cms@dragon.com (06/05/91)
Hello, all. This is an essay I wrote for my Judaism class. For what
it's worth, my professor, a rabbi, told me that he loved it. I hope
you also enjoy it.
Cindy Smith
Philosophy 490
Judaism
Mini-Paper
Analysis of Talmudic Text
The Messiah
MISHNAH, Sotah 49a-49b
In the footsteps of the Messiah insolence will increase and honour
dwindle (1); the vine will yield its fruit [abundantly] but wine will
be dear (2); the government will turn to heresy (3) and there will be
none [to offer them] reproof; the meeting-place [of scholars] will be
used for immorality; Galilee will be destroyed, Gablan desolated, and
the dwellers on the frontier will go about [begging] from place to
place without anyone to take pity on them; the wisdom of the learned
(5) will degenerate, fearers of sin will be despised, and the truth
will be lacking; youths will put old men to shame, the old will stand
up in the presence of the young, a son will revile his father, a
daughter will rise against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her
mother-in-law, and a man's enemies will be the members of his
household (6); the face of the generation will be like the face of a
dog (7), a son will not feel ashamed before his father, so upon whom
is it for us to rely? upon our Father who is in Heaven.
IN THE SEPARATE PRINTED EDITIONS OF THE MISHNAH THERE FOLLOWS: R.
Phineas B. Jair used to say: Heedfulness leads to cleanliness;
cleanliness leads to purity; purity leads to abstinence; abstinence
leads to holiness; holiness leads to humility; humility leads to fear
of sin; fear of sin leads to saintliness; saintliness leads to (the
possession) of the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit leads to the
resurrection of the dead; and the resurrection of the dead cometh
through Elijah of blessed memory, amen.
When will the Messiah come? The Messiah, meaning "the anointed one,"
is primarily a term for anointed kings. Later, "Messiah" took on the
connotation of the promised "king" who would deliver Israel from its
oppressors (Gen 49:10; Num 24:17; 2 Sam 7; Ps 2, 72, 110). The
messianic kingdom was eagerly anticipated during the Roman occupation
of Israel and was portrayed in various ways culminating in an
independent kingdom of Israel whose task was to rule the whole world.
As a result, the title of Messiah has political overtones. In
prophetic literature, the Messiah is associated with the ideal Davidic
ruler whom God would send to occupy the throne of David. When David's
dynasty died out during the exilic and postexilic period, the title
referred to the high priest (lev 4:3, 5). Even someone who was not an
Israelite could function as a messiah, such as Cyrus, for example (cf.
Isa 45:1). In the second century B.C., passions for the Messiah ran
high as the people fervently awaited the coming deliverer. This
Messiah is associated with the establishment of a new Jerusalem at the
center of the new ruling Israel.
The vision of who the Messiah would be were varied. In the first
century, there was no hope set on one particular person, but rather a
vague hope that God would revamp the whole creation, radically
altering the present age, by means of angels or other heavenly agents.
Besides the political messiah, the Son of David who would destroy
Israel's enemies and exalt Israel politically, there were also the two
messiahs of the Qumran community. Furthermore, the people expected
that a new Moses would arrive who would provide the true
interpretation of Scriptures and usher in an age where everyone obeyed
God's Law. Moreover, the people expected an eschatalogical leader who
would conquer the forces of evil in a good/evil mystical conflict with
universal results. Then again, some expected a judge would would
preside over the Final Judgement where the righteous would be
vindicated and the wicked punished. Jesus of Nazareth conducted his
ministry in this hodge-podge of messianic expectations. In light of
all this, how does the Talmud view the Messiah and the Messianic Age?
The Talmud teaches that souls are pre-existent in a place called
"Guph." "In the seventh heaven, Araboth, are stored the spirits and
souls which have yet to be created" (Chag. 12b). These are souls
which have not yet been united to their bodies. A common belief held
that the Messiah would not come until all of these souls from Guph had
been born, lived, and died on earth (Cohen 78).
