The Feast of the Wild Ox and Leviathan

File:תמונת המחשה של הקנוגיא בין השור הבר והלויתן.jpeg

The Feast of the Wild Ox and Leviathan is a term for the meal that the Holy One, Blessed be He, will prepare for the righteous in the future to come, in the days of Moshiach or in the World of Resurrection, in which they will eat the meat of the wild ox and the leviathan and additional special foods.

Before this feast, there will be a wrestling match between the leviathan and the wild ox, during which the leviathan will slaughter the ox using its fins and the ox will gore the leviathan with its horns.

Feast: Literal or Not

The Rambam, in his words about the World to Come as a spiritual world for souls without bodies, says: "The goodness, after which there is no goodness, and it is what all the prophets desired... [and] the Sages called it, by way of metaphor... a feast."

Some understood from his words that there will not be a physical feast for the righteous in the time of redemption. The Raavad, who understood it this way, argues against this: "And if this is the feast - there is no cup of blessing here!" In the Gemara, it speaks of a cup of blessing over which they will recite the blessing of Zimun at the end of the meal, and if the feast is only a spiritual concept - over what will they recite Birkat Hamazon?

But the Ramban determined that even the Rambam did not claim that there would not be a feast, and said, "And we have heard the truth, that the great Rabbi [the Rambam] upholds the Midrashim of our Rabbis and their Aggadot, that all things will be as they are in the future feast with the preserved wine and leviathan." The Kesef Mishneh also explains the Rambam's intention this way, that he did not mean that the feast of the righteous is a metaphor, and when he spoke of a feast as a metaphor for the World to Come, he was referring to the expression "everything is prepared for the feast" in Pirkei Avot.

This has also been established in Chassidic teachings in many places, that the future feast will be physical.

Interestingly, the Rambam's son, R' Avraham, in letters recently discovered, wrote that during Shabbat meals in his father's house, the Rambam would say: "We need to yearn for the leviathan."

The Virtues of the Wild Ox and Leviathan

This chapter is incomplete. Please contribute to ChabadPedia and complete it. There may be more details in the discussion page.

The Maharal explains that the leviathan and the wild ox are fundamentally different from other animals and beasts, like the fruits of the Garden of Eden that are fundamentally different from the fruits in this world. The Alshich explains that the leviathan has a spiritual quality.

In Likkutei Torah, it is explained that the righteous whose work is purely spiritual are of the aspect of the leviathan. And they will elevate the righteous who deal with physicality, who are of the aspect of the wild ox, and through this will bring about an elevation for them as well. It is further explained in Chassidus that the leviathan alludes to the 248 positive commandments, and the wild ox to the 365 negative commandments.

Slaughtering the Wild Ox

The wild ox will be slaughtered by the Holy One, Blessed be He, using the sharp fins of the leviathan. The Sages in the Midrash question this, since this slaughter is not according to the parameters of Halacha, as kosher slaughter can only be performed by a person with a knife. R' Avin resolves this by saying "A new Torah will come forth from Me."

The Rebbe explains R' Avin's answer that "A new Torah will come forth from Me" does not mean that the Torah will change, since the Torah is eternal and will not be replaced, but rather that Moshiach will teach that the current laws of slaughter do not apply to this case, and his words will be accepted as halacha by the Great Court.

The Tzemach Tzedek explains the spiritual reason why this slaughter will be kosher, that this is because 'defect' (p'gimah) has the same letters as 'plague' (magefa), and this is only problematic during the time of exile but not in the future to come when "And the spirit of impurity I will remove from the earth."

The Slaughter of the Wild Ox in Chassidic Teaching

In Chassidic teaching, the wild ox and the leviathan indicate two levels in a person's divine service.

The leviathan's place is in the sea, "alma d'itkasya" (the concealed world), which indicates spiritual work in unifying higher and lofty unifications.

The wild ox's place is on land, "alma d'itgalya" (the revealed world), which indicates the work of refining the physicality of the world.

In the future to come, through the leviathan slaughtering the ox, it will elevate its refinements to the highest levels of holiness.

In the wild ox and the leviathan, there will be sparks from the souls of the Children of Israel whose work was during the time of exile, in the smaller aspect of Memalei Kol Almin (filling all worlds), and through the eating of the righteous in the future to come, who serve G-d in the aspect of Sovev Kol Almin (surrounding all worlds), these souls will be elevated to the higher level of Sovev.

