| In the following essay I will try to outline the principle features of traditional messianic belief and explain how Kallischer developed these ideas in the late nineteenth century. I will also try to describe how it is that today the Neturei Karta and Gush Emunim have interpreted these ideas very differently and how this has affected their attitudes towards the modern State of Israel.
R C Zaehner1 puts forward the view that the idea of an anointed deliverer of the Jews was probably absent from early Israelite belief. He goes on to say that even after the destruction of the Jerusalem and the Temple in 586 BC, and for some time afterwards, the idea of a redeemer and indeed the entire doctrine of eschatology were not clearly or systematically taught. The term �Messiah�, taken from the Hebrew �Mashiah� meaning �the anointed one�, or the promised deliverer of the Jews, appears thirty-eight times in the Hebrew Bible but not once is the term applied to an eschatological redeemer. In the apocalyptic book of Daniel where on might expect some mention of the Messiah, the term is found only once and refers to a murdered priest2. Initially, the Messiah was understood to refer to King David3 and it was assumed that he and his descendants would reign over Israel until the end of time4. It was also accepted that some of these rulers, or successors, would be foreign, for example, Cyrus from Persia is also described as �the anointed�5. Jews believe that God had given Cyrus great victories for the purpose of liberating Israel and so that God�s message could be taken to the other nations6. The book of Zechariah describes the messianic figures as a high priest7 or a king8 but it was the Davidic King, which came to dominate traditional Jewish messianic thought9. Later on Solomon died and the Davidic kingdom came to an end. The Temple was destroyed in 586 BCE and the Jews lost not only their political sovereignty but also more crucially the land of Israel itself. These events initiated the belief that an ideal king would appear sometime in the future to rule and redeem Israel. From here on in, the messianic faith included not only the hopes for a future leader but also the belief that the return from exile was an essential part of that process and that this would somehow cause the transformation of earthly life. D. Cohn-Sherbok asserts10 that it wasn�t until the second Temple period that eschatological elements started to play a part in Jewish thought and that during this period speculation grew about the nature of the Messiah. W. S. Green states: �Jewish texts from the biblical period through the post-70 periods illustrate a progressive idealization of the future �anointed� king. Their speculations about the future king�s rule range from restorative � an idealized but this-worldly Davidic kingdom � to the utopian � an almost magical age of idyllic perfection�11. The scriptural Song of Songs written by Solomon (Shlomo), also known as the Psalms of Solomon, has been interpreted to reveal that the Messiah will gather all the nations to Zion12 and that he will restore the land. This biblical text would later become a favourite of the early Zionist movement and their colourful descriptions of the landscape of Israel inspired the Zionist love for the land. The text also provided the basis for the rabbinic ideas about messianic redemption and the return of the exiles. Rabbinic Judaism, which came to the fore around the time of the second destruction of the Temple (70 CE), gave renewed hope for the reinstatement of the Jewish kingdom either by a triumphant military conquest or by divine intervention. At the same time their eschatological beliefs included the destruction of the present era and the ushering in of a new age. Widespread iniquity and wickedness were believed to be the portent of the Messiah�s coming but Elijah, the Tishbite, would resolve all difficulties, prior to the Messiah�s arrival13. Messiah ben Joseph would appear14 followed by Messiah ben David who would bring about the new peaceful era, God�s kingdom on earth15. The Hebrew bible states: �the wolf shall dwell with the lamb�16. The Jewish people would then return from exile, back into the Holy Land, and into the presence of God. This was the rabbinic version of Israel�s redemption during the second Temple Period based on their scriptural commentaries (midrashim) and the Talmud. Later, the rabbis would speculate about the length of the Messianic Age. Some supposed forty years, or four hundred years, or two thousand years and so on. However, there was general agreement that the Messianic Age would ultimately end and would be followed by a Judgement upon all mankind. The righteous would enter heaven (Gan Eden) and the sinners would be condemned to Hell (Gehenna). At the same time a small sect of Jews believed Jesus to be the Messiah, but he aroused hostility among mainstream Judaism and was put to death. This caused the great split between Judaism and Christianity and the emergence of the latter. Over the centuries messianic speculations intensified and diminished as each of the many pseudo Messiahs emerged and passed away. One of the more notable of these, Shabbatai Zevi, the seventeenth century self-proclaimed Messiah, excited the hopes of Jews worldwide but he eventually converted to Islam rather than face execution and messianic expectations consequently declined again. Traditionally, Jews believed that the Messiah would appear at a time of God�s choosing and that mankind had little or no influence over the date of his arrival. However, there developed in Jewish messianic belief the idea that the Jewish people themselves could directly influence the date of his coming. This meant that if the Jewish people collectively fulfilled the Divine