Brief Alignment

So that we remain on the same page...

We are discussing messianism, the messianic idea, anything messianic. We are a bit confused by all these different uses of the same term. We want to get to the bottom of it, so we embarked on a journey to see where and how it evolved. 

We did this by observing milestone developmental stations - biblical roots, early Christian outbreak prototype case, and the synthesis thereafter by rabbinic literature sorting traditions and normalizing them. 

Then we skipped to another sequence of kabbalistic roots with new terms and concepts, and then the Sabbatian outbreak and case of a twisted late medieval or pre-modern kabbalistic messianic movement, and then the following case of Hasidism managing or normalizing kabbalistic messianic concepts.

Now we are picking up on another important case, often associated in more ways than one, with messianism - that is Zionism, the modern Jewish nationalism, which is in some aspects messianic. 

Later on we will discuss more interesting bits and ideas, but at this point - you as a reader should be able to come across some presentation of messianism, and roughly associate it with context, phenomena, historical milestones, mixed influences, etc. from this series. 

If Then You Might Be

For example, if you encounter a book or pamphlet on messianism, Jewish, on the Messiah, you might see that it is a religious ideological book, mixing some traditional messianic ideas from the Bible through Rabbinic literature, with some Kabbalistic and Hasidic elements, leaving out of course anything that would sound too Christian or Sabbatian, at least trying to… and perhaps sounding like someone who is a fan of Nachman of Breslev, with or without saying so. 

Or you might come across a political statement that one camp or figure is messianic, and understand that that is a twist, a rhetorical jab of course, from a secularist aimed at a religious person or trend, saying it or he or she is dangerous, crazy, and what not - and you would know that it has not too much to do with actual messianism, but the association is a historical aversion to historical messianic movements or any activistic or religious movement, in other words the messianism terminology is used in an unoriginal manner for political rhetorical purposes, but picks up off on the messianic as a dangerous thing, like Sabbatianism, and what price the Jews paid for that crazy thing. 

Or you might hear of a messianic figure in a novel, that is playing off of a historical figure, that had something to do with messianism, like Shlomo Molkho, and you could read it, and understand the difference between the ideas associated in modern times with messianism and the ideas that the historical messianic figure of sorts actually engaged. You get the idea, you will