Jewish Messianism Metamorphoses of an Idea

written by Eliezer Schweid

published in

The Jerusalem Quarterly

Number 36
Summer 1985
 

Messianism plays a unique role in the polarized controversy which marks the Israeli political scene today. At one end of the ideological spectrum it is a battle cry; at the other, an object of scorn. It lies at the center of current ideological conflicts in the political arena, and endows the controversy with a broad cultural and historical resonance. An understanding of the significance of messianism is necessary in forming a clear picture of the spiritual ambience of Israel society today.

Before embarking upon a description of messianism and its history, it is worth examining how the current political controversy came to revolve around a philosophical-theological concept of this sort. A look at the recent past will help us to understand this spiritual phenomenon which at the outset appears so alien and peculiar to non-religious Israelis.

In the pre-state period, most of the political controversies that raged between the different Jewish parties in Eretz Israel and worldwide had their roots in solidified ideologies, each based upon a comprehensive world-view. Ideology, in those days, played a central role in education, in formulating the social issues with which any given party was concerned, in gathering broader public support for the party and in shaping its strategies. The preponderance of ideology in the society made it widely accepted to view messianism, at least in a metaphorical sense, as an exalted sentiment useful in arousing enthusiastic support for the platforms of the parties. Each party, of course, had its own interpretation of the concept, and the debate between them was fierce indeed. There was general agreement, however, about the importance and desirability of messianic aspirations.

The fact that a movement is ideologically based clearly has some bearing on its espousal of a messianic view. Nor is it difficult to understand this connection. In order to bring about a revolution and establish a new order, movements must try to convince the public that the existing order is rotten to the core and must be overthrown in favor of a more desirable order. That is the task of ideology, which is intrinsically messianic, seeking as it does the total rectification of all the perversities of the present and the realization of all the good it so eagerly desires.

In the pre-state period most Jewish movements sought links in messianism and its past manifestations. Their primary motivation lay in the desire for the perfect redemption of the Jewish people. Once the state was established, however, an opposing trend set in, one in which ideology receded before a more "pragmatic" approach. In an ideologically-based movement even such a transformation may take on an ideological character with messianic overtones--and the ideology of statehood which in Eretz Israel swept the Labor Party, headed by David Ben-Gurion, into leadership and guided the nation's steps after the establishment of the state is an excellent example of this. Ben-Gurion saw the establishment of the State of Israel as a messianic event. To him the vision had been realized, and it was precisely this fervent declaration that justified his political pragmatism. There was no longer the need to seek the overthrow of the existing order or the building of a new one. What was needed, rather, was to preserve and consolidate what had been achieved, and the best way to do this was to make the most efficient use of the existing implements of state. Defined in this way, the new situation demanded a non-ideological pragmatism. Can there be an ideology of liberation from ideology? If so, this may well be an example. It resulted, at any rate, in the fairly quick "neutralization" of the ideological element, especially in the ruling parties.

However, the fierce controversy buffeting Israeli society has precipitated the climax of a transformation which began with the trauma of the Yom Kippur War in 1973. The aftermath of that conflict led to profound self-criticism, to the upset of the nation's social and political balance and to cultural tensions verging on violence, and all of these combined to shake the pragmatic complacency which had set in after the 1967 Six-Day War. The controversy splitting the country once more became ideological. To be sure, this transformation does not embrace the whole society. In the large parties, or more precisely in their governing bodies, pragmatism is still considered the only ideology suitable for guiding a firm administration. At either end of the political spectrum, however, radical ideological movements have appeared, and these are having a progressively wider effect upon the supporters of the large parties. At a time when the institutionalized pragmatism of the large parties seems unable to cope with the weighty problems facing the nation, the ideological movements point to hard and fast solutions, and their influence is growing, In their attitude towards messianism, however, a curious equation is taking shape as a result of this whole process. At one end of the spectrum there has appeared an ideological movement whose very 'soul" is messianism; its understanding of the concept, however, is decidedly different from that accepted in the pre-state yishuv, with regard both to the vision and to its realization. At the other end, meanwhile, has appeared a protest movement whose opposition is directed against messianism as well. It decries the messianism of its antagonists, offering instead an ideology bent on justifying the pragmatic approach which sees in the present, in the attainment achievable right now, its sought-after ideal--an ideal it pursues with such passion that its devotion to it at times, ironically, takes on a messianic character.