Law and correctly adhered to the guidance contained with in the Torah, then the Messiah would appear. Later on, the Zionists would add that the ingathering of the Jews back into Eretz Israel (the Holy Land) was also a necessary precondition of the Messiah�s appearance. Z. H. Kallischer (1795-1874), one of the pioneers of the Zionist movement, lived in a time when traditional Jewish ideas were being continually challenged by rational thought. In 1860, Dr. Hayyim Lorje, backed by Kallischer, formed the Society for the Colonization of Palestine, which advocated that the Jewish return to the Holy Land would act as a form of purification after the defilement of the Exile. In 1862, the society published Kallischer�s �Derishat Tziyon veHevrat Erez Noshevet�, the first book to be published in Eastern Europe on the subject of Jewish agricultural settlement in the Holy Land, and Kallischer became the spokesman for the society. But the movement disbanded in 1864 without having established any settlements. He then travelled throughout Europe gathering support from wealthy and prominent Jews for settlement schemes and in 1874, was on the verge of securing a small plot of land on the outskirts of Jerusalem but he died before the final payment was made. His son, Judah, completed the transaction. Kallischer states17 that the Messianic Age will come about progressively, by degrees, and not suddenly, without warning, as had been previously thought. He envisages the salvation of Israel as a gradually occurring process beginning with the world�s nations� recognising the right of the Jewish people to return to their ancient homeland in the Holy Land. He also re-affirms the traditional view that the redemption of Israel cannot take place before the �Jewish resettlement in the Lord�. Kallischer reasons that it is incorrect to suppose that the Messiah will suddenly appear in the world because his immediate physical appearance would certainly stir the people into reverence and this would relegate the true worth of people�s faith and its acting as the motivating factor in their devotion to God. He also explains that God has repeatedly afflicted the Jewish people through calamity and tribulations in order to test their faith so, the traditional Messianic belief would be contrary to the way in which God has always dealt with the Jewish people and it makes no sense if one attaches any importance to the value of people�s faith in God. Kallischer states: �What straining of our faith would there be in the face of miracles and wonders attending a clear and heavenly command to go up and inherit the land and enjoy its good fruit? Under such circumstances, what fool would not go there, not because of his love of God, but for his own selfish sake?�18. Although Kallischer wrote books on Jewish law and philosophy, it was his belief that the Jewish relocation to the Holy Land was a necessary initial step before the coming of the Messiah that remained his distinguishing contribution to Jewish thought. He declared that the redemption of the Jewish people would begin the moment they started to act as God had instructed them and he was certain that the Messianic Age would soon follow. In his book �Derishat Tziyon� he explains that the first step in the Jewish redemptive process must be the mass resettlement of the Jewish people in Palestine. On the other hand, the Neturei Karta, Aramaic for �guardians of the city�, is an intensely conservative, anti-Zionist, Hasidic sect, regarded as Ultra-Orthodox and located mainly in the Meah Shearim quarter in Jerusalem. They argue that the founding of the Nation State of Israel in 1948 was premature and that it should have been delayed until after the advent of the Messiah. They believe that God has commanded the Jews to remain in exile until the Messiah�s arrival. They claim that God Himself will grant the people of Israel a kingdom, at a time of His choosing, as a reward for their loyalty to Him and they reject any human endeavour, which aims to create such a kingdom. In any case, they reject the notion that this kingdom will take on the form of a worldly Nation State as this implies that Israel�s salvation will also be a worldly or materialistic salvation. So they reject the Zionist interpretation of Israel�s salvation as the corporal possession of a State and an army etc. Instead they see the redemption of Israel as a coming closer to God, which, they say, will be achieved when the Jewish people as a whole, living in exile, implement the Torah and occupy themselves in divine service. Thus, the Neturei Karta strongly oppose Israel�s political system, some even refuse to pay their taxes, they do not recognise the validity of its laws, and they have regularly given media interviews condemning both the State of Israel and the Zionist movement. They regard the State of Israel as a heresy and a disastrous experiment, which has failed and has caused great misery to the Jewish people especially those living within its borders. They also strongly condemn Israel�s ill treatment of the Palestinian people saying that such behaviour goes against the Torah and increases anti-Semitism in the world. In fact, they call for a dismantling of the State of Israel and the establishment of Palestinian rule throughout the whole of Israel. To this end they frequently publish literature in support of the Palestinian struggle and, since the time of the first intifada in 1987, they have actively demonstrated alongside Palestinian protestors were they have even be known to set fire to the Israeli flag. Not surprisingly then, the Neturei Karta living in the Holy Land considers itself as Palestinian rather than Israeli. While the Neturei Karta hold a pro-Arab stance, the Gush Emunim (�the block of the faithful�), an