Bad Guesses

Rabbi Ovadya Yosef is a Talmud Chacham, a master of Jewish law, lore and tradition. He is said to know everything, and anyone who respects intellectual gifts respects him.

Unfortunately: as someone put it to me in ana email: "The Chareidi-Sepharadi radio station Kol HaEmet broadcast a program where listeners were told that the late Rav Ben-Zion Abba Shaul (died in 1998) said that Mashiach will come after the death of the "despot of Iraq"This revelation is now making waves here in Israel as people excitedly anticipate Mashiach's arrival based on this prediction.

On the flip side, last year, Rav Ovadia Yosef announced that the Mashiach was going to come during Pesach, and even instructed his followers not to fly out of Israelfor Pesach, so as not to miss Mashiach's arrival. When Mashiach didn't arrive, Rav Ovadia said the reason was because of those who embarrassed a talmid-chacham, one Ovadia Yosef."

Source

How often does this happen? Frequently. In every culture, in every tradition, in every time and every place there are people who hurry to say that the end is nigh, and when the deadline passes, and their calculations are revealed to be faulty, there's always an excuse. Always.

Hat-tip, my friend, the really bad actor, Jameel

Corrections: I received most of this post by email, and made the mistake of assuming that what was, in fact, one person's commentary, was the actual translated text of the article. This has been fixed.
Also, as a commenter has made clear, it was not ROY who thought Moshiach would arrive last Pesach but Rav Abba Shaul; RAS was also the one who said Moshiach changed his mind because people were rude to ROY.