| Choose Your Own Redeemer |
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| Written by Kate Ulansky | |||||
| Monday, 09 May 2005 | |||||
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Messianic Hopefuls Through the Ages Scores of fellows can claim to bear King David’s ancestral DNA. Yep, plenty of guys would love to usher the Jews into a new messianic age. But before you cast the role of redeemer, remember—he’s got to stay appealing for millenia. Will he be hot stuff in the spring and forgotton by fall? Will he be the subject of a damaging expose before his second blockbuster? To hone your savior-selecting skills, check out the pseudo-messiahs we’ve worshipped in the past. Our taste of yesteryear can be bewildering and sometimes downright shameful. Here’s hoping we’re a bit more choosy next time around. Shimon Bar Kochba: The Revolting Radical Big Break: Most Jews had little use for messianic speculation while they were sovereign in the land of Israel. When the Romans conquered and began persecuting Jews, though, we people of the book quickly changed our tune. As Shabbat observance, kosher food, and Jewish worship became illegal, desperation mounted, eschatological hopes soared, and a Jewish underground began to prepare for revolt. When Shimon Bar Kochba stepped forward to lead them, he was a shoe-in for savior. Talent Agent: Rabbi Akiva. The most famous rav of the era saw in his disciple the potential to restore the Jews to glory. Paparazzi Factor: After scoring Akiva’s endorsement, Bar Kochba gained immense support among the Jewish nation and took most of his followers to war with him. Career Longevity: While he did not crush the monstrosity that was second-century Rome, Bar Kochba inflicted serious damage on the Romans. But once the Romans took back the Jewish strongholds, Akiva’s protégé was dead meat. Legacy: After Bar Kochba’s devastating defeat, most Jews had no interest in messianic hopefuls for centuries. Moses of Crete: Erroneous Exodus Big Break: A Talmudic decree held that the world would end in 440 AD. So when the Roman empire began to crumble right around then, Jews were thirsty for messianic hopefuls, even if they turned out to be schnooks—like the guy wandering the island of Crete who said he was Moses. Talent Agent: None–Moses of Crete was a loner. He claimed that, like his chosen namesake, he would lead the Jews through a large body of water and back to the land of Israel. Paparazzi Factor: Immense. Moses’ PR campaign was so effective that Cretan Jews began selling off their possessions and preparing to be returned to their ancestral homeland. Career Longevity: Moses of Crete’s campaign turned out to be anything but long-lived. On the chosen day, his followers gathered at the edge of the sea and dutifully walked the plank. When their redeemer du jour failed to make the waters divide, most of Moses’ followers drowned, though a few were rescued by friendly fishermen. Legacy: After that day, Moishe was never heard from again. Isaac Luria: Red-String Redeemer Big Break: Sixteenth-century mystic Isaac Luria wasn’t your typical messianic pretender. Shy and retiring, he never claimed to be the redeemer—instead, he convened a gathering of talented disciples who secretly suspected he might be. Talent Agent: Several. Luria’s disciples at Tzfat included such renowned sixteenth-century kabbalists as Joseph Karo. Paparazzi Factor: Not so shabby. The lure of Luria’s powers helped to create the mystic community that guaranteed Tzfat’s standing as the Messiah’s first stop on his way down to earth. Career Longevity: Luria never emerged as Messiah, but his unpretentious willingness to be just another seminal mystic thinker allowed his philosophy to live on. Legacy: Not only did Luria first popularize what is now a Hollywood must-have, but his teachings have also had profound influence on the Chasidic and Jewish Renewal movements and on Jewish spirituality through the centuries. Shabbetai Tzvi: Prozac-Popping Pretender Big Break: Kissass, mood-swing mayven, and public relations behemoth, Shabbetai Tzvi has to be the most successful messianic pretender ever. The seventeenth-century manic-depressive managed to convince much of the world’s Jewish population that he’d be leading them into the world to come. Talent Agent: While living in Jerusalem, Tzvi was feeling out of sorts, and sought out self-proclaimed guru Nathan of Gaza for consolation. What he received was a possible explanation for his spiritual unrest: Nathan informed Tzvi that he was the Messiah. No wonder he felt a little ferklempt. Paparazzi Factor: Maybe it was the wedding ceremony he staged with himself as the groom and a Torah scroll as the bride, maybe it was his mood swings, maybe it was the self-assured attitude with which he appointed representatives of the twelve tribes of Israel in advance of the anticipated return. Maybe it was because Nathan said so. Whatever the reason, Tzvi attracted millions of followers from Scandinavia to his native Turkey. European Jews sold their possessions, packed their bags, and waited eagerly for the return to their spiritual homeland. Career Longevity: In 1665, the Ottoman Sultan caught wind of Tzvi’s popularity, summoned him to court, and presented him with an ultimatum: death or conversion. At the crucial moment, the would-be Jewish Messiah chose Islam, devastating his followers around the world. Legacy: Most Jewish leaders were so embarrassed by the debacle that they attempted to erase all traces of the messianic pretender. But Tzvi’s apostasy didn’t prevent a group of his followers from converting to Islam on the theory that anything their Messiah did was right. Known as the Donmeh sect of Islam, they are still waiting for vindication. Shukr Kuhayl: Messianic Moneybags Big Break: The late nineteenth century was a turbulent time in Yemen; the Jewish minority was rife with eschatological hopes, their messianic frenzy feeding off that of local Muslims. So when Shukr Kuhayl began wandering the countryside claiming to be the Jewish redeemer, he quickly became all the rage. Local Arabs killed him shortly afterwards, but just a few years later, an unrelated fellow named Yehudah Bar Shalom stepped in claiming to be Kuhayl himself. Kuhayl fans and even skeptics were soon convinced Bar Shalom was the reincarnation of their redeemer, and he embarked on a relentless campaign to win friends, influence people, and trigger the messianic age. Talent Agent: Many. Kuhayl II dispatched a vast network of messengers that spread the news of his imminence and levied a tax on his followers, claiming God had decreed the Jewish people should cough up in order to bring on the return to Israel. Paparazzi Factor: Massive. Jews were so desperate for a redeemer that they were even willing to pay a Messiah tax. Career Longevity: Eventually Rabbi Jacob Sapir, fed up, wrote a letter to the rabbis of Yemen, suggesting that perhaps the fellow whose pockets they were lining was not the Messiah. Kuhayl II never recovered from this blow to his reputation. Legacy: None to speak of. Kuhayl II died alone and in poverty. Lubavitcher Rebbe: Halachic Hopeful Big Break: When Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson embarked on his career as the seventh Lubavitcher leader shortly after World War II, he performed nothing short of a miracle: the resurrection of Orthodox Judaism after the Holocaust. Talent Agent: Schneerson’s rep was bolstered by many disciples and an immense Brooklyn-based community fond of plastering his photo onto Winnebagos. Paparazzi Factor: The Lubavitcher’s following is vast and worldwide, in some regions the only Jews around. Career Longevity: Going strong, posthumously; ten years after the Rebbe’s death, a spat went down at 770 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, worldwide headquarters of the Chabad Lubavitch movement. The cause of this throwdown, the Daily News reported, was a new plaque that some members of the community wanted to put on the building, in memory of their late great leader. Trouble was, honoring the Rebbe’s memory didn’t sit so well with Chasidim who believed the Rebbe wasn’t actually dead. Legacy: The Rebbe hasn’t come back. Yet.
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