By Rabbi Dr. Michael Leo Samuel
CHULA VISTA, California — Ever since the coronavirus started, many of my congregants asked me whether this year might be the year of the Messiah’s arrival. A couple of days I ago, I came across an earlier article about how the Israeli Health Ministry Yaakov Litzman is trying his best to manage the coronavirus crisis. Litzman is an optimistic person. In a recent interview he indicated that while he is trying to take the pandemic seriously, he looks forward to a more supernatural deliverance—the arrival of the Messiah. He candidly admitted, “We are praying and hoping that Messiah will arrive before Passover as it is a time of our redemption. I am sure that the Messiah will come by Passover and save us the same way God saved us during the Exodus and we were freed. The Messiah will come and save us all.”
Most of our readers might be know the Rabbis took a skeptical view of people announcing when the Messiah will arrive. Consider the following citations from rabbinical literature: (1) Rabbi Zera said, “Three things occur when you least expect it: the Messiah, a found article, and a scorpion.”[1] I have often thought about this passage. Most people don’t expect to find a lost object, typically finding something occurs when you least expect it. The same principle applies to getting bitten by a scorpion; oftentimes, these things occur when you expect it the least.
Concerning the Messiah, the Talmud teaches that we are far better off not to speculate when the Messiah is going to come. R. Zera’s remark ought to make us pause and wonder: Why did he express such ambivalence toward the arrival of the Messiah? Aren’t pious Jews supposed to believe in his arrival?
The Jews of the early centuries learned the hard way that those claiming to be the Messiah are either crazy, or they are charlatans, or more likely, a combination of both!
Yet, this did not stop the Jews of Late Antiquity from attempting to predict his arrival. In every instance where this occurred, the rabbi predicting the Messianic arrival was always proven wrong to his discredit. Josephus mentions that before the destruction of the Temple, there were a number of men who claimed they were “the Messiah.” One famous figure was a certain charlatan named Theudas; he claimed to be a prophet and insisted that his people follow him with their belongings to the Jordan, were he would make the river split for them. The Roman authorities did not find him amusing. The Roman governor Cuspius Fadus[2] sent his soldiers after him and his band, slew many of them, and took captive others, together with their leader, beheading the latter.[3]
Then again, there was an Egyptian Jew who also claimed to be the Messiah. This mysterious individual commanded an impressive following and gathered about 30,000 followers who met on the Mount of Olives, opposite Jerusalem. The Roman procurator of Judea Province named Marcus Antonius Felix (who governed Judea from 52–60 C.E.) told his followers that God commanded them to come to the Temple, there to receive miraculous signs of their deliverance. Felix did not find this “Messianic” personality amusing either. Many people were killed and taken captive; their leader was also beheaded.[4]
Josephus mentions yet another zealot leader named Menachem b. Hezekiah, whose name later appears in the Talmud.[5] He was the leader of a faction called the Sicarii who carried out assassinations of Romans and collaborators in the Holy Land. Menachem was actually the son of Judas of Galilee and was the grandson of Hezekiah, the leader of the Zealot faction who proved difficult to Herod; he was a fine warrior. When the war broke out with Rome, he and his followers attacked Masada and stored his weaponry there. Afterward, he proceeded to Jerusalem where he captured the fortress of Antonia. After defeating King Agrippa’s soldiers, he claimed to be the king. But Elazar the Zealot leader conspired against him and assassinated Menachem.[6]
Perhaps the most famous of those believed to be Messiahs, apart from Jesus of Nazareth, a topic we must approach at another time, was Shimon ben Kosiba, better known to us as Bar Kokhba. He led a revolt against the Roman Empire in 132 CE. And for three years, he managed to head an independent Jewish state in which Bar Kokhba ruled as Nasi. The most famous rabbinical leader of his time, R. Akiba, saw Bar Kochba as fulfilling the scriptural verse, Num. xxiv. 17: “A star shall advance from Jacob, and a scepter shall rise from Israel, and shall smite through the corners of Moab,” (Num. 24:17).[7] etc.” I will shake the heavens and the earth and I will overthrow the thrones of kingdoms. . . .” The second century sage, R. Johanan b. Torta opposed Akiba’s acceptance of Bar Kokhba as the Messiah, saying to him, “Akiba! Grass shall grow from your jaws before the son of David appears.”[8]
Others believed to be messiahs, such as Shabtai Tzvi and more recently, in the eyes of some, R. Menachem Mendel Schnerson (a.k.a. the Lubavitcher Rebbe), did not bring about the hoped-for Messianic age of peace, thereby creating disillusionment among their followers.
Is it not any wonder why the Talmud offers practical advice on this matter, “Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai taught: If you have a fruit-tree in your hands and someone says to you, ‘Here is the Messiah.’ Go and finish planting your fruit-tree just the same, and afterwards go out and welcome the Messiah.[10]
There have been many worse pandemics than the coronavirus that have decimated thousands of our people. The Israeli Health Minister Yaakov Litzman would be wise to stay focused and do his job in protecting the people he is meant to serve.
Martin Luther King Jr. said it best, “We can’t pray for God to do what we are unwilling to do ourselves.” God expects all of us to do our part in bettering the world. A friend of mine once said, “I have two things to tell you about the Messiah. But first let me tell you the bad news: There is no such thing as the Messiah! Now for the good news: You’re it!” Perhaps each of us needs to get in touch with our own inner Messiah and make the decision to make this world worthy of the Messiah.
May we all be blessed with a wonderful Passover.
*
NOTES
[1] BT Sanhedrin 97a.
[2] Cuspius Fadus was an Ancient Roman procurator of Iudaea Province in 44–46 C.E.. After the death of King Agrippa, in 44C.E., Emperor Claudius appointed procurator him to rule Judea.
[3] Antiquities, xx. 5, § 1.
[4] Antiquities, xx. 5, § 1.
[5] BT Sanhedrin 98a.
[6] Josephus, Wars of the Jews. ii. 17, § 9).
[7] JT Ta’anit 4:7; Lam. R. to Lam. 2:2), and JT Hagigah 2:21-22.
[8] JT. Ta’anit 4:8, 68d. According to Rav Hai Gaon (938-1038), R. Akiba’s disciples died in the failed Bar Kochba revolution against Rome (132-135 C.E.).
[9] Avoth d’Rabbi Nathan 31
*
Rabbi Dr. Michael Leo Samuel is spiritual leader of Temple Beth Shalom in Chula Vista, California. He may be contacted via michael.samuel@sdjewishworld.com