Part 18 (1/2)

3. The real Messianic hope involved the reestablishment of the throne of David, and was expressed most perfectly in the words of Isaiah: ”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; and he shall smite the land with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked. And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins. And the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.... 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.”(1199)

This pattern of the ideal ruler may have been modeled after some ancient Babylonian formula for the adoration of kings, as has been a.s.serted of late; and the same may be true of the mystic t.i.tles given by Isaiah to the royal heir: ”Wonderful counselor, divine hero, father of spoil, prince of peace.”(1200) When the little kingdom of Judaea fell, the prospect of a realization of the great prophetic vision seemed gone forever. Therefore the exiles in Babylon fastened their hopes so much more firmly on the ”Shoot,” particularly on Zerubabel (”the seed born in Babylon”), the object of the fondest hopes of the later prophets.(1201) When he, too, disappointed their expectations, probably due to Persian interference, they transferred the advent of the Messiah more and more into the realm of miracle, and popular fancy dwelt fondly on his appearance as G.o.d's champion against the hosts of heathendom (Gog and Magog).(1202)

4. The conception of the priest-prophet Ezekiel is very significant in this connection; for him the kingdom of Israel's G.o.d could only be established by the restoration of the throne of David, the servant of the Lord, and by the utter destruction of the hosts of heathendom, who were hostile to both G.o.d and Israel. In accordance with this hope the author of the second Psalm presents a dramatic picture of the Messiah triumphing over the heathen nations, a picture which became typical for all the future. ”Why are the nations in an uproar? And why do the peoples mutter in vain? The kings of the earth stand up, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord, and against His anointed: 'Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.' He that sitteth in heaven laugheth, the Lord hath them in derision. Then will He speak unto them in His wrath, and affright them in His sore displeasure: 'Truly it is I that have established My king upon Zion, My holy mountain.' I will tell of the decree: The Lord said unto me: 'Thou art My son, this day have I begotten thee. Ask of Me, and I will give the nations for thine inheritance, and the ends of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.' ” Henceforth the conception of the Messiah alternated between Isaiah's prince of peace and the world-conqueror of the Psalmist.(1203) The name Messiah does not occur in Scripture in the absolute form, but always occurs in the construct with JHVH or a p.r.o.noun, signifying ”the Anointed of the Lord.” Accordingly, it expresses the relation of the Anointed to G.o.d, his sovereign, in striking contrast to the heathen kings who themselves claimed adoration as G.o.ds. The very name Messiah excludes the possibility of deification. The term Messiah was used with the article only in much later times, _ha Mes.h.i.+ah_, or in the Aramaic, _Mes.h.i.+ha_, from which we derive the name, Messiah.

5. In the course of time, however, as the people waited in vain for a redeemer, the expected Messiah was lifted more and more into the realm of the ideal. The belief took hold especially in the inner circle of the pious (Hasidim) that the Messiah was hidden somewhere, protected by G.o.d, to appear miraculously after having vanquished the hostile powers. The Essenes, the representatives of the secret lore, developed this conception in the Apocalyptic writings, thus giving the Messiah a certain cosmic or supernatural character. They probably modeled their thoughts upon the Zoroastrian system, where _Sos.h.i.+osh_, the world savior, would appear in the last millennium as the messenger of Ormuzd to destroy forever the kingdom of evil and establish the dominion of the good.(1204) Thus, when Isaiah says of the Messiah that ”by the breath of his mouth he shall slay the wicked,” this is referred to the principle of evil, Satan or Belial, who was sometimes actually identified with the Persian Ahriman.(1205) Moreover, after the Persian system, the whole process of history was divided into six millenniums of strife between the principle of good and evil, represented by the Torah and the unG.o.dliness of the world, and a seventh millennium, the kingdom of G.o.d or the Messianic age. The dates of these were calculated upon the basis of the book of Daniel, with its four world-kingdoms and mysterious numbers.(1206)

