from the giving of the Torah at Sinai it is not so long, for if you reckon the years [from creation to the giving of the Torah] you will find that they comprise two thousand and a part of the third thousand;
When do we start counting the two thousand years of Torah? If you start counting at the actual giving of the Torah on Sinai, it was not 2000 years. If you start counting at creation, there are more than 2000 years before the Torah was given. The Torah was given at year 2448 from creation, and therefore the time of the Messiah will begin before the 2000 years of Torah end, assuming the world will last only 6000 years.
אלא (בראשית יב, ה) מואת הנפש אשר עשו בחרן וגמירי דאברהם בההיא שעתא בר חמשין ותרתי הוה. כמה בצרן מדתני תנא ארבע מאה וארבעים ותמניא שנין הויין.
כי מעיינת ביה מהנפש אשר עשו בחרן עד מתן תורה ארבע מאה וארבעים ותמניא שנין הויין
The period is therefore to be reckoned from the time [when Abraham and Sarah] made souls in Haran (Genesis 12:5) for we have learned that Abraham was at that time fifty-two years old. How much less than [2000 years is the calculation]? Four hundred and forty-eight years! When you reckon it you will find that from the time when they had made souls in Haran till the giving of the Torah there are four hundred and forty-eight years.
As stated above, if we count the time from the giving of the Torah, we are 448 years short for the 2000 years of Torah. Therefore, we start with the date at which Abraham and Sarah began to make souls in Haran. According to midrash, this refers to their converting the local population to monotheism. Abraham was 52 years old when he began doing this. If he was born exactly 500 years before the Torah was given, then from the date he began proselytizing until the intended arrival of the messianic age there are 448 years!
I think there is also something meaningful in the notion that Torah begins not with the Torah but with human beings reaching out to other human beings to teach them.