The Messiah King--Redeemer of the People

Like many other concepts in Jewish thought, messianism has borne a wealth of meanings in the course of Jewish history. The need for constant reinterpretation under changing historical and cultural circumstances made the meanings attached to it expand and split into different streams, giving rise to fierce controversies. The best way to gain an understanding of the phenomenon, with all its variations and internal contradictions, will thus be to follow the principal historical developments that have taken place within it from its scriptural origins up to the present day.

Even in the Bible itself, several stages are discernible in the development of the concept. The earliest finds expression in the term "God's anointed" (meshiah Elohim)¹, by which the legal king of the people of Israel (as recognized by the prophets) was identified. Saul was anointed king of Israel by Samuel, at God's command. After his fall from grace, the kingdom was taken from him--and Samuel anointed David. The kings who descended from him were considered God's anointed--it was they, in other words, who were considered the legitimate kings of Israel by the will of God. David, the founder of the dynasty, was viewed as the people's model king even in the biblical literature, and this evaluation left its abiding mark upon the further development of the messianic idea, even after the kingdom was destroyed. Nor was this influence confined to Judaism alone--Christianity awarded Jesus the title of God's anointed, and traced his lineage to the House of David. When the idea of the re-establishment of the royal line was transformed into a vision of the future, it was accepted by the people that the one destined to renew it, too, would be "a shoot out of the stock of Jesse." But this idealization of David and his dynasty gave the concept of the "anointed king"--the "Messiah king"--an additional significance as well.

As we may gather from the preceding description, the prophet's anointment of the king with holy oil was a ceremony by which legitimate authority was conferred upon him by God. Two assumptions underlie this rite. The first is that the monarchy needs legal confirmation of both the identity of the king and his methods of governing. True sovereignty does not derive merely from the arbitrary wielding of power by a man who has gathered sufficient strength to seize the government. The government is a legal framework which requires justification from an ethical, social and religious point of view, and whoever stands at its head must also justify his status within it. Secondly, the sole source for conferring legal authority on the king is not human but Divine, and that is because sovereignty in its original and essential sense belongs to God. God is the creator of the world; it is He who determines the laws of nature and the laws which guide man. The world and its creatures belong to Him, and it is to Him that men owe their obedience, for their own good. The prophet or priest who anoints the king thus acts in the name of God, entrusting the king with an authority that is limited and defined. God does not forego His sovereignty, and the king merely acts in His name; he is "God's chosen." Needless to say, then, the king must govern according to the will of God--that is, according to the Torah and the word of God to His prophets. As Scripture puts it, the king must do "that which is good in the eyes of God." When the anointed king is faithful to his task, then, the people gain all of the bounty, both ethical and material, with which God promised to endow them upon His land.

There is a strong connection between this understanding of the sovereign's appointed role and the idea of redemption. In the originaI, biblical sense of the word, a "redeemer" is a person of social and legal standing who on this account has the ability, and thus also the obligation, to extend his protection to his kin and dependents within his family, tribe or people. This role devolves upon the patriarch of the family, the elder of the tribe and so forth. The redeemer must ensure his dependents the status appropriate to them in consequence of their place and prestige within the society, and if they should fall from this status by reason of some disaster or injury, it is incumbent upon him to make every effort to restore them to their original position. The act of redemption, then, consists of restoring one who has fallen to his original status. In accordance with this view of society, the Torah obliges leaders of the people, judges and representatives of the public to take up the redeemer's role towards those whom misfortune has denied "kin and redeemers": the orphan, the widow and the proselyte. The same view obliges every able individual in society to see to the needs of the poor. It was in accordance with this view that Boaz took upon himself the role of redeemer towards Ruth the Moabitess and her family. And so God, too, bears the task of redeeming His people. The Exodus from Egypt was an act of redemption in this sense. The people had fallen from the original status which it deserved, and God--its father--redeemed it by bringing it out of slavery and back to Him, to shelter under His wings. It is easy to see how this line of thought was thence extended to the king chosen by God. The anointed king, too, takes upon himself the role of redeemer of the people. David--acting as redeemer--fortified the people's hold upon the land and kept its enemies at bay, while Solomon brought it peace and prosperity. Their deeds completed the act of redemption which had begun with the Exodus. It was on this account that David was considered a model king who had fulfilled his appointed role. On this account, too, it would be one of his descendants who brought the people ultimate redemption.

