The Messiah
Many Jews have long been skeptical of predictions
announcing the imminent arrival of the Messiah (Mashiakh).
The first century sage Rabban
Yochanan ben Zakkai once said: "If you should happen to be
holding a sapling in your hand when they tell you that the Messiah has
arrived, first plant the sapling and then go out and greet the Messiah."
An old Jewish story tells of a Russian Jew who was paid a ruble a month
by the community council to stand at the outskirts of town so that he
could be the first person to greet the Messiah upon his arrival. When
a friend said to him, "But the pay is so low," the man replied:
"True, but the job is permanent."
Yet, the belief in a messiah and a messianic age is
so deeply rooted in Jewish tradition that a statement concerning the
Messiah became the most famous of Maimonides's
Thirteen Principles of Faith: "And Ma'amin, I believe
with a full heart in the coming of the Messiah, and even though he may
tarry, I will wait for him on any day that he may come." In the
concentration camps, it is reported that many Jews sang the Ani Ma'amin while walking to the gas chambers.
On the one hand, ironic jokes and skepticism; on the other, passionate
faith: What then is the Jewish position on the Messiah?
Most significantly, Jewish tradition affirms at least
five things about the Messiah. He will: be a descendant of King David, gain sovereignty over the land of Israel, gather the
Jews there from the four corners of the earth, restore them to full
observance of Torah law, and, as a grand finale, bring peace to the
whole world. Concerning the more difficult tasks some prophets assign
him, such as Isaiah's vision of a messianic age in which the wolf shall
dwell with the lamb and the calf with the young lion (Isaiah
11:6), Maimonides believes
that Isaiah's language is metaphorical (for example, only that enemies
of the Jews, likened to the wolf, will no longer oppress them). A century
later, Nachmanides rejected
Maimonides's rationalism and asserted that Isaiah meant precisely what
he said: that in the messianic age even wild animals will become domesticated
and sweettempered. A more recent Jewish "commentator,"
Woody Allen, has cautioned: "And the lamb and the wolf shall lie
down together, but the lamb won't get any sleep."
The Jewish belief that the Messiah's reign lies in
the future has long distinguished Jews from their Christian neighbors
who believe, of course, that the Messiah came two thousand years ago
in the person of Jesus. The most basic reason for the Jewish denial
of the messianic claims made on Jesus' behalf is that he did not usher
in world peace, as Isaiah had prophesied: "And nation shall not
lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore"
(Isaiah 2:4). In addition, Jesus
did not help bring about Jewish political sovereignty for the Jews or
protection from their enemies.
A century after Jesus, large numbers of Palestinian
Jews followed the wouldbe Messiah, Simon
BarKokhba, in a revolt against the Romans. The results
were catastrophic, and the Jews suffered a devastating defeat. In 16651666,
large segments of world Jewry believed that Shabbetai
Zvi, a Turkish Jew, was the Messiah, and confidently waited for
Turkey's sultan to deliver Palestine to him. Instead, the sultan threatened
Shabbetai with execution and the "Messiah" saved his life
by converting to Islam.
In the modern world, Reform
Judaism has long denied that there will be an individual messiah
who will carry out the task of perfecting the world. Instead, the movement
speaks of a future world in which human efforts, not a divinely sent
messenger, will bring about a utopian age. The Reform idea has influenced
many nonOrthodox Jews: The oftnoted attraction of Jews to
liberal and leftwing political causes probably represents a secular
attempt to usher in a messianic age.
Among traditional Jews, the belief in a personal messiah
seems to have grown more central in recent years. When I was growing
up in the 1950s and 1960s, the subject of the Messiah was rarely, if
ever, mentioned at the Jewish school I attended, the Yeshiva of Flatbush.
Today however, one large movement within Orthodoxy, Lubavitch,
has placed increasing emphasis on the imminence of the Messiah's arrival.
At gatherings of their youth organizations, children chant, "We
want Ma-shiakh now."
At the same time, the subject of the Messiah has become
increasingly central to many religious
Zionists in Israel, particularly
to many disciples of the late Rabbi
Abraham Isaac Kook. The event that helped set the stage for a revived
interest in the Messiah was the SixDay
War of 1967, in which Israel captured the Old
City of Jerusalem and, for the first time in over two thousand years,
achieved Jewish rule over the biblically ordained borders of Israel.
A sober reading of Jewish history, however, indicates
that while the messianic idea has long elevated Jewish life, and prompted
Jews to work for tikkun olam (perfection of the world), whenever
Jews have thought the Messiah's arrival to be imminent, the results
have been catastrophic. In 1984, a Jewish religious underground was
arrested in Israel. Among its other activities, the group had plotted
to blow up the Muslim Dome
of the Rock in Jerusalem,
so that the Temple
Mount could be cleared and the Temple rebuilt. Though such an action
might well have provoked an international Islamic jihad (holy
war) against Israel, some members of this underground group apparently
welcomed such a possibility, feeling that a worldwide invasion of Israel
would force God to bring the Messiah immediately. It is precisely when
the belief in the Messiah's coming starts to shape political decisions
that the messianic idea ceases to be inspiring and becomes dangerous.
Sources: Joseph Telushkin. Jewish
Literacy. NY: William Morrow and Co., 1991. Reprinted by permission
of the author. |