The rabbis teach: "Seven things were created before the Universe
came into being. They are: Torah, repentance, Paradise, Gehinnom,
the Throne of Glory, the Sanctuary, and the name of the Messiah"
(Pes. 54a). When the world was created, God made provisions for the
reception of human beings via the Torah. In the Torah was found a
scheme of righteousness to be followed by all human beings; in
addition, allowance was made for human lapses from perfection -- for
this reason was repentance created just after Torah and followed by
the rest culminating in the name of the Messiah. Repentance is given
priority because, without it, human beings could not survive the
vicious onslaught of evil. "Great is repentance, for it reaches to
the Throne of Glory. Great is repentance, for it makes the Redemption
(by the Messiah) to come near. Great is repentance, for it lengthens
the years of a man's life" (Joma 85a et seq.). "The place which the
penitent occup the perfectly righteous are unable to occupy"
(Ber. 34b). "Better is one hour of repentance and good deeds in this
world than the whole life of the World to Come" (Aboth iv. 22). Thus,
repentance causes to day of the Messiah to come nearer because (not in
spite of, but because) it is valued more highly than life in the World
to Come (Cohen 104).
As noted, the name of the Messiah is one of the seven things God
created before the beginning of the world. The preexistence of the
Messiah is a belief following upon the concept that "the Holy One,
blessed be He, prepares the remedy before the wound" (B. Meg. 13b).
Therefore, the diaspora was predetermined by God in the very first six
days of Creation. The creation of the Messiah during the first six
days was made necessary and makes sense only in terms of the
catastrophe known as the diaspora. In this sense, the myth becomes an
absolute necessity (Patai 17).
The character of the Redemption in the Talmud is catastrophic by
nature and is essential to the apocalyptic conception. In this
vision, the world is beset by catastrophes: world wars, revolutions,
famine, epidemics, as well as economic upheavals, in conjunction with
apostasy, desecration of God's name, disobedience to God's Torah (via
forgetting), and the general dissolution of all moral laws. The
apocalyptic visions of the messianic era were codified in the above
quoted passage from the Sotah. The unrestrained statements about the
days of the Messiah emphasize the point that the Messiah will come
only in an age when all human beings are either totally corrupt or
totally without sin. For this reason, three different teachers of the
Talmud in the third and fourth centuries say, "May he come, but I do
not want to see him" (Scholem 12-13). This gibes with the biblical
injunction, "Woe to those who yearn for the day of the Lord" (Amos
5:18). Indeed, this analysis is supported in another work which
reports the conversation as taking place in the following way:
Rabbi Johanan said: Let him (the Messiah) come, but let me
not see him (i.e. I fear the pangs of the Messiah). Said
Resh Laqish to him: Do you refer to Amos V:19? Let me prove
to you that we are just as badly off right now. For nowadays
a man goes into his field and finds a bailiff there...He
enters the town, and is accosted by a tax-collector...He goes
into his house, only to find his children suffering the pangs
of hunger (Sanh 98b).
Amos 5:19 says: "As if a man were to flee from a lion, and a bear
should meet him; Or as if on entering his house he were to rest his
hand against the wall, and a snake should bite him." The atmosphere
of the times was economically depressed, inflation was high, and
currency had deteriorated which interfered with agricultural
productivity. It is not surprising that the Messiah was predicted to
come amidst such a time; since the days of the Messiah were predicted
to be worse than the current times, it is no surprise that some
dreaded his coming (Alon 746-747).
The most important meaning behind all Hebrew prophecies is the call
to human beings to repent. To sin means "to miss the mark;" to repent
means "to turn" back to God. "Every prophet only prophesied for the
days of the Messiah and the penitent" (Ber. 34b). Thus, it is to be
understood that "the time will come when the Prophets and Hagiographa
will be abolished, but not the Pentateuch" (p. Meg. 70d). When all
human beings obey the commandments, there will be no further need for
prophets and prophecies since such were intended for the sinful, not
the righteous era brought to the world by the Messiah (Cohen 124).
This is similar to the Christian belief that, after the Second Coming
of Jesus Christ, the Eucharist will cease to be celebrated.
During the Messianic era, often called "the World to Come," when
prophets and prophecies will be superfluous and unnecessary, all human
beings, being in union with God and hence morally and ethically
perfect, will receive prophetic gifts. In other words, since everyone
will have the power to prophesy, and everyone will understand the
prophecies, there will be no need to do so. "The Holy One, blessed be
He, said, In this world only individuals are endowed with prophecy,
but in the World to Come all Israel will be prophets; as it is said,
'It shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out My spirit upon
all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old
men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions" (Joe ii.