This vital connection between the task of the appointed king and that of the redeemer became the source of the unique significance acquired by the concept of messianism in the course of its future evolution.
 

The Messianic Vision: The Righteous Judge

The subsequent development of the messianic idea, beyond the conception described above of the role of the anointed king, was a consequence of the ever-present and increasingly wide gap between the expectations which the people, the prophets and the Sages had of the kings who ruled them and the actual deeds and achievements of the latter, particularly with regard to the requirement that they establish a reign of justice and righteousness. The rulers of the kingdom of Israel, which had broken away from the kingdom established by David, were never considered legitimate by the prophets. But even the kings of the Davidic dynasty, who had been legally anointed, did not live up to expectations. As seen through the eyes of the prophets, they were unfaithful to the covenant they were expected to fulfil and failed to serve God as they ought; they did not do His command and did not judge the people righteously. That, in the opinion of the prophets, was why the condition of the Israelites continued to deteriorate, both in their internal and in their external affairs. The deterioration described in the biblical narrative thus continued until the Temple lay in ruins, the kingdom was destroyed and the people exiled. Even as the race towards destruction was in progress, however, the prophets continued to nurse their hope that the Davidic dynasty would yet produce a sovereign worthy of his role who would redeem the people and restore it to its original status, as in the days of David and Solomon. It was from this hope that the messianic vision described in the works of the later prophets sprang. The true "Messiah king," as opposed to these unworthy kings, would judge the people righteously and ensure them peace and prosperity:

And there shall come forth a shoot out of the stock of Jesse, and a twig shall grow forth out of his roots. And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord. And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord; and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither decide after the hearing of his ears; but with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the land...they shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the root of Jesse, that standeth for an ensign of the peoples, unto him shall the nations seek; and his resting-place shall be glorious (Isaiah 11:1-4, 9-10).

These verses from the prophecy of Isaiah provide a concise, eloquent summation of the messianic idea as it took shape in the thinking of the later prophets, and they are also a source for the much more complex conception found in the prophets after Isaiah and in the post-biblical literature. The true king who will surely, but at some undefined time, accede to the throne of David will of course be a legitimate heir, a "shoot" out of the stock of Jesse and a "twig" out of his roots. In contrast to most of the kings who ruled in the past, however, this one will fulfill the expectations of the prophet, in the name of God and of the people. He will display all of the spiritual qualities required of one who is God's anointed. He will judge the people with righteousness, and his rule will bring the people ethical and material prosperity and peace. Nor is it only the people of Israel that will be redeemed by this king; all the peoples of the world will accept his justice and be redeemed. The hope of redemption in this vision acquires a universal and perhaps even cosmic dimension.