6. The Biblical pa.s.sages which refer to ”the end of days” were also connected with the advent of the Messianic age, and the so-called eschatological writings speak of fixed periods following one another. In accordance with certain prophetic hints, they expected first the ”birth-throes”(1207) or ”vestiges” of the Messianic age, a great physical and moral crisis with the turmoil of nature, plagues, and moral degeneracy. Before the Messiah would suddenly appear from his hiding place, the prophet Elijah was to return from heaven, whither he had ascended in a fiery chariot. But, while he had lived in implacable wrath against idolaters, he was now to come as a messenger of peace, reconciling the hearts of Israel with G.o.d and with one another, preparing the way to repentance, and thus to the redemption and reunion of Israel.(1208) The next stage is the gathering together of Israel from all corners of the earth to the holy land under the leaders.h.i.+p of the Messiah, summoned by the blast of the heavenly trumpet.(1209) Then begins that gigantic warfare on the holy soil between the hosts of Israel and the vast forces of heathendom led by the half-mystic powers of Gog and Magog, a conflict which, according to Ezekiel, is to last for seven years and to end with the annihilation of the powers of evil. Before the real Messiah, the son of David, appears in victory, another Messiah of the tribe of Ephraim is to fall in battle, according to a belief dating from the second century and possibly connected with the Bar Kochba war.(1210) In another tradition, probably older, the true Messiah himself is to suffer and die.(1211) At all events, he must destroy Rome, the fourth world-kingdom.

But he is also to slay the arch-fiend Ahriman, afterwards known as Armillus. Moreover, he will redeem the dead from Sheol, as he possesses the key to open all the graves of the holy land, and thus all the sons of Israel will partake in the glory of his kingdom. Then at last the city of Jerusalem will arise in splendor, built of gold and precious stones, the marvel of the world, and in its midst the Temple, a structure of surpa.s.sing magnificence. The holy vessels of the tabernacle, hidden for ages in the wilderness, will appear, and the nations will offer the wealth of the whole earth as their tribute to the Messiah. All will practice righteousness and piety, and will be rewarded by bliss and numerous posterity.(1212)

Opinions differ widely as to the duration of the Messianic age. They range from forty to four hundred years, and again from three generations to a full millennium.(1213) This difference is partly caused by the distinction between the national hope, with the temporary welfare of the people of Israel, and the religious hope concerning the divine kingdom, which is to last forever. A very late rabbinic belief holds that the Messiah will be able to give a new law and even to abrogate Mosaic prohibitions.(1214)

7. At any rate, no complete system of eschatology existed during the Talmudic age, as the views of the various apocalyptic writers were influenced by the changing events of the time and the new environments, with their constant influence upon popular belief. A certain uniformity, indeed, existed in the fundamental ideas. The Messianic hope in its national character includes always the reunion of all Israel under a victorious ruler of the house of David, who shall destroy all hostile powers and bring an era of supreme prosperity and happiness as well as of peace and good-will among men. The Haggadists indulged also in dreams of the marvelous fertility of the soil of Palestine in the Messianic time,(1215) and of the resurrection of the dead in the holy land. But in Judaism such views could never become dogmas, as they did in the Church, even though they were common in both the older and younger Haggadah. These national expectations were expressed in the liturgy by the Eighteen Benedictions, composed by the founders of the Synagogue, the so-called Men of the Great Synagogue; here the prayers for ”the gathering of the dispersed” and the ”destruction of the kingdom of Insolence” precede those for the ”rebuilding of Jerusalem and the restoration of the throne of David.” But the mystic speculations on the origin, activity, and sojourn of the Messiah, which were a favorite theme of the apocalyptic writers and the Haggadists during the pre-Christian and the first Christian centuries, gave way to a more sober mode of thought, in the disappointment that followed the collapse of the great Messianic movements. On the one hand, the Church deified its Messiah and thus relapsed into paganism; on the other, Bar Kochba, ”the son of the star,” whom the leading Jewish masters of the law actually considered the Messiah who would free them from Rome, proved to be a ”star of ill-luck” to the Jewish people.(1216) ”Like one who wanders in the dark night, now and then kindling a light to brighten up his path, only to have it again and again extinguished by the wind, until at last he resolves to wait patiently for the break of day when he will no longer require a light,” so were the people of Israel with their would-be deliverers, who appeared from time to time to delude their hopes, until they exclaimed at last: ”In Thy light alone, O Lord, we behold light.”(1217) Samuel the Babylonian, of the third century, in opposition to the Messianic visionaries of his time, declared: ”The Messianic age differs from the present in nothing except that Israel will throw off the yoke of the nations and regain its political independence.”(1218) Another sage said: ”May the curse of heaven fall upon those who calculate the date of the advent of the Messiah and thus create political and social unrest among the people!”(1219) A third declared: ”The Messiah will appear when n.o.body expects him.”(1220) Most remarkable of all is the bold utterance of Rabbi Hillel of the fourth century, a lineal descendant of the great master Hillel and the originator of the present Jewish calendar system. In all likelihood many of his contemporaries were busy calculating the advent of the Messianic time according to the number of Jubilees in the world-eras, whereupon he said: ”Israel need not await the advent of the Messiah, as Isaiah's prophecy was fulfilled by the appearance of King Hezekiah.”(1221)