ultra-Orthodox, ultra Nationalist movement with links to Hasidism, has embraced a hard-line anti-Arab position. The Gush Emunim was formed under the spiritual leadership of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook�s son, Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook, in March 1974 during the aftermath of the �Yom Kippur War�. They strongly support the Nation State of Israel and advance the idea of an enlarged Israel. Politically, the main objective of the Gush Emunim is the expansion of Israel and the Jewish resettling of the biblical land. Thus the Gush Emunim, backed by the Israeli government and army and broadly supported by the Jewish public, has endeavoured to create a Jewish presence in the occupied territories and has been at the forefront of Israel�s settlement movement. The Gush Emunim believe that the existence of the Nation State of Israel is a clear sign of the closeness of the Messiah�s coming and the territorial gains made during the �Six Day War� in 1967, specifically Israel�s seizing of Sinai from Egypt and East Jerusalem from Jordan, only strengthened this conviction. According to Zvi Yehuda Kook, the process of Jewish redemption has already begun and the capture of the entire biblical land of Israel would encourage the Jewish people into Divine Service, which he deemed a crucial and necessary precondition of the Messiah�s arrival. Naturally, they are bitterly opposed to any political process that aims to return any of the Israeli captured land. So, the Gush Emunim denounced the Camp David accords in September 1978, which gave partial autonomy to the Palestinian people, and also the bilateral Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty signed six months later in March 1979, which resulted in the handing back of the Sinai Peninsula, seized from Egypt in the �Six Day War� of 1967. They also denounced the left-wing government, which came to power in 1992, led by Yitzhak Rabin, for making the Oslo Peace agreement with the PLO in 1993 and urged the settlers to resist Rabin�s program of dismantling some of the settlements. Rabin was assassinated in November 1995. The Gush Emunim had previously responded to Israeli concessions of land by forming an underground movement, but this was later exposed in 1984 as being responsible for carrying out retaliatory acts of terrorism against the Palestinians. It emerged that the Underground believed that the Muslim sanctuary of the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aksa mosque prevented the cleansing of the land and the Jewish people. G. Beckerlegge states: �The Gush Emunim underground may be said to have planned a tactic, an intervention, designed to �force God�s hand� by so incensing the Arabs that God would have to intercede to save Israel�s Jews from total destruction�19. So, while the Neturei Karta believe that Zionism is a heresy and the present State of Israel is holding up the Messianic Age, the Gush Emunim see the creation of modern Israel as a necessary part of the redemptive process. All this goes to show that within the vast spectrum of Jewish thought there exists a plethora of messianic beliefs about what the Messiah will be and do and even within Heredi Judaism as can be seen by the differing minority opinions of Neturei Karta and Gush Emunim. D. Cohn-Sherbok states: �In the past Jews longed for the advent of a personal Messiah who would bring about the Messianic Age and the ultimate fulfilment of human history. Although this doctrine continues to be upheld by a number of devout Orthodox believers, it has been eclipsed by a more secular outlook on the part of most Jews�20. Notes. 1. Zaehner, R. C. (1959). THE HUTCHINSON ENCYCLOPEDIA OF LIVING FAITHS, Helicon Publishing L. T. D. (Oxford, England) pp. 13-14. 2. Berlin, A. and Brettler, Z (ed.) (2004). THE JEWISH STUDY BIBLE, Oxford University Press (New York, USA), Daniel 9: 25. 3. Ibid, 2 Samuel 23: 1, 3, 5. 4. Ibid, 2 Samuel 7: 16. 5. Ibid, Isaiah 45: 1. 6. Ibid, Isaiah 45: 4-8. 7. Ibid, Zechariah 3: 1-10. 8. Ibid, Zechariah 9: 9. 9. Ibid, Isaiah 11: 1-11. 10. Cohn-Sherbok, D. (2003). JUDAISM (HISTORY, BELIEF AND PRACTICE), Routledge (USA and CANADA) p. 449. 11. Neusner, J; Avery-Peck, A. J.; Green, W. S. (ed.) (2000). THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF JUDAISM, Brill (Leiden, Netherlands) p. 876. 12. See also Berlin, A and Brettler, Z (ed.), op. cit, Isaiah 2: 2-4, 11: 6. 13. Ibid, Malachi 3: 23. 14. See ibid, Zechariah 12: 10. 15. Ibid, Isaiah 11: 6-9. 16. Ibid, Isaiah 11: 6. 17. Hertzburg A. (ed.) (1961). JUDAISM (Prentice-Hall, 1961), pp. 221-2). 18. Hertzburg, op. cit., pp. 221-2. 19. Beckerlegge, G. (1998). RELIGION AT THE END OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY (UNIT 16), The Open University (Milton Keynes, England) p. 35. 20. Cohn-Sherbok, D, op. cit, p. 451. Bibliography: Beckerlegge, G. (1998). RELIGION AT THE END OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY (UNIT 16), The Open University (Milton Keynes, England). Berlin, A. and Brettler, Z (ed.) (2004). THE JEWISH STUDY BIBLE, Oxford University Press (New York, USA). Cohn-Sherbok, D. (2003). JUDAISM (HISTORY, BELIEF AND PRACTICE), Routledge (USA and CANADA). Goldstein, D. (1987). JUDAISM (UNITS 1-2), The Open University (Milton Keynes, England). Hertzburg A. (ed.) (1961). JUDAISM, Prentice-Hall. Neusner, J; Avery-Peck, A. J.; Green, W. S. (ed.) (2000). THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF JUDAISM, Brill (Leiden, Netherlands). Zaehner, R. C. (1959). THE HUTCHINSON ENCYCLOPEDIA OF LIVING FAITHS, Helicon Publishing L. T. D. (Oxford, England). |
| Fundamentals of the Jewish faith. Article 12: the Messiah R McDowell |
| Islamic Review |
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