Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- Contents
- Note on Style and Transliteration
- Introduction to the Paperback Edition
- Introduction
- 1 From Heroism to Heterodoxy: The Crisis of a Movement and the Danger to a Faith
- 2 The New Messianism: Passing Phenomenon or Turning Point in the History of Judaism?
- 3 Aborted Initiatives and Sustained Attacks
- 4 The Second Coming: A Rejoinder
- 5 Revisiting the Second Coming
- 6 The Rabbinical Council of America Resolution
- 7 The Council of Torah Sages
- 8 The Spectre of Idolatry
- 9 On False Messianism, Idolatry, and Lubavitch
- 10 Debating Avodah Zarah
- 11 Judaism is Changing Before Our Eyes
- 12 From Margin to Mainstream: The Consolidation and Expansion of the Messianist Beachhead
- 13 Explaining the Inexplicable
- 14 What Must Be Done?
- Epitaph
- Appendix I On a Messiah who Dies with his Mission Unfulfilled: Selected Quotations
- Appendix II The Parameters of Avodah Zarah
- Appendix III Tosafot on ‘Association’ (Shituf)
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index
4 - The Second Coming: A Rejoinder
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- Contents
- Note on Style and Transliteration
- Introduction to the Paperback Edition
- Introduction
- 1 From Heroism to Heterodoxy: The Crisis of a Movement and the Danger to a Faith
- 2 The New Messianism: Passing Phenomenon or Turning Point in the History of Judaism?
- 3 Aborted Initiatives and Sustained Attacks
- 4 The Second Coming: A Rejoinder
- 5 Revisiting the Second Coming
- 6 The Rabbinical Council of America Resolution
- 7 The Council of Torah Sages
- 8 The Spectre of Idolatry
- 9 On False Messianism, Idolatry, and Lubavitch
- 10 Debating Avodah Zarah
- 11 Judaism is Changing Before Our Eyes
- 12 From Margin to Mainstream: The Consolidation and Expansion of the Messianist Beachhead
- 13 Explaining the Inexplicable
- 14 What Must Be Done?
- Epitaph
- Appendix I On a Messiah who Dies with his Mission Unfulfilled: Selected Quotations
- Appendix II The Parameters of Avodah Zarah
- Appendix III Tosafot on ‘Association’ (Shituf)
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
ON 17 JUNE 1994, five days after the petirah (passing) of the Lubavitcher Rebbe zt“l, an advertisement appeared in the Jewish Press declaring that he would be resurrected as the Messiah. At that point, I wrote a letter containing the following assertion: ‘There is no more fundamental messianic belief in Judaism than the conviction that the Davidic Messiah who appears at the end of days will not die before completing his mission’ [Jewish Press, 1 July 1994; see above, Ch. 1].
In my article in Jewish Action [see Ch. 2], I formulated the point as follows: ‘Even [the small minority of] Jews who believed that King David would be the Messiah (or the vanishingly tiny number who may have left open the possibility that Daniel might be) did not believe that a Davidic figure born (or reborn) during or after their lifetime would begin the redemptive process only to die and be buried before its completion. Such a position is utterly alien to the most basic messianic posture of all non- Sabbatian Jews through the ages.’
I repeat these formulations here because their key point has apparently been missed by both Rabbi Butman and Rabbi Weisberg. Although, as we shall see, I regard the belief that Mashiach ben David (Messiah son of David) can come from the dead as a rejected position (a shitah deḥuyah), the core of my argument does not depend on this conviction. Whoever the Messiah might be, once he begins his messianic activities, there is no dispute as to the certainty that he sees the process to its completion without an intervening death, burial, and resurrection.
Jews have written numerous works through the ages describing the career of the Messiah. In some cases, we find only highlights of the unfolding messianic drama, in others, painstaking accounts of every stage. Differences abound. Alternative scenarios are proposed.
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- Information
- The Rebbe, the Messiah, and the Scandal of Orthodox IndifferenceWith a New Introduction, pp. 41 - 52Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2008