385. Rabbi Chiya opened the discussion with the verse: "And Hashem said to Moses, Behold, you shall sleep with your fathers..." (Devarim 31:16). Come and see: As long as Moses was alive in the world, he admonished Yisrael not to be found sinful before the Holy One, blessed be He. Since Moses was among them, there is no generation like that one until the generation when King Messiah will come, who beholds the glory of the Holy One, blessed be He, like they did, because they attained what no other generation did.
386. We have learned that a maid saw on the sea what the eye of the prophet Ezekiel could not. If THE MAIDS reached thus far, all the more so the wives of Yisrael, and their children even more, and the men even more. The Sanhedrin all the more, and the chiefs even more, and all the more so the supernal, faithful prophet Moses, who is above everyone. Now, if these merchants in the desert uttered such wisdom, all the more so the sages of the generations and even more those who stay with Rabbi Shimon and study from him every day. All the more so to Rabbi Shimon, who is above everyone.
387. After Moses died, it is written, "And this people will rise up, and go astray..." (Ibid.). Woe to the world when Rabbi Shimon will depart from it, when the springs of wisdom will be sealed from the world, when man will seek words of wisdom, but there will be none to utter it. The whole world will err in the Torah and there shall be none to awaken it with wisdom. Of that time, it says, "And if the whole Congregation of Yisrael sin through ignorance" (Vayikra 4:13), NAMELY if they sin through ignorance of the Torah, it is because they will not know its ways. Why? Because "the thing be hid from the eyes of the assembly" (Ibid.), for there will be no one to reveal the depth of the Torah and its ways. Woe to the generation then in the world!
388. Rabbi Yehuda said, The Holy One, blessed be He, will reveal deep mysteries of the Torah at the time of The Messiah, "for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of Hashem, as the waters cover the sea" (Yeshayah 11:9), "And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know Hashem: for they shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them" (Yirmeyah 31:33). Amen. May it be so.