The Literature of Messianic Vision

Isaiah's vision contains an element which was to be of growing importance in the development of the messianic idea, both in the prophets who succeeded Isaiah and in the post-biblical literature. We have already noted that the time of the appointed king's appearance is undefined, though it is expected with absolute certainty. The king's historical identity is also not explicit. What king did the prophet have in mind? There are commentators who believe that he was referring to a particular candidate and a particular time very close at hand. The prophecy itself, however, leaves this a mystery. Moreover, it does not describe the circumstances in which this king is to appear--the actual historical moment, that is, remains undisclosed--and the vision itself is shot through with fabulous idealization. This is more than the rectification of the defects and perversions of an evil reign. The contrast between the darkness of the present and the perfection of the future is absolute, representing a revolutionary transformation in the nature of the human race, the peoples of the world and perhaps even the universe. The prophet's conception would seem vastly to exceed the restoration of the good order and prosperity which had prevailed in the days of David and Solomon. The king he describes is far superior to any of his predecessors, and has qualities not given to ordinary men. Moreover, his power is exclusively spiritual, and yet all respond to it. This kind of response, too, is uncharacteristic of the human race as we know it; ultimately we find that he expects even beasts of prey to undergo a transformation in their behavior. Is this merely a flight of poetic imagery, or does he really have in mind an essential transformation in the order of nature and in the natural qualities of man? The commentators are divided in their opinions on this point. There is no doubt, however, that in the later prophets, and even more so in the post-biblical apocalyptic literature, the description of the redemption took on a consistently supra-historical, miraculous character.

The anticipated events embrace the whole world, far exceeding those described in the biblical Story of the Exodus. We must emphasize, to be sure, that this development did not entirely supplant the earlier biblical tradition of a redemption which was to take place within history, subject to the regular laws of nature, in which a king descended from the Davidic dynasty would rise to gather in the exiles, reestablish the kingdom, rebuild the Temple and guide the nation in accordance with the laws of the Torah. But the visions of the messianic, apocalyptic literature (that which set about revealing the hitherto unknown wondrous events which were to take place at the "end of days," when the course of history would transcend the natural order) had the upper hand. This was especially true of the period which began with the failure of the Bar-Kokhba rebellion. The Jewish people gradually lost its majority in the land of Israel; the remnants of its independence vanished; the dispersion of the people increased, and with it their distance from the land of Israel; and the hope that the nation would one day be able to restore its sovereignty by political and military means faded almost completely. It could only hope now for a miracle, for direct intervention from on high, for a transformation in the order of nature. A rich literature of messianic visions thus came into being, authored by men possessed of esoteric wisdom or prophetic inspiration.

The literature in question was written over a long period, lasting several centuries. In each work one senses its unique historical, spiritual and religious background and the unique personalities of the thinkers or seers who created it. They cannot, therefore, be taken together as a single movement, for they are necessarily separated by great differences, antitheses and even contradictions. It is possible, however, to trace some schematic outlines which define the phenomenon in a broad sense, and since we cannot here go into a detailed analysis of several examples, we shall briefly note these outlines:

(1) a radically critical portrayal of the present human condition: evil, arrogance, unrestrained tyranny, persecution of the righteous and their cruel suffering. The people of Israel are persecuted and oppressed on account of their loyalty to the Torah, and idolatry dominates. Even the order of nature is crumbling because of the depravity that mars mankind;

(2) a belief that the present bleak state of affairs cannot last much longer. It does not accord with the will of God, who created His world, and man within it, for a good purpose. The human race, to be sure, has sinned and corrupted Creation, but God has not abandoned His world. He directs it according to a particular, predetermined plan, in which the suffering of the present is a necessary stage on the road to redemption;

(3) ordinary men cannot understand why this reign of evil is not stopped, or how the world will reach its predestined goal. However, there is an esoteric wisdom, originating in inspiration from on high, whose practitioners can decipher the course of events and foresee the future by means of signs existing in the present. These visionaries usually see their own time as the climax of the period of crisis and anticipate the End of Days very shortly thereafter. This understanding gives them strength to bear the suffering and do whatever can be done to hasten that End, or at least ensure that it will occur at its appointed time;

(4) when the time comes, the "Messiah king," the son of David, will appear and extend his sovereignty over Israel, and perhaps over the world as a whole. Then will come the redemption. The descriptions of this redemption are not consistent in all their details, but they typically speak of justice and a terrible vengeance to be exacted upon the evil-doers, the destruction of idolatry, the return of the exiles to Zion, the re-establishment of the kingdom and of the Temple service, an abundance of crops which will spring forth by supernatural means, the establishment of legal ties and just and peaceful relations between Israel and the other nations, the exaltation of existence and the resurrection of the dead. Eventually a time will come when all pain, sickness and evil will pass from the world, and even death will be no more.

