RELIGIOUS AND SECULAR MESSIANISM
by Avraham Wolfensohn

Messianism, in the way that King David, Rabbi Akiva, Rambam, Rabbi Kook, the Palmakh, and pioneer Zionism all understood it, is a fundamental element of Jewish culture and the Zionist ethos
--- both secular and religious.

Public debate on Jewish Messianism in our time ignores the historical fact that the terms ‘Messiah’ and ‘Redemption’ were already bones of contention between Jews and Christians two thousand years ago, in the early years of Christianity. But Judaism differed from Christianity in seeing itself not just as a religion but also as a nationality. The two books --- both in Hebrew --- reviewed here, (1) Professor Aviezer Ravitzki. The End Revealed and the Jewish State - Messianism, Zionism and Religious Radicalism in Israel, Ofakim Series, Am Oved, 1993; (2) Yehezkel Avneri (Ed.), The ‘Makhanot Ha’olim’ Years, Third Decade, 1945-1956, Kibbutz Hame’ukhad Editions, 1993) express the tension between longing for spiritual redemption (which is the faith at the basis of religion) and longing for national independence (which is the core of modern Zionism). The combination of a demand for social justice (‘Socialism in our time’) and for national justice for the People of Israel (‘A State now!’) embraces the same ideas and emotional tension. Each of the books deals with the spiritual life of one of the many groups that have made up the fascinating variety of Jews and Zionists in our time.

Between Judaism and Christianity
At the root of the conflict between the Jews and the first Christians (shortly before the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 C.E.) lay a controversy over the interpretation of the terms ‘Messiah’ and ‘Redemption’. This conflict, we shall try to demonstrate, was essentially of a politico-social nature. It is worth remembering that Judaism in the Second Temple period was pluralist in its religious beliefs and thinking: the Pharisees believed that the soul is eternal, believed in an individual providence, in the next world, and in divine reward and retribution. The Essenes agreed with the Pharisees but the Sadducees denounced all four beliefs., and the ‘Others’, heretic or apostate Jews such as Elisha Ben Avuya [famous Mishnaic authority of second half of 2nd century C.E. who renounced Judaism], aligned with the Sadducees. The Christians, then as now, stood with the Pharisees on all four tenets, an eternal soul, an individual providence, etc. It was thus not so much differences on doctrine which led to the split between Judaism and Christianity, but, essentially, a deep divide over political action, national aspirations, and aspiration for social justice.

The key point to stress again here is that Jewry was not just a religious but also a national body and that its social ideal was not ritual observance but equality and social justice (as the Bible puts it: ‘righteousness and justice’ -- Genesis 18:19; Isaiah 1:28 and 5:7; Jeremiah 22:3; Ezekiel 33: 14-15; Amos 5: 7; et al.). The ‘Messiah’ and ‘Redemption’ ---- in their traditional Jewish conception, from the Bible through Rabbi Akiva to Rambam ---- will bring national redemption to the People of Israel, rescue them from exile and restore them to independence in their historical homeland. This is the reason why the Jews were ready to accept Bar-Kokhba as the Messiah [Bar-Kokhba led a great uprising against Roman rule in Palestine, 132-135 C.E.], which they had not been ready to do with Jesus. This is the true essence of the national and social controversy between Judaism and Christianity. The controversy was not, as is usually thought, a religious and metaphysical one.

[The word ‘Messiah’ is the Anglicization of the Hebrew mashiakh, meaning ‘the anointed one’. A new king was anointed on his head with a special oil and it is in this sense that] the term Messiah is applied by David to a flesh-and-blood king (Saul), anointed by a true prophet (Samuel): “And he [David] said to his men, ‘The Lord forbid that I should do this thing to my lord --- the Lord’s anointed --- that I should raise my hand against him, for he is the Lord’s anointed’” (1 Samuel  24:4). It is in this spirit --- a flesh-and-blood king-Messiah destined to bring national redemption to Israel ---- that Rambam [Maimonides] understands the idea of a Messiah: “The Messiah King will rise and restore the kingdom of David as of old, as was [Israel’s] first government: he will rebuild the Temple, regather the glories of Israel, and restore all the Laws as they were” (Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Kings, Chap. 11). Rambam rejects all expectation that the Messiah will perform miracles, wondrous events and supernatural acts: “Do not believe, that the Messiah must perform wonders and signs, and bring new things into the world, or bring back the dead to life, or suchlike foolishness …” (op. cit.). This is not mere opinion, but a conclusion based, according to Rambam, on historical evidence: “Rabbi Akiva, greatest of all Sages of the Mishnah, was a staunch supporter of King Bar-Kokhba, of whom he used to say that he was the King-Messiah, deeming him, as did all the Sages of his time, to be the King-Messiah until he was slain in his iniquity. Because he was slain it was realized that he was not the Messiah, but the Sages had asked him at no time for signs or wonders…” (op. cit.).