8. Throughout the Middle Ages, when the political or national hopes rose high, we find various Messianic movements in both East and West revived by religious aspirations. But Maimonides, the great rationalist, in his commentary on the Mishnah and in his Code, formulated a Messianic belief which was quite free from mystical and supernatural elements. His twelfth article of faith declares that ”the Jew, unless he wishes to forfeit his claim to eternal life by denial of his faith, must, in acceptance of the teachings of Moses and the prophets down to Malachi, believe that the Messiah will issue forth from the house of David in the person of a descendant of Solomon, the only legitimate king; and he shall far excel all rulers in history by his reign, glorious in justice and peace. Neither impatience nor deceptive calculation of the time of the advent of the Messiah should shatter this belief. Still, notwithstanding the majesty and wisdom of the Messiah, he must be regarded as a mortal being like any other and only as the restorer of the Davidic dynasty. He will die and leave a son as his successor, who will in his turn die and leave the throne to his heir. Nor will there be any material change in the order of things in the whole system of nature and human life; accordingly Isaiah's picture of the living together of lamb and wolf cannot be taken literally, nor any of the Haggadic sayings with reference to the Messianic time. We are only to believe in the coming of Elijah as a messenger of peace and the forerunner of the Messiah, and also in the great decisive battle with the hosts of heathendom embodied in Gog and Magog, through whose defeat the dominion of the Messiah will be permanently established.” ”The Messianic kingdom itself,” continues Maimonides with reference to the utterance of Samuel quoted above, ”is to bring the Jewish nation its political independence, but not the subjection of all the heathen nations, nor merely material prosperity and sensual pleasure, but an era of general affluence and peace, enabling the Jewish people to devote their lives without care or anxiety to the study of the Torah and universal wisdom, so that by their teachings they may lead all mankind to the knowledge of G.o.d and make them also share in the eternal bliss of the world to come.”(1222)

9. Against this rationalized hope for the Messiah, which merges the national expectation into the universal hope for the kingdom of G.o.d, strong objections were raised by Abraham ben David of Posquieres, the mystic, a fierce opponent of Maimonides, who referred to various Biblical and Talmudical pa.s.sages in contradiction to this view.(1223) On the other hand, Joseph Albo, the popular philosopher, who was trained by his public debates against the representatives of the Church, emphasized especially the rational character of the Jewish theology, and declared that the Messianic hope cannot be counted among the fundamental doctrines of Judaism, or else Rabbi Hillel could never have rejected it so boldly.(1224)

On this point we must consider the fine observation of Ras.h.i.+ that Hillel denied only a personal Messiah, but not the coming of a Messianic age, a.s.suming that G.o.d himself will redeem Israel and be acknowledged everywhere as Ruler of the world. As a matter of fact, too much difference of opinion existed among the Tanaim and Amoraim on the personality of the Messiah and the duration of his reign to admit of a definite article of faith on the question. The expected Messiah, the heir of the Davidic throne, naturally embodied the national hope of the Jewish people in their dispersion, when all looked to Palestine as their land and to Jerusalem as their political center and rallying point in days to come. Traditional Judaism, awaiting the restoration of the Mosaic sacrificial cult as the condition for the return of the _Shekinah_ to Zion, was bound to persist in its belief in a personal Messiah who would restore the Temple and its service.

