Pesach Messianic musings: do the Jews really await a "Mashiach"?

Growing up in North West London, I was extremely fortunate to have been part of a very special community – the Bridge Lane Beth Hamidrash – whose members spanned a broad range of backgrounds and levels of observance. One custom which falls to mind at this time of year was the annual “Mashiach Feast” which was held, with the encouragement of Chabad members, on the eighth day of Pesach. The custom, which traces back to the Baal Shem Tov, is connected to the Messianic theme of the Haftarah of the final day, which is understood to convey a thematic link between the redemption from Egypt and the final awaited Redemption.

While two decades of 7-day Pesachs in Jerusalem may have weakened memories of this custom, the global upheaval to our lives and religious practices caused by the Coronavirus pandemic has led to whispers of Messianic machinations and preparations well beyond the usual confines of Chabad houses and farbrengens. I will therefore mention some brief ideas on the subject that are touched upon in Judaism Reclaimed.

The chapter of Judaism Reclaimed which addresses the Messianic era examines it in the context of the desirability of miracles and their role within Judaism. We note that while for Ramban and Rabbi Yehudah Halevi miracles, and the Divine experience they entail, represent the pinnacle of religious aspiration, this is firmly rejected by thinkers such as Rambam who idealise an intellectual relationship with God through the divinely-ordained natural order. This dichotomy is played out in their contrasting approaches to the Messianic era. While for Ramban the Messianic era is a setting in which God’s wonders need no longer be concealed, Rambam strongly endorses the position of the Talmudic sage Shmuel that “there is no difference between today’s world and the days of Mashiach except for [freedom from] oppression of the nations”. After all, why would God choose to perform miracles which serve to conceal rather than reveal the great wisdom inherent in his Creation?

What might such a Messianic era look like within Rambam’s worldview and what benefits could it be expected to yield?

I recently heard a fascinating idea on a YouTube lecture (on Isaiah chap. 2 about 30 mins in) from Rabbi Tovia Singer. R’ Singer highlights the fact that the term “Mashiach” is never used in the biblical texts in the context of the Messianic era. This is not just a linguistic observation but reflects a far more fundamental point: the biblical texts focus primarily on the societal utopia of the “Acharit Hayamim” (End of Days), with the Messianic King relegated to a facilitatory role. This got me wondering how much of our own Messianic conceptions might have been infiltrated by teachings of Christianity’s Messiah with their almost-exclusive focus on the role of their ‘Saviour’. From reading the conclusion of Rambam’s Hilchot Melachim, the message is clear:

The Sages and the prophets did not yearn for the Messianic era in order to have dominion over the entire world, to rule over the gentiles, to be exalted by the nations, or to eat, drink, and celebrate. Rather, they desired to be free to involve themselves in Torah and wisdom without any pressures or disturbances, so that they would merit the world to come... In that era, there will be neither famine or war, envy or competition, for good will flow in abundance and all the delights will be freely available as dust. The occupation of the entire world will be solely to know God. Therefore, the Jews will be great sages and know the hidden matters, grasping the knowledge of their Creator according to the full extent of human potential, as Isaiah states: "The world will be filled with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the ocean bed”.

By the time we reach Moreh Nevuchim (3:11), the message is even more pronounced with the Messianic king not even gaining a single mention:

For through awareness of the truth, enmity and hatred are removed and the inflicting of harm by people on one another is abolished. It [Tanach] holds out this promise, saying “And the wolf shall dwell with the lamb…”. Then it gives the reason for this, saying that the cause of the abolition of these enmities, these discords and these tyrannies, will be humanity’s knowledge of God…

The primary and perhaps exclusive causes of warfare and misery are obsession with and competition over material possessions, power and pride. Once humanity is taught or becomes aware of this folly, its energies and capabilities will be channelled towards achieving universal happiness, thus “they will beat their swords into ploughshares…” and “your sons and daughters will prophesy”.

While we may at times look at the world and despair of such a destiny ever being achieved, Jewish tradition teaches that we must always be anticipating and working towards the fulfilment of these biblical promises. On this note, my wife Rivka Phillips pointed out how humanity’s predicament over the past year or so – which saw huge number of people under total lockdown and jobs, travel, schools, leisure and sports brought to a total standstill – would have been totally unthinkable only a few months before. Yet when we look back we can appreciate how all of this occurred in a perfectly rational and natural manner. So too we must maintain our firm belief – even within Rambam’s more naturalistic Messianic depiction – that humanity’s follies and misplaced focus can be reversed more speedily than we can ever imagine allowing us to progress towards the prophesied “world will be filled with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the ocean bed” .