28)' (Nu. R. xv. 25). For Christianity, this event occurred at
Pentecost when the Spirit was conferred upon the Apostles who
proceeded thereafter to confer the Spirit, in baptism and by the
laying on of hands, to all believers. For Christianity, there are no
more prophecies since the Spirit of holiness, leading to understanding
of all the prophecies in the Hebrew Scriptures, has been conferred
upon all believers. Fusion of Jewish and Christian beliefs may
coalesce in the Christian understanding of the prophecies concerning
the Second Coming. At this time, Jerusalem will be rebuilt; there is
dispute in both Jewish and Christian circles as to how literally to
interpret this prophecy. Both Christians and Jews will deny original
prophecy but instead will point to the excavation of Scriptures
wherein is found deep divine Revelation (Cohen 124-125).
The Talmud declares that one should have respect for rulers in
general. "Whoever acts with effrontery towards a king is as though he
acted in similar manner before the Shechinah" (Gen. R. xciv. 9).
Also, "He who rebels against the royal authority is guilty of an
offence deserving of death" (Sanh. 49a). Furthermore, "Always should
the respect for royalty be upon you; as it is said, 'And all these thy
servants shall come down unto me' (Exod. xi. 8). Out of respect for
the king Moses did not say, 'Thou (Pharaoh) shalt come down unto me.'
It may also be derived from the action of Elijah who girded his loins
and ran before Ahab's chariot (1 Kings xviii. 46)" (Zeb. 102a).
Therefore, "A man should always bestir himself to run to meet the
kings of Israel; and not only the kings of Israel, but even to meet
the kings of other peoples, for if he is worthy, he will distinguish
(in the age of the Messiah) between the kings of Israel and of other
peoples" (Ber. 58a). From these passages, it can be discerned that,
in the age of perfect understanding and knowledge (the age of the
Messiah), it will impossible to deceive and be deceived. Hence,
people will know the difference between secular kings and religious
kings (or rulers). The secular kings will obey the religious kings
and religious kings will respect the secular kings. These attitudes
can be seen in the conflict between bishops and kings in Christian
lands wherein this ideal of perfect respect was striven for but never
attained. In America, we have perhaps come closer than in any other
nation. For example, in America, the President (an Episcopalian
Christian) obeys America's only King (God) and yet it is not generally
regarded that this faith of his interferes with his secular function
as President. This rule is envisioned as helping the Jew to live his
life in a land not his own with laws that are not religious laws. The
purpose may be that God values the process by which we come to know
him in obedience to rules that govern different societies (Cohen 190).
"Great is charity, for it brings the Redemption (of the Messiah)
near" (B.B. 10a). Many peoples regarded their Golden Age as having
occurred sometime in their distant past. By contrast, Israel
relegated its Golden Age to the future -- the days of the Messiah.
Israel consistently looked to the future as the time when the nation
would reach its zenith. Israel hoped in the marvels that the Messiah,
through Israel itself, would bring to the world (Cohen 346).
Yet, still, the vision of the messianic era is apocalyptic in Jewish
literature. The idea seems to be that before perfection must come
chaos. Utopianism is an arc reestablishing the kingdom of David and
the kingdom of God as well as reestablishing Paradise, once lost, on
earth. Messianic utopianism is found in Isaiah when in the Last Days
the condition of the world will be an earth fully cognizant of the
Lord. Nothing will be repeated but it will be presented in a new way.
Such utopianism often has an extravagant character and attempts to
determine the inner core of redemption prior to experiencing it.
During this attempt at understanding the redemption are interspersed
times of darkness and persecution, the lot of the Jew. The image of
wholeness in the messianic age was often contrasted to the piecemeal
existence of the everyday Jew. The idea of the New Jerusalem appeared
before the apocalyptist emphasized the renewal of the world being more
than a simple restoration, but rather a complete revamping such that
the whole creation is made new again (Scholem 13-14). This concept is
very similar to the New Jerusalem found in the Christian Book of
Revelation where the heavenly Jerusalem settles on the earth in Israel
at the very same sight as the old Jerusalem.
Who is the Messiah and where will he come from? "From the beginning
of the creation of the world king Messiah was born, for he entered the
mind (of God) before even the world was created" (Pesikta Rab. 152b).
The Rabbis unanimously agreed that the Messiah would be a mortal human
being, just like everyone else, who would be selected to perform an
appointed task. Nowhere in the Talmud is there any indication that
the Messiah would be superhuman, supernatural, or a deific deliverer
(Cohen 347).
Many different dates were calculated for the coming of the Messiah.
A more interesting and esthetically pleasing belief was that the date
of the Messiah's coming will be determined by the conduct of the
people. The statement, "I the Lord will hasten its time" (Is. lx.
