What do Jews believe about the coming of a Messiah?

By Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel

Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel

CHULA VISTA, California —As we open our door to welcome Elijah, some of us probably snicker and say “Yeah, right…” The cynicism of our age makes us doubt whether the Messiah will ever really arrive.

People often wonder who the Messiah is going to be. Many faith communities believe it will be Jesus; Chabad Hasidim believe that Rabbi Schnersohn will arise from the dead and save humankind. Personally, when asked, I often like to tell my students, “Here’s the bad news: The Messiah is more metaphor than it is a historical reality–at least with respect to the present or future generations.  Antecedents for this belief appear in BT Sanhedrin 99a:

  • Rabbi Hillel said: There is no messiah for Israel, seeing that they already had him in the time of King Hezekiah. Rav   Yosef said: May Rabbi Hillel’s Master forgive him. Hezekiah lived during the   First Temple while Zechariah prophesied during the Second Temple.

Rashi notes in his commentary that R. Hillel accepted the concept of a future redemption but merely held that there will be no individual who will bring that redemption. Rather, God will do it without a human messenger. In other words, the human aspect of the Messiah is not that important; what matters is that it is God Who will bring about the final redemption. The 15th century Jewish philosopher, Joseph Albo, contends that the belief in a personal messiah is not essential to Judaism. There is also nothing indicative that R. Hillel rejected the futuristic concept of a messianic age—just a human messiah.

In the Tanakh itself, the term Messiah, simply means, “the anointed one,” originally referred to any individual consecrated with sacred oil such as the king of Israel and the high priest. But it was also applied to any person for whom God had a special purpose – Cyrus of Persia, for example (Isa. 45:1). This passage in particular is especially intriguing, because the prophet suggests that God can designate anyone–even a gentile–to function in an anointed capacity. One could further suggest that in modern times, President Truman was King Cyrus redux, for he alone made it possible for Israel to be recognized as a Jewish state.

One could even argue that the idea of a Messianic age is another metaphor for Utopia.

But then I tell my students: “Now here’s the good news: You’re it! You must act like a Messiah in redeeming the world around you.” To create the Messianic world, each of us must actualize the goodness that we possess. Nobody is going to do this task for you. Here is a remarkable Talmudic story that speaks about the importance of getting in touch with the kind of redemptive lives each of us must live–if we are to ultimately midwife the Messianic Era that was envisioned by the prophets.

The Sages often wondered when and where the Messiah would appear, and frequently criticized individuals who claimed or believed in a messiah, e.g., Jesus and Bar Kochba.  Despite their reticence to make messianic predictions, the rabbis nevertheless believed that his coming remains an eternal possibility. As for the time when this consummation was to take place, it was generally held to depend on the degree of progress men will have achieved in their moral development.

This point is well illustrated in the well-known Talmudic parable:

  • Rabbi Joshua ben Levi met Elijah standing at the   entrance of Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai’s tomb.… He then said to him, “When will   the Messiah come?” “Go and ask him” was the reply. “Where is he sitting?”—”At   the entrance of the city.” And how shall I recognize him? — “He is sitting   among the poor lepers, untying and re-bandaging their wounds, while thinking,   “Should I be needed, I must not delay.” …[1] So he went to him and greeted   him, saying, “Peace be upon you, Master and Teacher.” “Peace be upon you, O   son of Levi,” he replied. ‘When will you come, Master?’ asked he. “Today” was   his answer.” When the Messiah failed to appear that day, a deeply disappointed   Rabbi Joshua returned to Elijah with the complaint: “He lied to me, stating that he would come today, but has not!” Elijah then enlightened him that the   Messiah had really quoted Scripture (Ps. 95:7): “Today, if ye hearken to His voice” (Sanhedrin 98a).

One might wonder: Why wasn’t the Messiah worried about ritual impurity? One exposition found in the commentaries suggests that the Messiah is among those afflicted with leprosy (cf. Isa. 53:4); while this is a plausible exposition, I prefer the image of the Messiah ministering to the lepers. The answer to the question is even more remarkable when considering how the ancients marginalized the lepers.

In the days of the Temple, lepers lived outside the cities in special huts, where they all congregated for support. People feared any kind of physical contact with them for fear of contagion, or because of the possibility they might become ritually contaminated.

It was not uncommon for children and adults to throw stones at the lepers because they were the outcasts of ancient society.[2] Anytime a person merely approached a leper, the leper had to say, “Unclean!” in order to avoid contact. One could only imagine the havoc this caused in the leper’s family. The mere appearance of a leper on the street or in a neighborhood meant that everyone had to avoid him.[3] No one could even salute him; his bed was to be low, inclining towards the ground.[4] If he even put his head into a home, that home or building became ritually contaminated. No less a distance than four cubits (six feet) must be kept from a leper; or, if the wind came from that direction, a hundred were scarcely sufficient. For all practical purposes, a leper was like a walking dead man.

Yet, the Messiah of our story seems as though he could care less about ritual impurity; for him, caring for the lepers is a supreme ethical demand that transcends ritual laws.

Learning to heal the lepers—just like the Messiah

The Messiah’s response is intriguing. Redemption will not occur tomorrow, but today when we emulate his acts of selfless love; messianic redemption comes when we bandage the wounds of those suffering in the world around us. It seems as though the Talmud is suggesting, we have a personal role to play in redeeming the human condition. Redemption comes by living a redemptive life.

Bandaging the open wounds of the lepers, one open sore at a time, is the only viable human response to preparing the world for ultimate redemption. This process begins with treating the forlorn and abandoned members such as the lepers, or the AIDS victims, or anyone with a terrible disease with prayer, consideration, kindness and compassion— regardless of the disease.

