Moshiach: Dead or Alive? Sanhedrin 98b

The Talmud depicts the character of the Jewish Messiah: "If he is among the living, he is someone like Rabbi Yehuda; If he is from the dead, he is someone like Daniel." Why them specifically? Says Rashi, "because they were extraordinarily righteous and absorbed much suffering."

Rashi explains "If he is from the dead":
"If you want an example in this generation of someone who qualifies to be Moshiach, it's Rabbi Yehuda Hanassi. And if the candidate would be of a previous era who would qualify, it could be Daniel. 

In other words, he can be from the dead or from the living.

Then Rashi continues:
"And another version:
If such a personality we see today, it's Rabbi Yehuda Hanassi ... or, were he to be as exemplified by a personage of yesteryear, he would be like Daniel."

In his 2nd explanation Rashi is saying that were Moshiach to come presently, he would come only from the present generation;  and worthy candidate examples, from past and present, who Moshiach would resemble (Rabbi Yehuda or someone like Daniel) are offered.

Rashi thereby explains that Moshiach can come from both the dead and certainly from the present.

The Rebbe's 'shita', i.e., the Rebbe's usual way of looking at opposing views in gemora,  is always to find a mediating position where in fact both positions bear validity. Both positions in fact can be understood as the same position, or are not arguing at all.

Well here, how so? How can "from the dead" and "from the living", two opposing views, be rectified to being compatible with each other?

Chabad chassidim, especially those who believe the Rebbe is Moshiach, have no problem here weaving together both perspectives into one. The Rebbe, to be sure, had been buried, as sure as Yaakov Avinu was buried. But, just as Yaakov remains alive despite his burial - a way we don't even expect to understand but accept on full faith, because our Talmudic sages tells us so, so too the Rebbe, who on the 3rd of Tammuz exited this world - as we see it, is well and alive. He is invisible to us, but Moshiach can be both "dead" and "alive" too.

In every generation a head of the generation is planted by God upon the body of the Jewish people, ever since the first generation of Jews, the generation of Moses. No leader of the Jewish people is physically apparent today in this generation, yet the Rebbe's outreach, the Rebbe's influence and his war against the enemies of the Jews is today still gaining momentum and quite apparent - for those tuned in to see.

We waited with anticipation. This generation, the Rebbe said, is the last generation of exile and the very first generation of the Era of Redemption. All indications point to the Rebbe as having been granted by God the rank of King Moshiach.

Unfortunately, there are a few who regard the natural events of Tammuz 3, 5754 as proof the Rebbe's Messianic kingship was forfeited, disqualifying him of that role.

Most, however, as myself, believe the natural events on that fateful day didn't changed the true, supernatural state of King Moshiach, despite our natural presumptions. We were thrown into a sensory "darkness" to test our faith in the supernatural, as alluded to at the end of Daniel (12:12), where Rashi asserts (quoting several Midrashim) that Moshiach "will reveal himself, then hide himself, and then again reveal himself."