Zionism and Messianism: Find a balance and work together

Marc J. Rosenstein, in his book “Turing Points in Jewish History, writes. “Messianic speculation and activism in the wake of the Bar Kokhba revolt, the Rabbis say that such conjecture and crusading is not only pointless but actually dangerous –and hence forbidden. Maimonides supported this but also cautioned that any Jew who denies this expectation of the Messiah is like one who denies the entire Torah, since this expectation of the Messiah has given our people the strength to survive for centuries of oppression and persecution. Yet, Zionists see the hilltop youth and other groups of settlers who see expanding the land of Israel by bringing the Messiah now as necessary, no matter what means they must use, as moving too fast. Rosenstein quotes Michael Walzer, who wrote in “God’s Shadow, “The political activists possessed by messianic faith are cut loose from all the normal constraints on political action.”

There must be a balance between Zionism and messianic faith. I would remind the “hilltop youth” and burners of churches, and those who would independently wage war against the Arabs, that as Rosenstein points out, “A key legacy of the Bar Kochba was the institutional maintenance of a delicate balance between hope as a core of belief and even of identity and patience (Zionism).”

According to Rosenstein, “This tension—between the difficulty of waiting while suffering and the reluctance to get drawn into a false-messianic disaster – had been an almost constant concern for Jewish leadership and literature ever since.”

I am a Zionist and a settler and would like nothing better than an Israel comprising the maximum expansion of the Kingdom that existed in the days of the Davidic Dynasty. But as a Zionist and a settler, I have learned in my 50 years in THIS Israel, of which we have been a part, each one of us, participating in the Miracal of our time, through compromise and hard work have re-claimed the land of Israel and will continue to do so, through political skill, backed by a strong and loyal military, as we rebuild the Kingdom of David, one brick at a time through Zionism and not through a destructive Messianic impatience which can only lead to disaster.

It is written in the Book of Kohelet (Ecclesiastes):

“3:1 To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”
Our time is still the time of Zionism, of building a nation and defending our people throughout the world. Messianism will come, but only after we have fulfilled our Zionist obligation of redeeming the land of Israel through steady religious, national, political and social progress and unification, not through meaningless selfish gestures that only endanger the building of the third temple in Jerusalem.