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Messianism Scholar Gershom Sholem Analysis

1027 Words5 Pages

Messianism has continued to evolve throughout centuries, but the contrasts between Jewish and Christian concepts of redemption have remained the same. As opposed to the Christian internal perspective of redemption, Judaism views it externally as a communal event shown in public to the visible world. The Jewish community continues to strive towards its end goal of fulfillment, yet the tensions in comprehending the relationship of rabbinic Judaism and the Messianic idea have led to confusion. In one of the most significant essays regarding Messianism, “Toward An Understanding of the Messianic Idea in Judaism,” Scholar Gershom Scholem clarifies any uncertainty by uncovering the hidden field of Jewish Messianism. By utilizing various texts and …show more content…

There is a hope held by Messianists to reverse time to ancestral life of the original state of existence. Scholem also draws attention to the concept of tikkun, which is the re-establishment of the ideal circumstances of the past. Not only do restorative forces highlight the desired perfection of the past, but they also look forward to the future, inspired by a utopian vision, which aims to achieve complete fulfillment. Essentially, Messianic time spans from the origin to the end of the days, where there is hope for the coming of the …show more content…

He uses the examples of Amos’ Day of the Lord and Isaiah’s visions to prove that human action is worthless in bringing about redemption. Scholem exercises the verse in Song of Songs 2:7 that commands, “do not awaken or stir up love until it is ready” to further stress his warning. Scholed continues to deepen his message with similar messages from Rabbi Helbo and author of Fourth Ezra who share the same attitude regarding the relation between human action and salvation. Furthermore, he explains the legend of Rabbi Joseph de la Reyna, who also experiences failure in bringing about salvation by pressing for the

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One phenomenon, one dictator, and one country would change the life of a fifteen year old Jew forever. Stripped of his home in Transylvania and forced on copious deportation trains traveling to multiple concentration camps, Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night explores the treacherous and horrific life of a Jew during the Holocaust. Through the traumatizing punishments and lifestyle of concentration camps, a faithful and loyal boy metamorphosed into a selfish and unfaithful man. Early on in his childhood, Elie was immensely devoted to his faith, so far as “...finding a master... in the person of Moishe the Beadle”(Wiesel 4). To have a master meant that he would have a religious mentor to help him study Kabbalah, thus allowing him to interpret the Bible for himself.

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In conclusion, in the memoir Night, Elie Wiesel utilizes the suffering and adversity of Jews during the Holocaust in order to present how when faith in God is lost, a person can continue to progress in life or not, but they will only be able to if they have hope and faith in themselves. The book illustrates that without God, one must still be able to live a satiated life and be able to procure self-motivation. In the lives of Jews during the Holocaust, as well as people today, no matter what religion one has faith in, when faith in that is lost due to hardships, one must be able to find hope in other places. This is not to say that following a religion is useless, but instead to relay the message that in addition to faith in something else,

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The observation of Jewish religion is a routinely act that is fixed into Jewish law. During countless events in the book, Night, Jews lost their religious faith. For example in Night, a devout man named Akiba Drumer truly believed in God. He thought God was testing the Jews however as time went on his faith deteriorated and it cost him his life. Throughout history the Jews have been persecuted, slaughtered, and tormented for their religious beliefs.

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Due to to the atrocities witnessed and experienced during the Holocaust, Elie Wiesel, a once deeply religious individual, loses his faith in God, himself, and mankind. “For the first time, I felt anger rising in me. Why should I sanctify His name? The Almighty, the eternal and terrible Master of the Universe, chose to be silent. What was there to thank Him for.”

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The young boy whose dream of learning about his religion is gone. Wiesel now sees himself as a stranger of the Jewish community. Since God has gone silent to every Jew in the camps Wiesel takes a different view of his daily prayers. Wiesel once said “ In the midst of these men assembled for prayer, I felt like an observer, a stranger.” (Wiesel, Pg 68)

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When it comes to knowing and learning the religions of the world one must approach them with a critical mind. One cannot simply just believe every religion and know have their own view points. David Van Biema presents his ideas about Christianity and Jesus in “The Gospel Truth?”. Van Biema’s main point is about how “Matthew, Mark, Luke and John… is notoriously unreliable,” . Van Biema writes about how one cannot be completely sure about whether to believe if Jesus actually said what is written in the bible, he continues to say that Jesus may even be an “imaginative theological construct” .

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Elie Wiesel’s writing has imparted the value of retaining individual memory with me. Throughout Wiesel’s lecture, one major point is reinforced throughout the entirety of the reading. He begins his lecture with an old tale regarding Judaism, eventually

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The holocaust is among the most gruesome genocides to this day. On the flip side, this makes it a great time period to observe how faithful individuals can stay, in the most troublesome situations imaginable. In Night, by Elie Wiesel, the author details his own experience in Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust. Throughout the story, it is evident that many individuals in the camps desired that religion and faith would come to their rescue. Despite Elie’s religious background, due to the horrors the holocaust is famous for today, his own relationship with god, and his own Jewish identity became rather foggy.

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He claims, “You hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it... you have...nothing to lay hold of to save yourself, nothing too keep off the flames of wrath, nothing of your own, nothing that you have ever done, nothing that you can do, to induce God to spare you one moment” (21). Through the use of repetition, the preacher emphasizes his belief that there is nothing man can do to avoid the wrath of God. However, he believes there is a way to lessen that wrath.

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