As we have said, this is a schematic outline covering a vast and fascinating wealth of visions. We must again emphasize, moreover, that despite the expectation of a supernatural and suprahistorical redemption which characterizes most of the messianic literature created after the Bar-Kokhba rebellion there also remained a more earthbound popular version, according to which "the only difference between this world and the time of the Messiah lies in the ingathering of the exiles." This version carefully distinguishes between the national redemption to take place in messianic times and the redemption of individual souls in the "world to come." We shall return to this distinction further on.

Can the Coming of the Messiah be Hastened?

Before we discuss the modern metamorphosis of the messianic idea into secular-political, social and national movements, it will be helpful to examine several points of controversy among the messianic conceptions which evolved within Judaism up to the beginning of the modern era (which in Jewish history begins with the Emancipation).

The first such point of controversy is one we have already mentioned above, the question of whether the messianic redemption was to have a historical or a supra-historical character. In the Middle Ages, the historical view was buttressed by the vigorous, influential and authoritative support of Maimonides. The future Maimonides describes is, to be sure, ideal, and as such it can be defined as "utopian." He continually emphasizes, however, that the events of redemption will take place in a natural way, as they did at the time of the restoration led by Ezra and Nehemiah. This aspect of Maimonides' thinking was to be of great importance to the religious Zionists of the modern era.

Maimonides will also help us to understand the link between the first and second points of messianic controversy. Maimonides, even as he rejected the miraculous dimension of the people's national redemption, clung to its spiritual, supernatural dimension. He, too, saw man's destiny as involving a degree of spiritual perfection that would overcome all the ills of earthly reality: pain, suffering, sickness, evil and death. He distinguished, however, between the messianic redemption, which would take place on a national level, and redemption in the spiritual, absolute sense. In his view, "the days of the Messiah" and "the world to come"--two commonly used expressions which had been handed down from rabbinic times--referred to two different things. "The days of the Messiah" denoted the period of national redemption, to be characterized by the ingathering of the exiles, the establishment of a sovereign realm governed by the laws of the Torah, and the reestablishment of the Temple service. When this came about, of course, the people would be released from all their sufferings, and made free to spend their time studying the Torah and keeping the commandments so as to earn their part in the world to come. In itself, however, this "part in the world to come" did not depend upon the advent of the messianic era. It referred to individual spiritual perfection, which could be achieved by every individual, as a member of the people of Israel, through study of the Torah and keeping the commandments, each according to his ability. Study of the Torah enabled man to elevate and perfect his soul, and this perfection was eternal, untouchable by death. The "world to come," then, referred to the eternal existence of the soul after death, and this spiritual level could be attained at any time--under Jewish sovereignty or in exile--through purely motivated devotion to the study of the Torah.

As we have noted, Maimonides also described the "days of the Messiah" as a means by which every individual Jew would move closer to achieving his part in the world to come. Clearly, though, the possibility of achieving personal, spiritual redemption in the most exalted sense even in exile lessened the tension with which the advent of the Messiah was anticipated. Maimonides was not the only one to make this distinction, but he also had some vigorous opponents. As a number of scholars have argued, the approach taken by the proponents of the school represented by Maimonides' ideas sought, in effect, to "neutralize" the messianic idea; that of their opponents, on the other hand, intensified the urgency with which the Messiah was expected and sought ways of hastening the end.

A third point of controversy centered around the question of whether the messianic vision depended for its fulfilment upon some deliberate human acts. This question had three parts: First of all, was the advent of the Messiah at all dependent upon the deeds of man, or would it simply occur at some predetermined time? Secondly, was it possible--and if so, advisable--to attempt to "hasten the end?" And finally, if it was indeed possible to try to hasten the Messiah's coming, then by what deeds? The first of these questions had two radically opposing answers, The first assumes a divine plan, predetermined down to the last detail, which man has no power whatever to influence. The second, on the other hand, holds that the time of the Messiah's advent is not preordained, but redemption will come about when the Jews are worthy of it. A third approach was also possible, according to which there is a fixed time for the Messiah's coming, regardless of man's deeds, but the people of Israel can hasten the redemption through righteous acts, This last, intermediate view seems to have been the majority view.