In other words, the one thread leads from the definition given by David, ‘the Lord’s anointed’, [anointed = mashiakh= messiah] to that of Rabbi Akiva calling Bar Kokhba ‘Messiah’, to Rambam defining the Messiah as someone who does not perform miracles or wondrous acts but arises to save Israel and restore Jewish independence. This is why, when the first Christians declared Jesus to be the Messiah towards the end of the Second Temple period, the Jews first scrutinized him in detail for his politics: had he come to save Israel and restore Jewish independence in the Land of Israel --- or not?

Testing  Jesus’ Messiah-hood
Testimony to the controversy conducted at the time on this issue may be found in that section of the New Testament which is the most ancient, and considered more authentic and historically reliable (relatively) than the other Gospels. I refer to the Gospel According to Matthew (22: 15-22), where we find, as it were, a transcript of the polemic between Jews and Christians [khristos is the Greek equivalent of mashiakh ‘the anointed one’] on the question of the ‘Messiah-hood’ of Jesus and national redemption. (I give in square brackets my comments on the historical background to the text).
“Then the Pharisees [the majority party among the Jews in Palestine at the end of the Second Temple period] went and plotted how they might entangle him [i.e. Jesus. The first Christians were a minority caught between the anvil of Jewish society and the hammer of the Roman regime. They suspected that the Pharisees would try to provoke Jesus into declaring that he was rebelling against the regime, which would lead to his arrest or persecution by the Roman authorities]. And they sent him their disciples [that is, the Pharisees sent some of their younger members] with the Herodians [that is, the nationalistic followers of Herod], saying, Rabbi, we know that you are true and teach the ways of God in truth, nor do you care for any man, for you do not regard the person of men. Tell us therefore, what you think? Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not? [At the time, a national currency was a symbol of national independence: this was the reason the Hasmoneans minted coins, and the reason Bar-Kokhba minted coins bearing the legend ‘Year One of the Freedom of Israel’. In other word, the Jews asked Jesus --- in modern terms --- as follows: ‘If you are the Messiah and you have come to save Israel and restore its national independence in the Land of Israel, you must then mint your own coins, and we must stop paying taxes to Caesar, right?’] But Jesus perceived their wickedness [That is, he suspected that they were trying to have him declared a rebel, should he answer in the affirmative] and said: Why do you test me, you hypocrites? Show me the tax money. So they brought him a denarius [Roman coin].And he said to them, Whose image and inscription is this here? They said to him, Caesar’s. And he said to them: Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s”. [In other words, Jesus proclaimed himself a spiritual Messiah only, with no message of national redemption. This is the reason the Jews could not follow him.] The passage ends (v. 22): “When they had heard these words, they [the Jews] wondered and left him [Jesus] and went their way…”
The Jews having rejected both the Christians and the concept of ‘a Messiah who did not bring national redemption’, Jesus’ successors tried to convert Romans to their Christian version of Judaism. In this way, they were obviously emphasizing to the Romans that their movement was not one of rebellion, that they had no national aspirations and no intention of undermining the existing order of Roman rule over the Jews (and other peoples). It is in this spirit that Paul, who took up Jesus’ mission, wrote his Epistle to the Romans, assuring them, in the name of the Christians, of their political conservatism and absolute obedience, in these words (13:1-2): “Let every soul be subject to the governing authority [In other words, one must submit to the regime]. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that be are ordained of God. Therefore, whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment upon themselves…”
Yet those verses did not succeed in removing the fears of those Romans whom the Christians tried to convert. The fact that Christians prayed together, masters with slaves, gave the impression that they advocated social revolution, that is, the freeing of slaves. (The Hebrew Bible, after all, was part of the Christian Scriptures and according to the Laws of Moses, slaves had to be freed, in fallow years or in a jubilee year, something that flew in the face of the custom of the time). Christian leaders had, therefore, to convince their audience that they stood not only for political conservatism, but also for social conservatism: that they opposed the liberation of slaves and were in favor of slaves’ absolute obedience. This is why the Apostle Peter, successor to Paul, insists in his First Epistle, 2:18-19: “Servants, be submissive to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle but also to the harsh, for this is commendable if because of conscience toward God one endures grief, suffering wrongly…”
Christianity thus distanced itself from Judaism in two spheres. In the sphere of social justice, Judaism prescribed the freeing of slaves while Christianity endorsed their servitude. On the politico-national plane, Christianity denied the Jews’ vision of national messianic redemption.

