The Idealistic Realism of Jewish Messianism (original) (raw)
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American Ethnologist, 2008
Temporal issues have remained relatively unelaborated in the rich body of research that applies cognitive dissonance theory to millenarian movements following a failed prophecy. We engage these issues by exploring how the meshichistim (messianists) among the Jewish ultraorthodox Chabad (Lubavitch) Hasidim employ temporal categories to deal with the crisis entailed in the death of their leader, the expected Messiah. In messianic Chabad, a double-edged “work of the present” has continued to evolve, simultaneously obfuscating and accentuating temporal delineations between past, present, and future. The ensuing dialectical reality puts into question the common notion that millenarian movements such as Chabad strive at all costs to restore the balance disrupted by failed prophecy. [millenarian movements, messianic temporality, cognitive dissonance, Chabad-Lubavitch]
Historiography of the perception of “Messianic Judaism”
This paper deals with the question of whether Messianic Judaism should be considered part of the schools of Judaism and if thus Messianic Jews should be considered Jews. Messianic Judaism emerged in the 1970’s, when it started to replace the Hebrew Christian movement. Main literature on the topic is the book “Passing over Easter – Constructing the boundaries of Messianic Judaism” from Soshana Feher, published in 1998. Her opinions on this topic shall be considered and reflected on writings reaching into 2013.
Messianic Jewish Theology: A Preliminary Typology
Norsk Tidsskrift For Misjonsvitenskap, 2019
This article proposes an eight-fold typology of Messianic Jewish theologies. It reviews previous studies and makes proposals for the development of Messianic Jewish Theology. It characterises the views of reflective practitioners within the movement of Messianic Judaism by summarising their views on God, Torah and Israel in the light of the Jewish and Christian theologies that have influenced their development. Keywords/Søkeord : Messianic Judaism – Typology Messianic Jewish Theology – Torah – Christology – Israel
PRAGMATISM AND THE LOGIC OF JEWISH POLITICAL MESSIANISM
Pragmatic Studies in Judaism, ed. Andrew Schumann, 2013
By the standards of reasoning employed in this essay, Jewish political eschatologies are not disciplined by any fully coherent rules of reasoning, including rules internal to these eschatologies. The one exception is if and when an eschatology is pragmatic, or what I call a " meantime eschatology: " one that designates a this-worldly end to some specific, identifiable conditions of suffering while bracketing any claim about the ultimate finality of this end. Typical of claims in the Chumash, this kind of eschatology is logically comparable to the claims of contemporary empirical science: predicting the likelihood that a certain problem may be resolved in a certain way within a certain time. Such eschatologies are falsifiable. By these standards, modern Jewish eschatologi-cal claims tend to appeal to non-rational standards of coherence. One surprising exception is displayed in the later writings of the Hazon Ish, R. Avraham Yishayahu Kare-litz: a pragmatic approach that assigns divine promises (havtachot), such as the return to Zion, a different epistemological status than divine commands (mitsvot), such as how to behave when living in the land of Israel.
2022
In this study, I trace the developmental patterns of Jewish messianism. Judaism has a rich ancient and modern history of rabbis who claimed to have been the Messiah. I focus on the Sabbatian movement because it stands out as having an unparalleled influence on so many people. Messianic movements have always had large followings but never with numbers like this. These included respected rabbis and halachic leaders who expounded on religious law, yet they endorsed Shabbatai Tzvi, and many even adhered to his ideology after his death. Although Sabbatianism is often just ignored by Jewish history, in reality, it was the mould which gave form to almost every Jewish movement which followed, religious and secular; including orthodoxy, modern Zionism, and even (or particularly) Chassidism.
The messianic concept in modern Judaism
Teologia i Moralność
The history of the Messiah in Judaism is a history of disappointed hopes. Again and again, there were salvation fi gures to whom this role was ascribed. But redemption from occupation and foreign rule, exile, oppression and persecution failed to materialize. Therefore, the expectation of the Messiah fell to the periphery of Jewish theology. This article examinesin what ways the messianic concept plays a role in modern times and what it contributes to describing the relationship between God and humanity in Judaism. The author intends to show the development from the abandonment of a personal Messiah towards the affi rmation of the prophets’ hope for a universal messianic age in which the duty of all people to participate in the healing of the world becomes central. What becomes also clear is: The messiah idea cannot be a bridge between Christianity and Judaism.
Redeeming the Finite from Infinite Revelation: Metaphysics Revisited in Chabad Messianism
This paper seeks to analyze Chabad's mystical premises and evolution over the past 200 years in the context of the seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe's depiction of the Messianic Era. While research has been completed in regards to Chabad chassidic development in relation to Maimonidean and Beshtian philosophy, this is the first paper to examine dirah b'tachtonim (dwelling on earth) theology in the context of the Rebbe’s transformative talks from 1991 to 1992. These talks represent a vast transition from previous conceptions of Chabad metaphysics and Jewish theology at large; hence, most of the sources used in this paper are from the Rebbe’s talks in 1991 and 1992, as they serve as the all-encompassing extension of previous Chabad thought. In my research, I show that these ideas do not depart from earlier chassidic sources, but instead serve as their natural outgrowth in light of the Rebbe’s Messianic vision as it relates to both the individual and the collective.