As we ease into the 21st Century, many people are worried about Messianic Madness. There are plenty of nuts out there, convinced of the immanent arrival of a Messiah who will swoop out of the sky on a white donkey and miraculously save us and transform the world into Paradise. And there are plenty of fundamentalist religious fanatics preparing for the terror and mayhem predicted by various apocalyptic prophecies and end-of-days beliefs.
This is certainly something to be concerned about, especially here in Israel. Jerusalem is a spiritual magnet that draws droves of messianic maniacs to its holy sites. Throughout Jewish history many innocent people have been harmed by the hysteria, confusion and disillusionment caused by false Messiahs and warped belief-systems.
It's easy to understand why people are attracted to visions of Paradise, to belief-systems which teach that the world will be a more perfect place in 'the end of days' - 'when the Messiah comes'. It's good to be optimistic, to hope and pray for the 'story of the world' to have a happy ending, and to seek visions of a bright future for our planet.
But messianic visions and prophecies usually contain apocalyptic horrors - Armageddon, Gog and Magog - World War III, Death and Destruction on a global scale - before the 'remaining few' attain Salvation and Eternal bliss. Thus the danger of messianic-vision-seekers becoming schizophrenic or bipolar - hopeful and starry-eyed from the Light which will shine in the End of Days, but fearful of the Darkness, Destruction and Death which necessarily precedes Messiah's arrival.
Here's my prescription for avoiding this malady. If Messiah means a bright future for us individually and collectively, isn't this ultimately what all vision-seekers want? But does this bright future have to come about only according to the script and scenario prophesied in the messianic visions of my favorite religion or belief-system? If we reached the bright future in a way I didn't expect or anticipate, would I be able to realize that I am living right now in the bright Present and accept and appreciate this fact?
Both the ancient mystical teachings of the Kabbalah and the modern world-view of contemporary Science present us with a vision of this world transforming and evolving constantly, and in an infinite number of different ways. And this incredible creative process is happening all the time, whether we're aware of it or not. Scientific theories of evolution show a highly creative and innovative evolutionary drive in nature. Kabbalists see this creative drive as God uniting with Creation in one great partnership, one gradual process of Tikkun Olam (repairing the world) which organizes and pushes all Life toward greater complexity and ever-higher orders of consciousness.
So this world is indeed 'getting better all the time'. But chaos and entropy also have a part in the story. They dissolve and break down the order and organization of tikkun, and thus in this physical world - 'it can get much worse' (and often does). Both principles are true, because it's getting better all the time and it's getting worse all the time too. In fact, it can't get better unless it gets worse first.
Order is always plucked out of chaos. There are always two opposite currents flowing through the Universe, the 'upward' push of organization and order (Tikkun, Life); and the 'downward' pull of entropy and breakdown (Chaos, Death). All change and growth is always both good news and bad news. Ken Wilber calls this truth 'the dialectic of progress'.
Good News and Bad News
The modern world-view sees this Universe as being so vast, complex, and dynamically interconnected that literally an infinite amount of changes are happening right now (or at any moment of time). How this world is changing and evolving, producing incredible and countless forms of complex life-forms, possessing inquisitive minds, and holy souls is awesome and amazing. The first prescription for messianic health is for a little humility - to acknowledge that the details of the global transformation and evolution which is talking place right now are beyond the capacity of any mind to grasp fully.
Messianic Madness is thinking that its possible to know and predict how the world will achieve the messianic transformation into the Paradise we are hoping for. I am deluded if I believe that I can predict all that the future will bring, and especially if I think that I have the only recipe for the bright future that will be when Messiah comes. When this form of Messianic Madness is severe, its symptoms can include violent and hateful acts against anything perceived as standing in the way of my Messiah and the new order that I want him to bring to the world.
The kabbalistic writings of Rabbi Moshe Chayim Luzzatto can help cure this delusion, because they present Messiah not as one enlightened being, a leader of men who will bring us Salvation, but rather as a higher consciousness that gradually pervades humanity more and more as we evolve and grow. According to Luzzatto, the messianic era is the culmination of one huge evolutionary learning process which was conceived with the Universe, born with the emergence of Life, and becomes mature when Humanity easily achieves Divine Inspiration (Ruach Hakodesh). As the prophet Joel said in the name of God, "And it shall come to pass afterwards, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. Your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions" (Joel 3).
Just as Life gradually evolved from inanimate matter, and human Minds evolved from Life, we are collectively evolving into a higher Spiritual state of consciousness. Humanity is slowly and gradually becoming wiser and more compassionate, and is gradually learning the truth about how complex, beautiful and awe-inspiring the Universe really is. Messianic consciousness is this realization, called Divine Inspiration or Ruach Hakodesh or Holy Spirit. We are gradually collectively evolving into this realization more and more - but some individuals are aware of it and some are not.