Jewish Messianism in Our Time
The most important chapter of Professor Ravitzki’s book (The End Revealed and the Jewish State - Messianism, Zionism and Religious Radicalism in Israel) and the most convincing, is the chapter written from his deep personal identification with his subject: the Zionist-Jewish-Messianic teaching of Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Hacohen Kook [Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem and the most active Zionist among the rabbis of Palestine in the years before the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948]. Ravitzki writes (p. 122): “Rabbi Kook… did not hesitate to speak openly of ‘the Messiah generation’ and of ‘the the first step in the coming of the Messiah’ which was to be realized via the real historical process of the return to Zion. For him… the Messiah is not carrying out the historical process but is the outcome of that historical process.”
Ravitzki goes on to quote Rabbi Kook: “ … when  the people of Israel return to their stronghold, which is to be the first step of the coming of the Messiah even though it will not yet be full redemption, everything will proceed from the principle that this is the generation of the Messiah, the seal of the greatness and glory of Israel. This is why… we are obligated to strive to save our people, as Nehemiah and his party did during the Second Temple period” (op. cit., pp. 122-123).
We saw earlier that Rambam (following Rabbi Akiva and King David) sees the coming of the Messiah not as a  time of wonders and miracles but as the coming of political redemption for the people of Israel in its land. It is noteworthy that in his philosophical work, Guide For the Perplexed, (Part III, chapter 27) Rambam advocates an almost ‘modern’ political philosophy. He calls for the establishment of a social welfare state, since economic affairs (in his words, “livelihood”, “a living”) and social affairs (“each with the other”) must be “arranged by the State”, and the vital needs of health, housing “and the like” are necessary for the “reparation of the body”, which must, says Rambam, come in nature and in time before the “reparation of the soul”.
Apparently Ravitzki agrees with my above interpretation of Guide For the Perplexed, for he links Rambam to the teaching of Rabbi Kook  thus:
“It is interesting to note, how Rabbi Kook argued and justified his overall demand…[Rabbi Kook said] ‘As we have learned from Rambam’s political philosophy, national-political freedom is the precondition for the needed cultural flowering, the necessary platform for spiritual freedom. They, the great ones of Israel, like Israel as a whole, cannot discover the sources of their spirit and express their creative power unless they are planted in the Land of our Fathers, led by governors born in our midst, and enjoying self-rule. It is only then that our spirit will take wing’” (op. cit., p. 123).
This is the source of Rabbi Kook’s positive approach towards non-religious Zionists. Ravitzki explains: “Even though he [the secular Zionist] attributes a purely secular significance to his nation-building work, and sometimes declares open war on the world of Torah and the commandments, and on the hope of religious redemption, he is likely to be revealed in the final analysis as having taken part in a historic and cosmic drama that goes far beyond his own intent and goal; unknowingly, he will shape with his own hands the national foundation needed for spiritual rebirth and Messianic redemption.” (p. 154). And in the words of Rabbi Kook himself: “There are some people who have no inkling at all of their own worth and of their own nature in the superior scheme of things; they are being called by their names and do not know who is calling them… but the end of that dreadful concealment will be the greater and more long-lasting revelation” (p. 155).
Rabbi Schach [a venerated Ultra-Orthodox rabbi-leader in Israel],  asked which of the monotheistic religions (Catholicism, Protestantism and Islam) came closest to Judaism, replied that the religion closest to Judaism was the Chabad movement [Chabad, the Lubavitch sect of Jewish Ultra-Orthodoxy,  has come very close to declaring its rebbe to be the Messiah, which to Rabbi Schach’s mind smacks of idolatry]. Contrary to Schach’s thinking, Ravitzki sees in the Chabad movement (even in their recent ‘Get Ready for the Coming of the Messiah’ campaign) not a modern Sabbatian movement which is breaking away from Judaism, [Shabtai Tzvi proclaimed himself Messiah in the 17th century and then under pressure from the Turkish authorities, turned apostate and converted to Islam] but part of a wide variety of messianic yearnings which characterizes the whole of Judaism. “Should one see that ferment [the recent Chabad messianic fervor] as a small scale reproduction of the great Shabtai Tzvi messianic tempest which erupted in 1666 and swept up hundreds of Jewish communities with it? My answer to that question is no. First, Chabad messianism does not involve breaking the bounds of Torah and halakhah … as far as [Chabad] is concerned, the Laws of the Torah are the Laws of Redemption and the Messianic process is wholly subject to halakhic criteria and the rules laid down by Rambam in his Mishneh Torah. Furthermore, this messianic revival does not come accompanied by significant changes in the national, political, or economic life style in Israel…” (p. 272).
I have cited texample of Ravitzki’s analysis of the recent Chabad messianic tempest in order emphasize both the importance of the book and its topicality. With the same thoroughness, leaving not a stone unturned, Ravitzki analyses the many Orthodox streams in Judaism-in-the-era-of-Zionism, and justice might have been done to the book (from our Zionist point of view) had it been entitled Rabbi Kook and His Opponents. Both Rabbi Kook and his opponents in the world of religious Judaism are portrayed with critical objectivity --- faithfully, but with razor sharp perception.
 
