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Israel, the Messiah, and the World

Terry Sampson

Well-Known Member
Note: this is in "Interfaith Discussion". No debating allowed.

For the record, I'm not an avid student or fan, for that matter, of Messianic and/or "End-Times" (eschatological) speculations. At my age, when I think of "the end-times", my own personal "end-time" tends to loom into view.


My reason for posting in the "Interfaith Discussion" forum has been to broaden the participant base, but to restrain the nature of the participation. My purpose in this thread is to share one Jew's speculation, which intrigued me.

The future of Israel, Messiah and the World (the Jewish version)
  • My take on the article: It's a doozy.
 

sun rise

The world is on fire
Premium Member
The horrible vision in the referenced article is one view. Wikipedia has what for me is a good page discussing the view of various Jewish groups on the question Messiah in Judaism - Wikipedia

There are two sections of that article that stood out for me as I've highlighted below:

Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the last Rebbe of Chabad-Lubavitch, declared often that the Messiah is very close, urging all to pray for the coming of the Messiah and to do everything possible to hasten the coming of the Messiah through increased acts of kindness

From the Conservative part of that page:
Though some of us accept these speculations as literally true, many of us understand them as elaborate metaphors ... For the world community we dream of an age when warfare will be abolished, when justice and compassion will be the axioms of interpersonal and international relationships and when, in Isaiah's words (11:9) "...the land shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea." For our people, we dream of the ingathering of all Jews to Zion where we can again be masters of our destiny and express our distinctive genius in every area of our national life.... We affirm Isaiah's prophecy (2:3) that "...Torah shall come forth from Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. ... We do not know when the Messiah will come, nor whether he will be a charismatic human figure or is a symbol of the redemption of humankind from the evils of the world. Through the doctrine of a messianic figure, Judaism teaches us that every individual human being must live as if he or she, individually, has the responsibility to bring about the messianic age. Beyond that, we echo the words of Maimonides based on the prophet Habakkuk (2:3) that though he may tarry, yet do we wait for him each day.[46]


One final comment on this sentence fragment from the OP article that to me is one that to me is the most accurate.
he’s nothing what they expected to see in a messiah
 

Hellbound Serpiente

Active Member
This version of end times sounds way better and would make the world much better place than the fate of the world described in Islamic and Christian end times. I hope this one is true.
 

IndigoChild5559

Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
Note: this is in "Interfaith Discussion". No debating allowed.

For the record, I'm not an avid student or fan, for that matter, of Messianic and/or "End-Times" (eschatological) speculations. At my age, when I think of "the end-times", my own personal "end-time" tends to loom into view.


My reason for posting in the "Interfaith Discussion" forum has been to broaden the participant base, but to restrain the nature of the participation. My purpose in this thread is to share one Jew's speculation, which intrigued me.

The future of Israel, Messiah and the World (the Jewish version)
  • My take on the article: It's a doozy.
It's an easy take. I am not sure if it will happen precisely that way, especially in that order.

The one thing I do take issue with is that the author believes we are in the end times now -- he believes the messiah will appear sometime in the next 50 years. I don't think that at all.

For one thing, Israel is currently making peace with its former enemies. I think this process will continue, and the entire middle east will be rewritten. The new alliances will do several things.
1. It will create a solid block against Iran, the only real threat to Israel.
2. It will pressure Israel back into a two state solution.
3. It will force the Palestinians into finally accepting the legitimacy of Israel as a permanent Jewish state -- the lack of which has been the single greatest obstacle to peace thus far.
4. At least in the treaty with the UAE, part of the bargain has been to allow prayers by non-Muslims on the Temple Mount, something heretofore unimagined.
 
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