According to the second and third views, then, the Jewish people can hasten the advent of the Messiah by their deeds. But by what deeds? We will find a number of different and opposing views on this issue as well. Up to the time of the Bar-Kokhba rebellion, the numerous large-scale uprisings against foreign domination which arose from Hasmonean times onward expressed a view that the Jews can--and must--take political and military initiatives in order to hasten the redemption. In the wake of the grim consequences of Bar-Kokhba's failure, however, most of the leaders were won over to the belief that active rebellion--"mounting the ramparts"--was forbidden. The people had been sentenced to exile, and only intervention from on high could restore it to its land. There were several attempts to found movements of return, but these were always doomed to early failure, and the general rule did not change until the first stirrings of the Hibbat Zion movement in modern times. But such efforts did not exhaust the means available to the people for attempting to hasten the end. The first, most accepted and conservative of these means was that of repentance. The Jews "must make themselves worthy of redemption before their Father in Heaven through wholehearted study of the Torah and observance of the commandments. Special efforts to hasten the redemption by those who took this view expressed themselves in greater emphasis upon mourning over the destruction of the Temple and the nation's exile, and occasionally in the undertaking of pilgrimages to the Holy Land for the sake of bewailing its desolation and praying in the holy places for redemption.

A second, more vigorous means for hastening the end was that at times attempted by practitioners of esoteric wisdom, who, after sanctifying themselves in order to attain a spiritual elevation which would enable them to act upon the supernal realms, endowed their prayers with special kavvanot (meanings, purposes) directed towards this aim. Such spiritual activity was, of course, the province of a few select individuals. Given the people's great distress, however, a number of such individuals, sensing themselves agents for the rest, were able at various times to arouse tremendous excitement, tense anticipation and preparations for proximate messianic events. The dashed hopes which alway: followed these awakenings unsettled the people's faith and we often accompanied by despair and conversions. The majority o the rabbinic leaders, traumatized by these experiences, consistently opposed such attempts, but they could not prevent their latent embers flaring up again strongly in times of crisis.

From Religious to Secular Messianism

Messianism, as it was described above, is essentially a religious and spiritual phenomenon. Faith in divine providence--that is, in the idea that history follows a divine plan--is its essential ingredient. Nevertheless, the modern era has seen the rise of great secular messianic movements among both the Jews and the peoples of Europe, who inherited the messianic tradition in the form of Christianity. The profound social and cultural crisis through which nations have passed, which involved, among other things, a transition from religious to secular world-views and ways of life can explain this transformation of messianism, though it may seem strange at the outset for such enormous religious energies to have been expended in a secular struggle to rectify the ethical perversions and material distress of humanity, and redeem it, moreover, even from the distortions, lies and oppression which had their source--in the view of the secular leadership--in religion itself and the institutions associated with it. Religious elements and ways of thinking were part and parcel even of the war against religion, with messianism the most outstanding religious motif to undergo this kind of dialectical transformation from the "old" to the "new."

This revolutionary shaking off of the "outmoded" aspects of religious messianism was to express itself in the vigorous, aggressive and scornful rejection of the anticipation of redemption by a miraculous event or by divine intervention. This, according to secular prophets of redemption, was merely a myth designed to keep the simple masses enslaved, to blind them to their own enormous strength and their ability to take their dismal fate into their own hands, and so to stave off the revolution. A secular movement, on the other hand, based itself on what was natural and down to earth. It stood for an independent social and political initiative powered by the intrinsic resources of mankind. This demanded on the one hand scientific investigation into the laws governing nature, society and the natural development of history, so as to discover what could and must be done in order for human society to progress, and on the other hand effective organization for action. But the structure of the ideas guiding these scientific investigations, organizational activities and plans of action remained remarkably similar to that of messianic thought, with the belief that history develops according to its own immanent, hidden laws taking the place of the concept of divine providence.