22) was explained in this way: "If you are worthy I will hasten it;
if you are not worthy it will be in its time" (Sanh. 98a). Also, "all
'the ends' have passed (and the Messiah has not come); it depends only
upon repentance and good deeds." And, "If Israel repented a single
day, immediately would the son of David would come. If Israel observed a
single Sabbath properly, immediately would the son of David come"
(p. Taan. 64a). Finally, "If Israel were to keep two Sabbaths
according to the law, they would be redeemed forthwith" (Shab. 118b).
From the Christian point of view, Mary is Israel and Mary was
absolutely faithful to God due to the grace of God given her as the
Immaculate Conception. Mary brought forth Jesus who was absolutely
faithful to God and gave his life to save humanity from its sins
against its Maker. Thus, when Mary was conceived in the womb of
Good Saint Anne, the messianic era dawned; when Jesus was conceived in
the womb of Mary and born in a cave, the messianic era of redeeming
grace was born. Since Mary was saved by the redeeming grace of
Christ, the instant of her salvation (her conception) is the dawn of
the era of Redemption (the days of the Messiah) since she was the
first person to be saved by the redeeming grace of Christ.
The Messiah will inaugurate a period of divine peace and happiness.
"Come and see: all whom the Holy One, blessed be He, smote in this
world He will heal in the Hereafter. The blind will be cured; as it
is said, 'Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened' (Is xxxv. 5)."
Jesus appears to have fulfilled this prophecy when he consistently
healed the blind and brought them sight. The story of the healing of
the man born blind should not be interpreted literally. Rather, in
this story, all of Israel (and the nations) is blind, dwelling in
darkness, and Jesus is the light swimming through the darkness and
passing on this light as one candle passes on light to another.
"The lame will be cured; as it is said, 'Then shall the lame man leap
as a hart' (Gen. R. xcv. I). Whenever Jesus cured the lame, he always
admonished the person whom he had healed, "Go forth and sin no more."
This exemplifies the earlier propecy that repentance walks hand in
hand with the Messiah.
The Messianic age will also presage the resurrection of the dead.
The Resurrection of the body is at the core of Christian teaching
concerning the Messiah.
Rabbi Jose once said: "Those who calculate the coming of the Messiah
have no share in the world to come. The same applies to one who hates
the Sages and their disciples, and to the false prophet, and to the
delator...." One scholar suggests that this passage may refer to
Jewish Christians, but another scholar says that this is
unsupportable (Alon 676).
In many ways, Jesus seems to have fulfilled who the Jews believe the
Messiah will be but seems not to have fulfilled what the Jews believe
the Messiah will do. Christians have interpreted everything the
Messiah will bring (peace, happiness, contentment, etc.)
metaphorically, whereas the Jews insist on a more literal
understanding of these things. The Messiah appears to me to be an
idyllic personage who will usher in an age of perfection (a Golden
Age). Christians believe this perfection to be the perfect Redemption
of all sins, making the whole world new in terms of humanity's
relationship to God. The Jewish understanding of this perfection is
much more concrete. In addition, because the Jewish Golden Age always
lies in the future, Jesus's primary failing as messianic material
(from the Jewish point of view) seems to me to be that he has already
come. Yet, again, Jewish and Christian views seem to coalesce even
here in the belief that the Messiah's one purpose is to free Israel
from its oppressors; for the sufferings that are humanity's lot, human
beings must wait until after death. "There is no difference between
this world and the days of the Messiah except the servitude of the
heathen kingdoms alone; as it is said, 'For the poor shall never cease
out of the land' (Deut. xv. II)" (Ber. 34b), in other words, not even
during the days of the Messiah.
Alon, Gedaliah. (Translated and edited by Gershon Levi.) The Jews in
their Land in the Talmudic Age. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London,
England: Harvard University Press, 1989. Copyright by the Magnes
Press, the Hebrew University, 1984.
van Buren, Paul M. A Theology of the Jewish-Christian Reality:
Part 1: Discerning the Way. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987.
Cohen, A. Everyman's Talmud. New York: Shocken Books, 1949.
Danby, Herbert, D.D. (translator). Mishnah. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1933. (Seventeenth impression 1989)
Rabbinic Anthology. Life to Come and Judgement. (Xerox)
Patai, Raphael. The Messiah Texts: Jewish Legends of Three Thousand
Years. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1979.
Scholem, Gershom. The Messianic Idea in Judaism and Other Essays on
Jewish Spirituality. New York: Schocken Books, 1971.