Secular Messianism
The tensions between the longing for spiritual redemption and for a people- and-land redemption have also split modern Jewish socialism. Meir Vilner [a Communist Party leader in Israel], reputedly declared: “For two thousand years Jews dreamed of the Messiah and of Redemption, never imagining that they would come under the guise of the hammer and sickle [emblems of the Soviet Union]”. That tension between Zionism and political Communism, in all its many Israeli forms, led to the ‘tragic contradiction’ between Zionism, which made compromises in order to get things done, and the Communism venerated by important sections and factions of the political Labor movement. [From the 1920s until the 1950s political Communism was a strong influence among Palestinian, and then Israeli,  Jews, both in the form of small Communist parties and in its influence on the Labor movement and parties.]
Here too, as in Orthodox Judaism in all its forms, the contradiction between pioneer action and Messianic-universal longing became apparent. Here too, when the disciples of the former Communist Soviet Union in the Zionist camp look back in time they consider their former pro-Soviet stand as a kind of Sabbatianism or false messianism, and their contribution to the realization of Zionism as their main individual and collective achievement.
It is with great skill and commendable historical objectivity that Yehezkel Avneri, a member of Kibbutz Hakhotrim, reviews the Makhanot Ha’olim Youth movement and the Palmakh [élite force within the Jewish armed forces in Palestine up to 1949, socialist in its political thinking] during the highly important years, from the point of view of the history of Zionism, 1945-1956. The book reproduces a great many documents and photographs to illustrate the contribution of Makhanot Ha’olim members both to the realization of Zionism and to the armed struggle, as members of the Palmakh, particularly in the 1948 War of Independence. The book is largely composed of articles published in the journal of the Makhanot Ha’olim movement, Bamivkhan.
The October 1946, issue of Bamivkhan urges its readers: “...to see the politico-social revolution carried out by the international working class to abolish the rule of capitalism and build a socialist economy in the world as the central enterprise of our time, for which all sections of the worldwide workers’ movement in the world must unite”. At the same time, it demands “of all social forces in the world to recognize and support the Zionist-socialist enterprise in the Land of Israel” (pp. 80-81). However, along with Social-Zionist messianism, false, pro-Soviet messianism is also very much apparent: “We must on no account see anything wrong in putting the Soviet Union at the head of the Federation [of the pro-Communist democratic youth in Palestine-Israel]” (p. 275).
And this sort of stuff is being trumpeted at a time when blood libels were being broadcast in Prague against Zionism and MAPAM [left-wing Israeli labor party]. Even at a time of systematic anti-Israeli and anti-Zionist defamation, inspired by Stalin in his last years, Bamivkhan  calls, in the December 1952 issue, for “loyal solidarity with the revolutionary world” and declares: “our movement will fight energetically against all attempt to transform the Prague trial [show trials staged to bring down Jewish leaders of the Czech Communist Party] into a source of incitement and defamation against the countries now realizing Socialism”.
But the true messianism of Makhanot Ha’olim was that which Rabbi Kook discerned so well in the pioneer-Zionism movement ---- building the country, conquering, and fighting for, and defending the land. Thus the words of Ahuvia Malkin on the occasion of a seminar in 1988 (p. 21) are particularly appropriate: “The feeling of this small movement, Makhanot Ha’olim, that it is responsible for what the whole of Israeli youth does, this feeling of bearing responsibility for the actions of youth as a whole… we call courageously on all the youth of the Land of Israel to follow in our footsteps, and we live with the feeling that we bear responsibility for this in a way similar to the feeling of the Zionist movement, though on a far smaller scale. The Zionist movement lives with the feeling that it bears responsibility for Jewish history, even though it has never encompassed the whole of the Jewish people and there have been even greater movements which fought against it. Nonetheless, I allow myself to draw an analogy and to state that the small movement Makhanot Ha’olim had the same feeling of shouldering a responsibility, and it is therefore not surprising that, brought up in such values, young people did what had to be done --- they went to settle the land, they joined the Haganah [clandestine pre-1948 Jewish armed forces], they joined the Palmakh and the British army…”
These remarks of Ahuvia Malkin return us full circle to the beginning of our discussion and to the conclusion ---- that Messianism, in the way that King David, Rabbi Akiva, Rambam, Rabbi Kook, the Palmakh and pioneer Zionism all understood it, is a fundamental element of Jewish culture and of the Zionist ethos ---- both secular and religious.
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An earlier version of this article was published in the Torah quarterly Or HaMizrach, vol. 41, no. 2. New York. Tevet 5753.