A Gradual Process Rather Than a Sudden Event
This 'Spirit of Messiah' has been flowing through Matter, Life, and Mind from the very beginning of Time. Even when "the earth was chaos, confusion and darkness" - not yet born - "the Spirit of God (Ruach Elohim) was hovering over the face of the waters" (Genesis 1), protecting this world from the destructive forces of entropy and guiding it toward Tikkun. And this same Spirit flows through all Life, expressing itself in a myriad of different ways, which are constantly new and bursting with creativity, as humanity learns, grows and evolves - individually and collectively.
When Joel the prophet said, "And it shall come to pass afterwards, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy" (Joel 3) the next thing he said is , "And I will exhibit wonders in the heavens and on the earth - blood and fire, and pillars of smoke; the sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the coming of the great and the terrible day of the Lord" (Joel 3). We see these kinds of signs and wonders all around us now. The 20th Century has produced an incredible amount of darkness and horror - smoke, fire and blood. Destructive weapons in the hands of people filled with hate, and our over-consuming and polluting of our planet have made this ancient apocalyptic vision into a very real contemporary nightmare.
The good news is that just as the darkness of this destructive madness is commonplace and real for us today, the accessibility of deeper and higher states of consciousness is real and widespread today as well. There are many ways available for us to resonate more with God's creative Spirit, and attain Ruach Hakodesh (Divine Inspiriation). We can choose to stop fixating on the downward pull of chaos and death and align ourselves with the upward thrust of Tikkun and Life. This world is always dancing on the beautiful and complex edge between chaos and order anyway, the revolving double-edged sword of Life and Death. Why focus on only one side of the coin, the 'bad news', when progress is always dialectical? If we pay attention and appreciate how far we have progressed already, we can find the other side of the coin, the 'good news' that God's Spirit is bringing us each and every day.
The more we learn to accept and appreciate this world exactly as it is, the more we are able to experience messianic consciousness. As we move into the 21st Century, part of the good news is the amount of wisdom available to us from all over the globe. The mind-blowing discoveries of the modern sciences (like Big Bang cosmology, relativity, quantum mechanics, chaos theory and complexity) present us with a view of a Universe that spans billion of light-years and is infinitely creative, innovative, and self-regulating. In our modern world-view, sub-atomic particles, atoms, molecules, cells, living creatures, planets, stars, galaxies, Space and Time all partake in a cosmic dance which takes place in the complex and beautiful fractal spaces between order and chaos - the dialectic of evolution.
We now also have access to integrative wisdom which comes from many different spiritual disciplines and contemplative practices - wisdom which at one time was a closely guarded secret known only to a chosen few. These wisdom traditions include ancient spiritual world-views and meditative techniques, Kabbalah, Buddhism, Tai-Chi, Yoga, Sufism, Christian mysticism, Native American vision quests, and a great many new, holistic, New-Age therapies and practices. Many of these practices are now quite popular and they help people learn to revere Life, to realize our interconnectedness and interrelatedness, to become wiser, more compassionate and kind, more accepting of whatever challenges the Universe presents us with, more able to attain the higher-consciousness perspectives traditionally associated with the Spirit of Messiah. The availability of all of this information now - both the objective data of scientists and the subjective experiences of saints and sages throughout history - make messianic consciousness much easier to attain now, and for more people than ever before.
So, according to Rabbi Moshe Chayim Luzzatto, Messiah is not one fantastic event that happens in only one moment of time (a white knight swooping down out of the clouds, who instantly saves the day) but one great evolutionary learning process which is constantly unfolding in every moment of Time. Always Tikkun and Life are being brought out of chaos and Death itself, always good news is being brought out of the bad news itself. In this way each moment of Time reveals more of the Spirit of Messiah. There is no crystal-clear blast of trumpets to herald the bright future for everyone at once. It is up to us to see the messianic currents that flow through each and every moment of Time.
I believe that being aware of this is the first step to entering into a grounded messianic vision. It prevents the unstable frenzy and confusion that is often involved in trying to find the revelation of the one Messiah in one particular moment of Time. Has it already happened? Will it only happen in the distant future? Or maybe it will happen in the very next moment, or maybe tomorrow...aaahhh! Messianic Madness strikes again.
The second step is opening up to the possibility of there being a great many Messiahs, not just my favorite one. Rabbi Eliyahu of Vilna (the 18th Century talmudic and kabbalistic genius, also known as the Vilna Goan) presented a messianic vision in which there are many 'Messiahs'. He taught that there are three levels of Messiah, the first of which is not a person at all, but a spiritual evolutionary process or angel - the Spirit or consciousness of Messiah that we have been discussing. This Spirit of Messiah has been riding in the Universe and guiding it from its very inception to its enlightened and inspired conclusion.