10. A complete change in the religious aspiration of the Jew was brought about by the transformation of his political status and hopes in the nineteenth century. The new era witnessed his admission in many lands to full citizens.h.i.+p on an equality with his fellow-citizens of other faiths.

He was no longer distinguished from them in his manner of speech and dress, nor in his mode of education and thought; he therefore necessarily identified himself completely with the nation whose language and literature had nurtured his mind, and whose political and social destinies he shared with true patriotic fervor. He stood apart from the rest only by virtue of his religion, the great spiritual heritage of his h.o.a.ry past.

Consequently the hope voiced in the Synagogal liturgy for a return to Palestine, the formation of a Jewish State under a king of the house of David, and the restoration of the sacrificial cult, no longer expressed the views of the Jew in Western civilization. The prayer for the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the restoration of the Temple with its priestly cult could no longer voice his religious hope. Thus the leaders of Reform Judaism in the middle of the nineteenth century declared themselves unanimously opposed to retaining the belief in a personal Messiah and the political restoration of Israel, either in doctrine or in their liturgy.(1225) They accentuated all the more strongly Israel's hope for a Messianic age, a time of universal knowledge of G.o.d and love of man, so intimately interwoven with the religious mission of the Jewish people.

Harking back to the suffering Servant of the Lord in Deutero-Isaiah, they transferred the t.i.tle of Messiah to the Jewish nation. Reform Judaism has thus accepted the belief that Israel, the suffering Messiah of the centuries, shall at the end of days become the triumphant Messiah of the nations.(1226)

11. This view taken by reform Judaism is the logical outcome of the political and social emanc.i.p.ation of the Jew in western Europe and America. Naturally, it had no appeal to the Jew in the Eastern lands, where he was kept apart by mental training, social habits and the discrimination of the law, so that he regarded himself as a member of a different nationality in every sense. Palestine remained the object of his hope and longing in both his social and religious life. When modern ideas of life began to transform the religious views and habits in many a quarter, and terrible persecutions again aroused the longing of the unfortunate sufferers for a return to the land of their fathers, the term Zionism was coined, and the movement rapidly spread. It expressed the purely national aims of the Jewish people, disregarding the religious aspirations always heretofore connected with the Messianic hope. This term has since become the watchword of all those who hope for a political restoration of the Jewish people on Palestinian soil, as well as of others whose longings are of a more cultural nature. Both regard the Jewish people as a nation like any other, denying to it the specific character of a priest-people and a holy nation with a religious mission for humanity, which has been a.s.signed to it at the very beginning of its history and has served to preserve it through the centuries. On this account Zionism, whether political or cultural, can have no place in Jewish theology. Quite different is the att.i.tude of religious Zionism which emphasizes the ancient hopes and longings for the restoration of the Jewish Temple and State in connection with the nationalistic movement.

12. Political Zionism owes its origin to the wave of Anti-Semitism which rose as a counter-movement to the emanc.i.p.ation of the Jew, that alienated many of the household of Israel from their religion. Thus it has the merit of awakening many Jews upon whom the ancestral faith had lost its hold to a sense of love and loyalty to the Jewish past. In many it has aroused a laudable zeal for the study of Jewish history and literature, which should bring them a deeper insight into, and closer identification with, the historic character of Israel, the suffering Messiah of the nations, and thus in time transform the national Jew into a religious Jew. The study of Israel's mighty past will, it is hoped, bring to them the conviction that the power, the hope and the refuge of Israel is in its G.o.d, and not in any territorial possession. We require a regeneration, not of the nation, but of the faith of Israel, which is its soul.

Chapter LIV. Resurrection, a National Hope

1. The Jewish belief in resurrection is intimately bound up with the hope for the restoration of the Israelitish nation on its own soil, and consequently rather national; indeed, originally purely local and territorial.(1227) True, the rabbis justified their belief in resurrection by such Scriptural verses as: ”I kill and I make alive”(1228) and ”The Lord killeth, and maketh alive; He bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up.”(1229) Founded on such pa.s.sages, the belief would have to include all men, and could be confined neither to the Jewish people nor to the land of Judea. However, we find no trace of such a belief in the entire Bible save for two late post-exilic pa.s.sages(1230) which are in fact apocalyptic, being based upon earlier prophecies, and themselves, in turn, basic to the later dogma of the Pharisees.

