The Jewish Power Blog: End Times
In 1666, Sir Paul Rycaut, a British diplomat stationed in Turkey, observed the impact of the belief that Sabbetai Zevi was the messiah:
[Throughout the empire] I perceived a strange transport among the Jews… The Jews at Thessalonica [for example], who now full of assurance that the restoration of their kingdom and the accomplishment of the times for the coming of the Messiah was at hand… applied themselves immediately to fastings… All business was laid aside; none worked or opened shop, unless to clear his warehouse of merchandise at any price. (Marcus, The Jew in the Medieval World, 262-3)
I suspect that Sir Paul would feel a sense of déjà vu, were he to visit us today.
The Jews, who established a modern state based on the authority of the United Nations, seem to have lost their faith in rational calculations of cause and effect, and in the relevance of belonging to the family of nations. Inspired by the belief that the promised redemption is indeed upon us, the democratically elected government of the Jewish state has adopted a number of policies based on our perceived pre-messianic moment:
Since soon “the Mount of the Lord’s house shall stand firm above the mountains,” (Isa. 2:2), it is a pity to waste time and resources on diplomacy, on maintaining our mutual dependencies with other nations, who are anti-Semitic in any case. We will soon be self-sufficient economically and militarily; we can already handily back up all of Israel Katz’s bombastic threats. Thus, we are not signatories to various multinational covenants; e.g., nuclear non-proliferation; law of the sea; bans on mines and cluster munitions; international criminal court. We do not need Trump or the EU or even Mamdani. And as Ben Gurion famously said of the UN (Um in Hebrew): “Um – Shmum!” All we need is Somaliland.
God said to Abraham, “to your offspring I assign this land, from the river of Egypt to the … Euphrates.” (Gen. 15:18). As we prepare for the fulfillment of that prophecy (ignoring the complication that both Isaac and Ishmael were offspring of Abraham), we need feel no qualms or soft-minded pangs of conscience over the urgent task of clearing the promised land of those usurpers who managed to settle here during the two millennia of our absence. The Philistines/Palestinians were our nemesis here in biblical times; finally it was King David who managed to subdue them; and apparently it will be his descendant who will finish the replay of that struggle. In those days, they had iron while all we had was brass (1 Sam. 13:19-22); but this time around, we have F-16s while all they have is kites.
Indeed, if we’re looking for echoes, we’ve always had the “hilltop youth”: “Everyone who was in straits and everyone who was in debt and everyone who was desperate joined [David] and he became their leader.” (1 Sam. 22:2)
Meanwhile, all the public furor over the lack of investment in modern education, and the preferential treatment of Talmud students, and the emigration of high techies – is a waste of energy. Soon, the labor market will shift: the highest demand will be for experts in halakhah, needed to enable the state to operate exclusively according to Jewish law. However it appears likely that this transition won’t be simple: The new power struggle will not be between rabbis and secular liberal democrats, but between rabbis and priests – for there were no rabbis in David’s kingdom; the religious/legal authorities were the kohanim, and we’ve been carefully keeping track of who they are, to prepare for just this moment.
Similarly, it’s worth keeping in mind that the weekly gathering on Kaplan Street to demand democracy will soon be irrelevant, as the restored Davidic monarchy will dispense with not only the Supreme Court and the Attorney-General, but with the Knesset as well. (Maybe Yariv Levin is actually Elijah the prophet, preparing the way for the messiah?)
There is no need to worry about climate change, or other environmental issues like suburban sprawl, traffic congestion, and pollution, because soon none of these will matter. The minister of environment can busy herself with removing the obstacles to employing crocodiles to keep the Palestinians under control. And the appalling rate of unsolved murders, and the record traffic fatality rate don’t seem to trouble the relevant ministers, who can continue sunning themselves on the deck of the Altalena and on the sands of Morocco, respectively. These phenomena are apparently just “birth-pangs of the messiah,” as the Talmud predicted: “In the messiah’s generation… their eyes will be dimmed by sorrow and grief, and troubles will increase.” (Sanhedrin 97a)
When Rabbi Abraham Isaac Hacohen Kook came up with the concept of “the first sprouting of our redemption” to reconcile modern Zionism with traditional messianism, he unwittingly opened a Pandora’s box, giving rise to a set of ideas and feelings that may turn out to be not the legitimation of Zionism, but its undoing.
Sir Paul describes the denouement of Sabbetai Zevi’s movement, when the would-be messiah obeyed the Sultan’s order to convert to Islam on pain of death:
The Jews were strangely surprised… and ashamed of their easiness of belief, of the arguments with which they had persuaded others, and of the proselytes they had made in their own families… They became the common derision of the towns where they inhabited… so that the deceived people for a long time after remained with confusion, silence, and dejection of spirit. (p. 267)
Confusion, silence, and dejection of spirit. Are we there yet?
