APOSTLES OF A FALSE MESSIAH PART II

...And now a little history. When the State of Israel was first formed as an essentially secular Zionist entity, an overwhelming majority of Orthodox (Ultra-Orthodox, to be precise) Jews were visibly upset with what they all saw as a sacrilegious act of preempting the advent of the Messiah, under whose leadership only was such an act possible. Eventually, however, a certain co-existential reconciliation became a reality, where the divide between religious Judaism and secular Zionism was recognized and respected by the parties on the opposite sides of the conflict.

The new development, exposed in the BBC piece, does not out of a sudden bridge the unbridgeable gap that has existed ever since the establishment of Medinat Yisroel. What it reveals is the effective expulsion of the Mashiach concept, sacred to classical Rabbinical Judaism, from Israel’s religious self-awareness, substituting it with the new pragmatic equivalency of Zionist nationalism with modern Jewish faith. The ease with which this substitution has apparently taken place is morally frightening. Paradoxically, it is frightening precisely because it is so natural, as all relativist morality and pragmatic amorality is natural.

Historically, too, this dramatic shift is eminently understandable, and fully consistent with Jewish religious history of the past four thousand years. After the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple by the Romans, in 70 AD, Torah Judaism was permanently suspended (or effectively abolished) in favor of Rabbinical Judaism, which existed for nearly two millennia, sustained by the sacred Jewish dream of the coming of the Messiah, who (and only who!) was expected to restore the Temple and the Jewish State, and to bring back the Torah Judaism of yore from its suspended animation. And now, in recognition of the new reality: the establishment of the State of Israel without any help from the Mashiach, the insurmountable conflict between nationalism and religion in Israel has apparently been resolved, and the Mashiach lost.

I have titled this entry Apostles Of A False Messiah. Perhaps, I was too strict about my title. Perhaps, today’s nationalistic allegiance to Zionism accompli makes the whole Mashiach argument moot. Having waited for his coming for so long, perhaps, the Jews of today have quietly retired him, together with their Torah, into a sentimental retirement home, internally inside their memory and externally in the synagogue, where they are still so fond of bringing out the textually meaningless, but symbolically never more meaningful, scroll, and kissing it ever so fondly with endless love and loyal allegiance to the external, yet carelessly dismissing the internal. In other words, with the word Mashiach losing all literal significance together with the Torah, the phrase false Messiah sounds too rude for the quiet enjoyment of the cherished Jewish comfort.

Yet I am a ‘stubborn man,’ as US Senator Barbara Boxer used to call me; and a ‘thorough man,’ as the late California Senator Milton Marks used to call me. I don’t care all that much about the sensibilities of Jewish comfort. The word Mashiach means something to me in the context of the historical religious Judaism; this is why my title Apostles Of A False Messiah stands, and, furthermore, I am quite proud of it.