2. The picture of a resurrection was first drawn by the prophet Hosea, who applied it to Israel. In his distress over the destiny of his people he says: ”Come, and let us return unto the Lord; for He hath torn, and He will heal us, He hath smitten, and He will bind us up. After two days will He revive us, on the third day He will raise us up, that we may live in His presence.”(1231) Ezekiel's vision of the dry bones which rose to a new life under the mighty sway of the spirit of G.o.d,(1232) gave more definite shape to the picture, although in the form of allegory. As the prophet himself says, he aimed to describe the resurrection of Judah and Israel from their grave of exile. The obscure Messianic prophecy in Isaiah, chapters XXIV to XXVII, strikes a new note. First the author deals with the terrible slaughter which G.o.d will inflict upon the heathen, after which ”He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord G.o.d will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the reproach of His people will He take away from off all the earth.”(1233) Finally, when the oppressors of Israel are completely annihilated, exclaims the seer: ”Thy dead shall live, thy dead bodies shall arise-awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust-for thy dew is a fructifying dew, and the earth shall bring to life the shades.”(1234) Daniel speaks in a similar vein: ”And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to reproaches and everlasting abhorrence.”(1235)

3. In this hope for resurrection at the end of days the leading thought is that the prophecies which have been unfulfilled during the lifetime of the pious, and particularly the martyrs, shall be realized in the world to come.(1236) In the oldest apocalyptic writings this life of the future is still conceived as earthly bliss, inasmuch as the writers think only of the Messianic time of national glory, depicted in such glowing colors by the prophets. Unbounded richness of the soil and numerous offspring, abundant treasures brought by remote nations and their rulers, peace and happiness far and wide-such are the characteristics of the Messianic age.

In order that the dead may share in all this, it is to be preceded by the resurrection and the great _Day of Judgment_ in the valley of Jehoshaphat or Gehinnom (Gehenna), where the righteous are to be singled out to partic.i.p.ate in the realm of the Messiah.(1237) As a national prospect the Messianic hope was based upon the pa.s.sage in Deutero-Isaiah: ”Thy people also shall be all righteous, they shall inherit the land forever.”(1238) Consequently an ancient Mishnah taught that ”All Israel shall have a share in the world to come.”(1239) In fact, the term ”inherit the land” was used as late as the Mishnah to express the idea of sharing in the future life; so also in the New Testament, where the resurrection was expected before the coming of the kingdom of the Messiah.(1240)

4. The logical a.s.sumption was, accordingly, that only the dead of the holy land should enjoy the resurrection. The prophetic verses were cited: ”I will set glory in the land of the living,”(1241) and ”He that giveth breath to the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein,”(1242) and were interpreted in the sense that G.o.d would restore the breath of life only to those buried in the holy land.(1243) Likewise the verse of the Psalmist, ”I shall walk before the Lord in the land of the living,”

was referred to Palestine, as the land where the dead shall awaken to a new life.(1244) Hence the rabbis held the strange belief that when the great heavenly trumpet is sounded to summon all the tribes of Israel from the ends of the earth to the holy land,(1245) those who have been buried outside of Palestine must pa.s.s through cavities under the earth, until they reach the soil where the miracle of the resurrection will be performed.(1246) It has, therefore, become a custom of the pious among the Orthodox to this very day, in case they could not bury the dead in Palestine, to put dust of the holy land beneath their head, that they might arise wherever they were buried.

5. We may take it for granted that this nave conception of the resurrection could not be permanent, and so was modified to include a double resurrection: the first, national, to usher in the Messianic kingdom, and the other, universal, to usher in the everlasting life of the future. The former offered scant room for the heathen world, at best only for those who had actually joined the ranks of Judaism; the latter, however, included the last judgment for all souls and thus opened the way for the salvation of the righteous among the nations as well as the people of Israel. At this point the conception of resurrection led to higher and more spiritual ideas, as has been shown in Chapter XLIII.