The Talmud relates a story that is consistent with the ethos of the Messiah passage mentioned above. “R. Helbo was once sick. But none visited him. The Sage rebuked the scholars, saying, ‘Did it not once happen that one of R. Akiba’s disciples fell sick and the Sages did not visit him? So R. Akiba personally entered his student’s house to visit him, and upon finding the chamber neglected, Rabbi Akiba instructed his students to clean up the home and the sick student soon recovered. Thankfully, the student exclaimed, ‘My master—you have revived me!’ R. Akiba began his very next lecture with the statement, ‘Anyone who fails to visit the sick is like a shedder of blood’” (Nedarim 40a). The moral of the story stresses the importance of mutual-aid and responsibility. Simply put, we are our “brother’s keeper.

The French Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Lévinas stresses how God’s face is mirrored in the face of the ordinary people we encounter; when we see the beggar on the street asking for us to help, God’s face is present in the face of those struggling just to survive–one day at a time. Kabbalists sometimes describe the Shekhinah (the maternal aspect of the Divine) as always present among those who experience pain and loss. Jewish tradition teaches us that we become most God-like when we outflow compassion to a suffering world.

According to Levinas, God participates in a “divine comedy” in which God makes himself both “knowable” and “unknowable” in the shape of the Other—neighbor, stranger. The way we care for the Other speaks volumes about our faith in God. Isaiah 58 contains a powerful message that still speaks across the chasm of time:

You fast, but at the same time you bicker and fight.

You fast, but you swing a mean fist.

The kind of fasting you do

won’t get your prayers off the ground.

Do you think this is the kind of fast day I’m after:

a day to show off humility?

To put on a pious long face

and parade around solemnly in black?

Do you call that fasting,

a fast day that I, God, would like?

“This is the kind of fast day I’m after:

to break the chains of injustice,

get rid of exploitation in the workplace,

free the oppressed,

cancel debts.

What I’m interested in seeing you do is:

sharing your food with the hungry,

inviting the homeless poor into your homes,

putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad,

being available to your own families.

Do this and the lights will turn on,

and your lives will turn around at once.

Your righteousness will pave your way.

The God of glory will secure your passage.

Then when you pray, God will answer.

You’ll call out for help and I’ll say, ‘Here I am”

(Isaiah 58:5-11).

The absence of ritual observance is striking in Isaiah’s message of faith. I often wonder: What would the prophet say if he could see what we are doing to ourselves in Beth Shemesh and Jerusalem?

I think you know the answer . . .

Mystics of the Kabbalah often describe God as present in every human being. To respect the Divine Image, requires that we treat our fellow beings with acts of compassion and love. Martin Buber always taught how God is triangulated in every interpersonal relationship. The 18th century English poet and artist William Blake portrays the suffering face of Job and God has sharing the same countenance. Thus, it is in the human face where the Divine converges with the human soul.

So where is the Messiah to be found? He is there bandaging the lepers—much like the international community did when they bandaged the wounded of Haiti, who have suffered greatly from their country’s devastating earthquake. Over the past couple of years, they now have a teaching hospital to minister to the sick of their people–that is where the Messianic spirit can be found, as intimated in the Talmud.

But his presence can also be seen in Israel, fighting for the rights of African refugees to find a haven from the dangers of religious and political forces seeking to destroy them. The Messiah personifies everything that is potentially good in the human race—it  is up to us to unleash this powerful and healing spiritual energy to those who need it the most in a suffering world.

That is why we open the door for Elijah, for the work of redemption must really begin with opening our heart to the ethical message that will transform and redeem our world. It is this reality we must embrace—regardless of our religious denomination.

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Notes:

[1] The statement, ‘Should I be needed, I must not delay” disrupts the flow of the discussion, sounds like a non sequitur, and detracts from the original teaching of the Aggada. Surely, the Messiah is already doing his job by helping the lepers bandage their wounds! Why disrupt the story with what the Messiah is allegedly “thinking”? If one did not know better, this passage sounds  like a red-herring; perhaps the Sages feared that people might antedate this parable to the ministry of Jesus, whose kindness toward the lepers set him apart as a compassionate leader who broke many of the social and religious barriers by treating them respectfully (Luke  5:12-16; 17:11-19). Indeed, maybe the original wording of the Talmudic story suggests that every human being must do his or her part in healing the wounded and marginalized people of society.

I discussed this interpretation with my good friend Professor Marvin Wilson for almost two hours this evening and he agrees with my deconstructive reading of the Talmudic text.

[2] In Midrash of Vyikra Rabba 16:3 records some of the laws that continued the policy of ostracizing even after the Temple was destroyed–despite the fact that none of these laws were ritually relevant.

R. Johanan and R. Simeon b. Lakish [gave rulings]. R. Johanan said: It is prohibited to go four cubits to the east of a leper. R. Simeon b. Lakish said: Even a hundred cubits. They did not really differ; the one who said four cubits referred to a time when there is no wind blowing, whereas the one who said [not even] a hundred cubits, referred to a time when a wind is blowing. R. Meir would not eat eggs that came from an alley of lepers. R. Ammi and R. Assi would not enter a leper’s alley. Resh Lakish, when he saw one of them in the city, threw stones towards him,1 and said: ‘ Go to your place, and do not defile other people,’ as R. Hiyya taught: He shall dwell alone (Lev. 13:46), means, he shall dwell by himself. R. Eleazar b. R. Simeon, when he saw one of them, hid himself from him, since it is written, THIS SHALL BE THE LAW OF THE LEPER (MEZORA’), i.e. one who utters false reports  (mozi [shem] ra’).

[3] BT Mo’ed Katan 5a.

[4] Ibid., 15a.