The second level of Messiah includes the great leaders and visionaries who are able to embody a large amount of the Spirit of Messiah. The thoughts, words and actions of these Messiahs have a great influence in the world and helps humanity make evolutionary quantum-leaps towards enlightenment. The third level of Messiah is the messianic Spirit which rests in everybody's heart - what each one of us thinks, says, and does to bring about a better world.
Messiah Son of Joseph and Messiah Son of David
The Vilna Gaon had a specific practical plan for the redemption of the Jewish People, which is recorded in a remarkable document called Kol HaTor (the Voice of the Turtledove). He sent pioneers from Lithuania to the Holy Land in the late 18th and early 19th Century, a time when Palestine was desolate, to establish collective settlements based on Truth and Equality. These early orthodox, scholarly settlers came with a five-hundred-year plan for the unfolding of Messiah.
These five-hundred years began in 1740 CE (when both Luzzatto and the Vilna Goan were alive) - the sunrise of the sixth millennium according to the Hebrew calendar. The first two hundred and fifty years of this messianic process, (until 1990), involves gathering the exiled Jewish people back to their homeland (Israel) building a just and kind collective society of inspired, enlightened people who passionately seek Truth both through the revelations of the mysteries of the Torah (Kabbalah) and through the knowledge of the Natural Sciences. This 250-year period is associated with Messiah son of Joseph. The final 250 years which complete this 500-year plan (1990 - 2240) is associated with Messiah son of David.
A 500-year unfolding of a messianic era means that many leaders and individuals are necessary for this to happen. No one leader, no matter how great and holy, can do it all. The Spirit of Messiah (level one) has to be embraced, embodied and expressed by many level-two Messiahs, and ultimately by all of us level-three Messiahs who live during this 500-year process.
The Vilna Goan referred to a famous messianic vision from the Zohar, which says that in the year 1840, the "wellsprings of the great deep will burst forth and the floodgates of the heavens will open" (Genesis 7:11). The world is then 'flooded' with lower Wisdom which rises from below, and upper Wisdom which descends from above. The Vilna Goan taught that the 'lower Wisdom' is the proliferation of the Natural Sciences and that the 'upper Wisdom' is the spreading of the mystical secrets of the Kabbalah.
Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook (1865-1935) also wrote about the Messiah as a gradual process with two complementary halves. He related Messiah son of Joseph to nationalism, and Messiah son of David to a more complete messianic stage where Israel will join together with all the other nations as one 'family' whose consciousness is finally mature enough to achieve a "purer language" (Ruach Hakodesh, Divine Inspiration), and "all call upon the Name of God" (Zefanya 3:9), each in their own way. He wrote that the lesson of the Messiah is that all peoples and all religions should recognize that they draw their Inspiration from the same Infinite and Eternal Source. This Inspiration is then expressed through each nation's own unique histories, language, literature, art, etc. The world is richer because of all of this diversity, and therefore there is no need for jealously, hatred or war.
Joseph and David are also traditionally associated with the two kingdoms of Israel that developed after the death of King Solomon. The northern kingdom was ruled in Samaria by a king from the tribe of Joseph, and the southern kingdom, Judea, was ruled by a descendent of David who was from the tribe of Judah. The northern kingdom did not follow the Torah from the very beginning, they even went so far as to worship golden calves. This kingdom (Joseph) was materially well organized and excelled in the more mundane aspects of governing and providing for the material needs of the people; whereas the southern kingdom was faithful to the Torah and excelled in spiritual pursuits. Unfortunately, throughout their rule, as recorded in the Book of Kings, these two kingdoms were mostly at each other's throats.
One of the main biblical sources for these two messianic Spirits, Joseph and David, has to do with the uniting of these two 'kingdoms' in the messianic era. The prophet Ezekiel is told to take two sticks that represent Joseph and David and to "join them together into one stick, so that they are one in your hand" (Ezekiel 37:17). The prophet is then told to say to the people of Israel, "Thus says God the Lord: Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the nations into which they have gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them to their own land. I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel. One king will be king over them all, and they will no longer be two nations, and no longer divided into two kingdoms" (Ezekiel 37:21-22).
Now that Jews have returned to the land of Israel, it is unfortunate that we are again dividing ourselves into two 'kingdoms', one religious and one secular (or one nationalistic and one universalistic). Hopefully, we will learn to embody both complementary halves of the Spirit of Messiah and see that our spiritual aspirations need a strong material foundation, and that our material pursuits need the depth and meaning that are provided by a spiritual life, so that the two Messiahs can be brought together as one again. With the right kind of perspective and world-view, we can begin to cure ourselves of the schizophrenic split that has caused such division among the Jewish people for so long, so that all forms of messianic madness will eventual be healed.
