Messianic precautions

Messianic pretenders have been a  problem for Judiasm from the earliest times. Charismatic leaders continually and recurrently arise and claim to be Messiahs. The list inlcues Bar Kochba, Jeshu, the pretenders in the Rambam's Iggeres Hashmad, Shabsai Tsvi and many others. Not all candidates were pretenders; undoubtedly some were suited to fill some kind of a messianic role ( and there ARE many different messianic roles), and I agree that history has presented us with individuals who in some fashion were so great that they may have filled messianic roles (according to some testimonies perhaps Shabsai Tsvi himself). Yet, they did not, for Hashem's own reasons, because something was lacking, or because the generations was not worthy.

 R. Huna was fitting for the Shechina to rest on him but Bavel prevented it (Moed Katan 25a).

The Holy One, blessed be He, wished to appoint Hezekiah as the Messiah, and Sennacherib as Gog and Magog; whereupon the Attribute of Justice  said before the Holy One, blessed be He: 'Sovereign of the Universe! If Thou didst not make David the Messiah, who uttered so many hymns and psalms before Thee, wilt Thou appoint Hezekiah as such, who did not hymn Thee in spite of all these miracles which Thou wroughtest for him?' Therefore it [sc. the mem] was closed.  Straightway the earth exclaimed: 'Sovereign of the Universe! Let me utter song before Thee instead of this righteous man [Hezekiah], and make him the Messiah.' So it broke into song before Him, as it is written, From the uttermost part of the earth have we heard songs, even glory to the righteous.  Then the Prince of the Universe  said to Him: 'Sovereign of the Universe! It [the earth] hath fulfilled Thy desire [for songs of praise] on behalf of this righteous man.  But a heavenly Voice cried out, 'It is my secret, it is my secret.  To which the prophet rejoined, 'Woe is me, woe is me: how long [must we wait]?' The heavenly Voice [again] cried out, 'The treacherous dealers have dealt treacherously; yea, the treacherous dealers have dealt very treacherously: which Raba — others say, R. Isaac — interpreted: until there come spoilers, and spoilers of the spoilers (Sanhedrin 94a).

Being that the messianic idea is both integral to Jewish belief and, at least in its mystical interpretations, provides an engine that drives much of its inner mechanisms, why has Judaism not been torn apart by many more chrismatic messianic movements. As I see it, there are both postive and negative safeguards that prevent the messianic idea from ripping the Jewish people apart. The positive safeguards are the ones that require the Messiah to accomplish something and the negative ones prevent him from doing something.

The Messiah must wage wars, vanquish enemies of Israel, rebuild the Temple and bring the nations to the recognition of Hashem. He also must not violate the restrictions of the Torah in personal behavior and halacha in general.

Only when messianic movements outflanked these conditions did they go greviously wrong. Christianity spiritualized the first requirement, contending that they were fulfilled though vanquishing Satan and that salvation is spiritual and not physical in nature. It voided the Law. Nathan of Gaza claimed that Shabsai Tzvi redeemed the world from evil by descending into the kelippa of Ishmael and "permitted what was forbidden".

The classic notions of birur and tikkun, as expressed by Ari, assume that not everything is redeemable. Evil does dissolve and perish. Redemption is preceded by separation of good and evil. In our world, good and evil are inextricably intermixed. We might say that our reality is neither night nor day but a twilight, a time when light and darkness function together, when shadows appear solid and the real looks ephemeral. It is the task of man to separate light and darkness, to extract the good and join it to its ‘root’, so it can be redeemed. Then the evil will of itself perish and the good will be transformed into Godliness.

It is true that Ramchal and after him R. Ashlag posited that everything will be ultimately redeemed and nothing will be ever rejected (hachzoras hara letov). What is evil now is only so considered because it is now - before the creation and after the Redemption evil (or more precisely the roots out of which it springs) would be as good as anything else. This is closer to the thought of Nathan of Gaza than I would like to admit. However we must remember that Ramchal had much opposition in his time and it was not based on nothing.

I do not reject Ramchal's view; we must wait to find out if he was right. All opinions are sanctified and are Torah and must be studied. For the public face of our theology, however, I believe that both positive and negative safeguards must be accentuated. We should oppose attemtps to spiritualize the "positives" that Mashiach must accomplish, insist that he prove himself through tangible accomplishments and strongly maintain that the violations of the negatives immediately disqualifies any claimant to his title.

 

Comments

[cj]

not all Christianity spiritualizes it. Many believe that Jesus will come back again and have a litteral fulfilment of all those things.

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