What Da'at Tevunot Said About the World to Come
Da'at Tevunot reads the world to come as the lifted form of the present hester panim, with the messianic age as the gradual reversal that precedes it.
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Jewish eschatology speaks of an olam ha-ba, a world to come. Da'at Tevunot, Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto's eighteenth-century dialogue, places the world to come in continuity with the messianic age and with the present-tense alternation between divine concealment and revelation.
Two passages from the dialogue describe what the future state will involve. The joy of dwelling in the divine presence, anchored in scriptural promises. The connection between the messianic age and the gradual reversal of the present hester panim, the hiding of the divine countenance.
Joy in the Divine Presence
Da'at Tevunot 24 grounds the future in three verses. Isaiah 58:14 promises, then shall you enjoy with HaShem. Psalm 140:14 promises that the upright shall dwell in your presence. A similar sentiment appears across the Hebrew Bible.
The Ramchal does not speculate about the physical conditions of the world to come. He reads the future from these verses. The world to come involves enjoying the Holy One's presence directly. It involves dwelling, the active continuous form of being in proximity. The promise is relational, not architectural.
The teaching is restrained. The Ramchal refuses to elaborate beyond what the verses warrant. The world to come, in this reading, is a state in which the relationship that the present world conducts at a distance is conducted at intimate proximity. The verses do not need amplification because they are already saying what the world to come fundamentally is.
The Messianic Age and the Reversal of Hester Panim
Da'at Tevunot 40:14 connects the messianic age to the current condition of divine concealment. The state of the world right now, the Ramchal teaches, is one of hester panim, a significant concealment of the divine countenance.
The messianic age, in this reading, is the gradual reversal of the concealment. The Mashiach figure is not principally a political leader or a military deliverer. The Mashiach is the agent through whose work the concealed face of the divine becomes progressively visible to the lower world. The work proceeds in stages. Each stage reveals more of what has been hidden during the long present.
The Ramchal frames this as continuous with the world to come. The messianic age and the world to come are not two separate futures. The messianic age is the preparation for the world to come. The full revelation that the world to come will involve is the final state of the unfolding that the messianic age initiates.
The Continuity From Now to Then
Read the two passages together and the Ramchal's eschatology becomes legible. Da'at Tevunot teaches that the present, the messianic age, and the world to come are stages of a single unfolding.
The present is the period of hester panim. The messianic age is the period during which the concealment is progressively lifted. The world to come is the period in which the upright dwell in the presence that the messianic age has finally made fully visible. The continuity is structural. The reader experiencing the current concealment is, in this picture, experiencing a stage that is already moving toward the next stage and the one after that.
Why the Eschatology Was Restrained
The Ramchal's eschatology is striking for what it does not describe. He does not speculate about heavenly architecture, angelic hierarchies in the world to come, or the physical conditions of the future. He stays close to the verses. The future, in his reading, is principally about the lifting of a concealment that is currently in place. What the upright will experience in that lifted state is best described by the verses themselves. The Kabbalist who tries to extend the description beyond what the verses warrant is, in the Ramchal's view, exceeding the legitimate reach of theological speculation.