Let us again note the structural characteristics shared by many secular messianic ideologies, however much they may differ from one another:

(1) a critical analysis of the current state of the nation or of society, from an economic, socio-ethical and political point of view. The existing situation is intolerably perverted in all of these respects;

(2) the existing situation is intolerable and untenable. Historical processes have their own inner laws of development, like the laws of nature, and an understanding of them reveals the current situation to be one of transition to a higher stage in which history will reach its goal and the paradoxes and perversions of the present will disappear;

(3) the superficial observer does not understand the internal logic and direction of the process of historical development; those equipped with the tools of scientific study and dialectical analysis, however, are able to identify precisely the significance of historical events--and to guide the masses towards the revolution that will redeem them from all the sufferings of the present;

(4) a general description of the goal towards which history is progressing, which will put an end to social conflicts, exploitation, servitude, alienation and injustice, and to wars between peoples. All this will happen, of course, in the wake of a great revolutionary upheaval which will enable the oppressed to overcome their oppressors and lay down a just and harmonious new order. After that mankind will be able to draw far more efficiently upon nature's resources and use them to find solutions to all suffering, whose source lies in want and in human arrogance.

As we have said, the movements involved differed vastly from one another in their vision, their interpretation of the course of history and the ways and means they adopted. They included the European movements of national liberation, the movements which brought about the rise of liberal-democratic and social democratic regimes in Europe and the United States, and the socialist movements, some of which went in the direction of Democratic Socialism and others in the direction of Communism. These latter evolved--in a further stage of development--into the radical movements which were to have such a decisive influence upon the fate of western culture and of mankind as a whole in the first half of the twentieth century--Communism on the one hand and Fascism and Nazism on the other.

Secular and Religious Messianism in Israel

All of the movements mentioned above affected the fate of the Jewish people in modern times--and not only as external factors. They made their way into the people itself and there found fertile ground for the growth of secular Jewish messianic movements. The influence of the democratic and liberal nationalist movements led on the one hand to the development of those movements which saw the realization of the messianic redemption in the emancipation of the Jews and their integration into western culture, and on the other to the development of the Zionist movement which sought to redeem the people of Israel in its own land, by means, however, of the implements of modern secular nationalism. Next came the turn of the socialist movements, which lead to the mapping of paths to redemption which called either for the integration of the Jews into the world revolution which would unite all of mankind into one society, undivided by distinction nationality, religion or race, or for the addition of a Socialist dimension to the nationalist, Zionist vision. Both of these broad trends split into a number of differing paths and visions, all them marked by a belief that the rectification of the fate of Jewish people would come about within the framework of overall rectification of the fate of all mankind.

The appearance of these secular messianic movements did not spell the end of religious messianism within Judaism. On the contrary: the struggle against secularism proved a powerful factor in the arousal of an opposing messianic response, and the appearance of secular messianism also had the effect of provoking a dialectic reaction on the religious side. Two especially striking messianic responses were that which produced the religious Hibbat Zion movement in answer to nationalist movements in Europe and, later, that which brought forth religious Zionism in response to the type of secular Zionism espoused by Pinsker, Lilienblum, Ahad HaAm and Herzl. The religious-messianic reaction to secular Zionism reached its climax in the doctrines of Rabbi Kook and his followers. It must be noted, on the other hand, that there was a messianic awakening in this period even within the anti-Zionist community of the ultra-orthodox, who saw in the appearance of the secular heresy the culmination of the "birth-pangs of the Messiah." After this, they felt, redemption had to come.

It is easy enough to see that religious messianism, in responding to secularism, also caught some of its influence. The most outstanding expression of this was the revival of the idea that the people ought to take an independent, national, historical initiative of its own, by returning to Zion, settling it and establishing a state. These were steps to be taken in order to greet the miraculous redemption which would come in response to this awakening. This change in the prescribed means of hastening the redemption would seem, moreover, to presuppose a transformation in the description of the messianic vision. This now included a dream of the complete revival of the national culture, so defined as to incorporate many of the social and cultural elements of secular zionism.