First posted to Facebook 13 April 2020, here.

Rambam's Messiah or a dystopian nightmare?

Yesterday morning I sat reading a book review in The Economist of Deep Utopia – a novel by Nick Bostrom which contemplates a future era in which all human work and activity is rendered redundant by progress in AI and robotics. The reviewer was deeply troubled by the nightmarish scenario and implications of the “terrible boredom” which would ensue once humans no longer have to dedicate the majority of their hours to earning a living and performing necessary chores. 

What struck me is the stark contrast of this reviewer’s outlook to that of Rambam in the closing statements of his Mishneh Torah:

“The Sages and the prophets did not yearn for the Messianic era in order to have dominion over the entire world, to rule over the gentiles, to be exalted by the nations, or to eat, drink, and celebrate. Rather, they desired to be free to involve themselves in Torah and wisdom without any pressures or disturbances, so that they would merit the world to come, as explained in Hilchot Teshuvah.

In that era, there will be neither famine or war, envy or competition for good will flow in abundance and all the delights will be freely available as dust. The occupation of the entire world will be solely to know God.”

It got me wondering how enthusiastic talk of “wanting to bring Mashiach now” should be translated practically. While a lot of focus is understandably placed on maximizing mitzvah performance and debating how and when a Mikdash might be built, how much of our nation would regard the Messianic era of Rambam and our sages as a utopian blessing rather than dystopian dullness?

One separate matter that this book review might resolve is how to reconcile and interpret some other difficult sources regarding the Messianic era. In a famous passage (Berachot 35b, see further discussion in Judaism Reclaimed), Rabbi Yishmael interprets the blessing contained in the Shema of “And you shall gather in your grain” to be envisioning an ideal future of great abundance. Rabbi Shimon objects that this would hardly be a blessing: if the super-abundance means that we are required to spend all day gathering in grain “what will become of Torah study?!”. Rather, he contends, the true future blessing can be found in Yeshaya’s messianic vision in which we will be able to sit and study while “strangers” will happily and voluntarily till our land.

Who might such strangers be? If it refers to non-Jews, how is this then to be reconciled with a further messianic prophecy of Yeshaya which describes how the nations will rush to learn the word of God from the Jews?

Well, if Nick Bostrom’s vision comes to pass, the “zarim” (strangers) who are tasked with harvesting the abundance and feeding humanity will be mechanized robotic ones, programmed with just the right amount of intelligence for the job. (I’ve recently wondered, during my weekly farm-volunteering in Southern Israel, if Rabbi Shimon would have been placated had he seen people in the modern era picking fruit while listening to hours of Shiurim and Torah podcasts!).

Finally, there are those who raise the question as to whether AI developments could even influence or render redundant the Maimonidean messianic vision of sages dedicating endless hours to Torah study and absorbing divine wisdom. With expected advances of technology, they ask, would the sages not just be able to plug a computer chip into their brains and thus instantly possess all the requisite Torah knowledge?

To understand the fallacy of such an assumption, I believe, one first has to be aware of the nature and function of Torah study (a matter explored at length in a chapter of Talmud Reclaimed). Torah knowledge is not simply a set of facts, laws and statistics which can be memorized or uploaded from a computer drive. Rather, as sources as diverse as Rambam, the Ba’al HaTanya and Rav Soloveitchik show, it is a relationship with God and perspective on the world which arises from immersing oneself in sophisticated Talmudic analysis. From absorbing such wisdom and training one’s mind sufficiently, a person can come to look at the entire world differently – from a more divine perspective.

In fact for Rambam, such a process is critical as a prior stage before one enters the esoteric areas of the Torah known as “Pardes” (Hilchot Yesodei HaTorah 4:13).

It is hard to imagine that delegating one’s Torah study to a robot can even begin to achieve these benefits. There is a derogatory concept in rabbinic literature of “Chamor Nosei Seforim” (donkey loaded with books) which refers to a putative Torah scholar who has merely memorized numerous sources without having properly understood or internalized their meaning. What we can hope for is that the advent of AI makes information so ubiquitous that all Torah rote-learning becomes unnecessary. If this occurs, it could allow for a shift of focus in the Messianic era to analysis of more profound principles and a utopian era in which we are free to develop our minds to that our “sons and daughters will prophesy” – a vision which represents the pinnacle of Rambam’s Mishneh Torah and vision of Judaism.

First posted on Facebook 2 June 2024.