I am not a Jew, and I have only the very vaguest notion of Jewish theology. But from what I’ve read, they expect that the Messiah will fulfill all of the following 4 criteria (and even more) in one lifetime. (They do not believe the Christian notion that a Messiah can come first, die, wait 2,000+ years, then come back a second time - they believe it is all in one go.)
Rebuild the Temple (a very specific building).
Bring all Jews in the world back into the specific land of Israel.
Bring world peace and an end to disease, hunger, war, etc.
Make knowledge of God universal across the whole planet.
…and some other criteria I’m not sure of.
Now, I don’t expect that the third and fourth criteria can ever be fulfilled. But the first two are somewhat doable. By far the easiest one would be rebuilding the Temple in Jerusalem; that’s a piece of cake compared to all other criteria.
Surely, though, Jewish theologians must have considered that these criteria have been set up in such a way that multiple people can do it - if one man rebuilt the Temple, but another man brought all Jews in the world back to Israel? Then it would either debunk their idea of a Messiah, or suddenly now the Messiah is considered to be two people instead of one?
Weren’t people like Paul the Apostle Jews, at least originally? There are more recent examples like Chabad, and plenty of other Jewish cultic leaders, who believe their guy is the Messiah, etc.
Note that, for example, some Hassidic groups were ruled against in the 18th century so heresy/excommunication or ruling that such-and-such are not beliefs compatible with Rabbinical Judaism is a thing.
Rebuilding the temple and gathering all Jews to Israel without acheiving, you know, world peace would be neat but it would also be temporary. The temple can be destroyed again, another diaspora can happen.
The Messiah has a pretty specific job description. A person doing only some of it wouldn’t be the Messiah. That seems like a tautology.
Now if some guy managed to rebuild the temple and some other gal brought literal everlasting world peace, I would agree that we’d have a conundrum to chew over, and plenty of time to do it. Seems like a nice problem to have.
I’m pretty sure that having a group of people somewhat (and temporarily) fulfilling some of the requirements would not cause many Jews to use the word “messiah”.
Given that the site of the Temple is currently being occupied by the Al-Aqsa mosque complex, it would be prudent for any Messiah aspirants to make a lot of headway on world peace before starting construction.
I’m Maimonides/Rambam addressed this is his list of ‘Stuff ya gotta do if you’re the meshiach’. Sadly, all my books are still packed from a recent move.
Nice to see that the tradition of starting threads about arcana of Jewish theology on a Friday afternoon, just in time for frum-type Jewish Dopers not to be able to weigh in on them because Shabbat, is still active.
This. Really, in some ways, Judaism is all about contract law (as we’ve joked about in many a thread). The Covenant / Contract is the thing, and the whole of the thing sometimes, faith is more a “nice to have it”.
Greatly simplifying of course.
If the Messiah wants to subcontract out parts of their roles to others, well, we’re going to have to have some arbitration.
An orthodox Jew once explained to me that rebuilding the temple is impossible anyway, for only a priest (Jewish version) can consecrate it and a priest can be created only in a temple. He didn’t try to explain to me how the first and second versions came to be. Maybe god created them, but then he could do it a third time I suppose.
My imperfect understanding is that God drafted Moses’ brother Aaron for the job the first time around even before there was a Temple and they kept the line going through Temple II. Since that was destroyed and during the ensuing 2,000 years or so the Jews no longer have priests.
More factual or detailed answers will have to wait for after sundown on Saturday when the frum-types are back on line.
Some Jews who would like to have the Third Temple built and all that implies have been trying to breed such a cow. There are, if I recall, currently five “candidates” which have been shipped to Israel.
This has upset some equally religious Muslims who fear that this means their equally fervent Jewish counterparts are making plans to demolish the Muslim mosque and shrine currently occupying the spot where it is believed the Holy of Holies of the Jewish Temple is located. Well, yes, to build Temple III would require removing some current structures…
Well, the whole situation is a mess with too many people squabbling over the Holy Land and its Holy Places, and some even resorting to bloodshed over the matter.
Which is just one of many reasons I have no desire to visit that part of the world.