We have briefly surveyed a wide variety of modern messianic movements which vied with one another over the image of western culture and of the Jewish people in modern times. We must emphasize, however, that while the affinity between these movements' ideological-messianic thought structure do constitute a common denominator and even a cultural and historical meeting-ground, this still does not justify lumping them all together for good or ill simply because they are messianic in character. The phenomenon of messianism can be positive or negative, constructive or destructive, depending upon the nature of its vision, the means it uses and the paths it takes in order to realize that vision. Each of these movements must be evaluated singly with regard both to its content and to its achievements.

Marvelous Achievements, Disastrous Errors

The tendency to prejudge a movement simply on the basis of its messianic nature is characteristic of our generation, which has seen several great messianic movements end in failure or in terrible disillusionment. This generation would seem to have been left with the task of evaluating the enterprises of the great messianic movements of the first half of the century and formulating a sober response to them. Its own enterprises, after all, are grounded on the one hand in the impressive achievements of liberal democratic nationalism and of socialism, and on the other in the disappointments and failures that have issued from these same movements and in the disastrous consequences of Fascism, Nazism and Leninist-Stalinist Communism. The same is true of the messianic movements active within the Jewish people, whose marvelous achievements were countered by disastrous errors and terrible disappointments. The current situation does not encourage secular messianism, at least not in its classical pattern. A sober secular view would no longer describe as redemption a possible improvement in the existing state of affairs or an alleviation of particular woes, while the numerous disappointments yielded up by messianic ideology, together with the new and unexpected kinds of distress that have appeared in the alienated mass society of our time, obscure the great achievements of the messianic movements in the last generation. However, there are nevertheless those who cannot accept the existing situation, and their response to it generally takes one of two opposing directions. The first is that of pragmatic anti-messianism, which rules out all messianism as a dangerous, arbitrary, fanatical, visionary and tyrannical sentiment capable of much harm and very little good; the second, that of corrective messianism, seeks to learn lessons from the disappointments and failures of the past in order to launch a renewed effort to realize its vision.

Each of the messianic movements described above gave rise to corrective messianic movement in its wake. A typical example of this, in response to secular Zionism, is to be found in the historical nationalist and social ideas of Martin Buber. Buber rejected the deterministic understanding of history so characteristic of secular messianism in the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth, and together with it he rejected what he saw as the pretentious view that absolute ideals can ever be realized. His version of corrective messianism involved a willingness to devote oneself to the realization of an ethical ideal within the defined circumstances of a particular time and place, in the hope of drawing closer--however partially--to that ideal and simultaneously, in so doing, endowing the present with purpose and meaning and charting a positive direction for the future. The religious Zionism of our day, by contrast, has produced its version of corrective messianism in the ideas of the students of Rabbi Kook. The latter seek a return to religious Zionism's original messianic vision, from which, they claim, the historical movement has backed away, compromising it for pragmatic reasons. It is such compromise and retreat, in this view, which have led to the disappointingly incomplete achievements of Zionism. What is required, then, is a return to the sources and pursuit of the total, radical realization of the original vision. These two ways, Buber's and that of Rav Kook's students, thus represent opposing efforts at the conscious formulation of a corrective messianism. It would seem, however, that even opposition to messianism can turn into a kind of corrective messianism, when it consolidates itself into an ideology and takes on the urgency of an effort to stave off disaster. An anti-messianic ideology of this kind points to what can be achieved now, immediately, if only there is a general consent to relinquish absolute ideals as the greatest good--it points, that is, to an ideal whose achievement spells redemption from the disasters lurking in the wake of a radical messianism.

And this last note brings us directly back to the thick of the controversy currently playing itself out in our society with such intensity.

About the Author

Eliezer Schweid is Professor of History of Jewish Thought, Hebrew University, Jerusalem. This essay was first published in Hebrew, in Skirah Hodshit, No. 12, December 1984, and is here published in English by permission.

Notes

1. Hence the origin of the Hebrew term "Messiah."

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