The Menu

In this feast, the participants will eat from the flesh of the Leviathan. And so says the Gemara:

Rabbah said in the name of Rabbi Yochanan: In the future, the Holy One, blessed be He, will make a feast for the righteous from the flesh of the Leviathan, as it is said: "The companions will feast upon it." And "feast" means nothing other than a banquet, as it is said: "And he prepared for them a great feast, and they ate and drank." And "companions" means nothing other than Torah scholars, as it is said: "You who dwell in the gardens, companions listen to your voice, let me hear it." And the remainder will be divided and traded in the markets of Jerusalem, as it is said: "They will divide it among the Canaanites." And "Canaanites" means nothing other than merchants, as it is said: "Canaan holds deceitful scales; he loves to defraud." If you prefer, it is derived from here: "Whose merchants are princes, whose traders are the honored of the earth." — Talmud Bavli, Tractate Bava Batra 75a

At this feast, they will also serve the Manna - bread from heaven. For dessert, they will serve pomegranate juice. After Birkat Hamazon (Grace after Meals) over a cup of preserved wine, everyone will taste from the cup of blessing.

The Participants in the Feast

According to the Midrash, all the righteous will participate in the feast together with the three Patriarchs, Moshe Rabbeinu, Aharon HaCohen, and King David.

In the Birkat Hamazon, each of them will refuse to lead the blessing - with various excuses: Avraham will refuse because Yishmael came from him, Yitzchak because Esav came from him, Yaakov because he married two sisters in their lifetime, Moshe Rabbeinu because he wasn't privileged to enter the Land of Israel, and so on - until it comes to King David who will respond with the verse "I will raise the cup of salvation and call upon the name of Hashem," indeed it is fitting and proper for me to bless.

The cup over which David will lead the blessing will contain 221 log, which is the gematria of (kosi) revayah [my cup overflows].

The Time of the Feast

Regarding the time of the feast, there are different opinions:

According to most opinions, the feast will take place in the World to Come, which is the world after the resurrection of the dead. However, there is a difficulty with this, since our Sages have said that "in the World to Come there is neither eating nor drinking," so how could a physical feast take place there?

According to one approach, the feast will indeed take place in the days of Moshiach, even before the time of the resurrection of the dead. Ibn Ezra believes that the righteous will be resurrected once in the days of Moshiach and will merit the feast, and afterward they will return to their dust and be resurrected a second time in the resurrection of the dead.

According to a second approach, the feast can also take place in the World to Come: The Rashba and Rabbeinu Bachya, according to one interpretation, explain that since the foods in this feast are pure and were designated especially for this purpose from the six days of creation, therefore there is no impediment to eating them even in the World to Come. A similar interpretation appears in Chassidic teachings. According to another interpretation, the statement that there is no eating and drinking in the World to Come means only that there will be no need for eating and drinking for bodily sustenance, but there will be eating and drinking for other purposes, and therefore the feast will take place then.

According to the second interpretation of the Rashba and Rabbeinu Bachya, the feast will take place during a time when there will still be eating and drinking, and immediately afterward will begin the period in which there will be no eating and drinking. In Chassidic teachings, a similar division into two periods is presented - one in which the feast will take place, and the second in which there will be no eating or drinking. In some sources, it is stated that the first period is the days of Moshiach, and the second is the resurrection of the dead (similar to the first approach mentioned above); and in others, it is stated that there will be two periods within the World to Come itself (consistent with the second approach mentioned above).

See Also

• Yayin HaMeshumar (Preserved Wine)
• Ariston

Further Reading

• Rabbi Shmuel Raskin, To eat, and eat again, and eat again, in the column 'Ro'im She'zeh Ba' (Seeing It Coming), Kfar Chabad Weekly Issue 2002 page 78

External Links

• Topics in Redemption Studies, The Feast of the Wild Ox and Leviathan, in 'HaTamim' Issue 51 page 20
• All articles on the topic of Geulah and Moshiach on the Geulah website

Articles on the Website

• Shechitah with a Fin
• The Chefs Who Will Prepare the Feast of Redemption
• Roasted Meat, Pomegranate Juice, and Bread from Heaven
• Rebbe for Children: The Great Feast • Moshiach – To Experience and Live
• The Sukkah that Hashem Builds for Us on the Geulah website
• The Finest Wine in the World Will Soon Be Revealed, Reserve Your Place at the Launch Event on the Geulah website
• The Forbidden Shechitah - A Torah Innovation? on the Geulah website