Messiah (Moshiah) - the anoited one by God
messianic figures tend to appear at moments of despair and upheaval.
The earliest documented would-be Jewish messiahs began appearing a few centuries before the destruction of the Second Temple, during the late second century BCE, when Judea was under Roman control. It was a period of apocalyptic thinking and messianic expectations that God would deliver the Jews from Roman oppression, and Jewish history seemed to predict it.
The Talmud is filled with conflicting views about when and why the Messiah will come. It wasn't until Maimonides that any specific view was heralded as the Jewish belief about Messianism.
Maimonides established the doctrine as central to Judaism, including among his 13 principles of faith the directive that Jews must fully believe in the coming of the Messiah, no matter how long it takes. But recognizing the danger of heightened messianic expectations, Maimonides also preached patience.
1st Century - Jesus of Nazareth
- Jesus of Nazareth (ca. 4 BCE–30/33 CE), in Galilee and the Roman province of Judea. Jews who believed him to be the Messiah were the first Christians, also known as Jewish Christians. It is estimated that there are 2.5 billion Christians in the world today,[3] making Jesus of Nazareth the most widely followed, and most famous, Messiah claimant. Muslims also believe Jesus was the Messiah, but not the Son of God. Aside from the New Testament, Jesus of Nazareth is mentioned by Josephus in the Antiquities of the Jews and by Tacitus in his Annals
Shimon bar Kochba (2nd Century)
After crushing the rebellion in 132CE, the Romans waged an aggressive campaign to Hellenize Judea and more fully integrate Jews into the Roman empire. The Roman emperor Hadrian outlawed circumcision and ordered that a new Roman city be built on the ruins of Jerusalem. And for good measure, he erected a temple to the Roman God Jupiter on the ruins of the Second Temple.
Outraged, the Jews waged a guerrilla war against Roman forces occupying Judea. Their leader was Shimon Ben Kosiba, better known as Bar Kokhba. Not much is known about Ben Kosiba. According to documents discovered by the famous Israeli archeologist Yigal Yadin, he was a religious man and a ruthless military commander. According to legend, he threatened to retaliate against any Jew who refused to join his cause and demanded that recruits cut off their little finger to demonstrate their toughness and dedication. Ben Kosiba himself was rumored to have superhuman strength and be able to yank a tree from the ground with one hand.
What we know for certain is that the rebel leader was endowed with enough charisma and self-belief to raise an army large and powerful enough to push back Roman forces and retake most of Judea province. No less an authority than Rabbi Akiba renamed Ben Kosiba as Bar Kokhba, meaning “son of the star,” drawing from Numbers, chapter 24, verse 17: “A star shall come out of Jacob and a sceptre shall rise out of Israel.” The name Bar Kokhba has messianic connotations, and there's evidence that Rabbi Akiba did, indeed, consider Bar Kokhba to be the Messiah, and his rebellion the first stage in the dawning of a messianic age.
In 134 CE, a large Roman force crushed the rebellion and devastated the Jewish population. Around half a million Jews were killed — including Bar Kokhba — and many were enslaved. All the hope and excitement built up around Bar Kohkba's emergence as the Messiah dissolved, and Jews would not regain control over their ancestral land for more than 2000 years.
Bar Kokhba’s career is a good illustration of the dark, seductive side of messianism. The idea of the Messiah is aspirational, promising a better, brighter future. But in reality, the appearance of so-called messiahs, as in the case of Bar Kokhba, typically does not end well.
https://www.associationforjewishstudies.org/publications-research/adventures-in-jewish-studies-podcast/(false)-messiahs-messianism-in-jewish-history-and-thought-episode-transcript
5th Century - Moses of Crete
The unsuccessful conclusion of the Bar Kokba war put an end for a while to messianic movements.
In accordance with computations found in the Talmud, the Messiah was expected to appear in the years 440 (Sanh. 97b) or 471 ('Ab. Zarah 9b).
This expectation in connection with the disturbances in the Roman empire attendant upon invasions may have raised up hopes of the Messiah.
Moses of Crete appeared about this time and won over many Jews to his movement. He promised to lead the people, like the ancient Moses, dry-shod through the sea back to Israel. In about 440–470, his followers, convinced by him, left their possessions and waited for the promised day, when at his command many cast themselves into the sea to return to Israel, many found death while others were rescued.
The putative Messiah himself disappeared.[5] Socrates of Constantinople states that Moses of Crete fled, while the Chronicle of John of Nikiû claims that he perished in the sea. While he called himself Moses, the Chronicle gives his actual name as 'Fiskis'.[6]
John, Bishop of Nikiu, Chronicle (5th c. CE)
CHAPTER LXXXVI. 1. And there was a Jew named Fiskis who in his own person played the role of impostor, saying: 'I am Moses the chief of the prophets; for I have been sent from heaven by God. 2. I have come to conduct the Jews who dwell in this island through the sea, and I will establish you in the land of promise.' 3. And by these means he led them astray, saying unto them : 'I am he that delivered your fathers out of the hand of Pharaoh when they were in bondage to the Egyptians.' 4. And he spent an entire year in traversing Crete and proclaiming this event and leading them astray in all the cities and villages. 5. And he prevailed on them to abandon their industries and to despise their goods and possessions. And so they dissipated all that they had. 6. And when the day which he had fixed for leading them out drew near, he commanded them to come with their wives and children and follow him to the sea-shore, and cast themselves into the sea. And many perished, some through the fall and others from being engulfed in the depths of the sea. 7. But God who loves mankind had compassion on His creatures and saved them lest they should all perish by this hard fate. 8. And many Christians who were present on the spot at the time in order to see (what would happen) saved a large number from being drowned in the sea. The rest who had not cast themselves into the sea were saved by this means. 9. And when they saw that the false prophet had perished,161 engulfed in the sea, they recognized thereupon that he |104 was an impostor, and forthwith abandoned their erroneous belief.
The Dark Ages - 12th-13th centuries
In the 12th and 13th centuries CE., the Crusades lead to a radical revitalization of Messianism, and claimants range in the dozens.
Most famous of them all was Abraham ben Samuel Abulafia (b. 1240), who was an Italian Kabbalist. His studies of Zohar prompted him to believe himself to be a prophet at first and then the Messiah. He announced 1290 as the year of the Messiah. He was excommunicated by Italian congregations and his end is unknown. His end is unknown
17th Century - The Mystical Messiah - Shabbatai Tzvi
Born in Smyrna in the Ottoman Empire (present day Izmir, Turkey), 1626. Studied in Yeshiva of Smyrna, where he first studied Kabbalah and the works of the Ari Z"L from Tzfat during the 16th century.
In the wake of catastrophe from expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492, Luria and other Kabbalists felt pressure to restore the Jewish people, by hastening messianic redemption.
Shabbati Tzvi suffered from bipolar disorder and his manic episodes help explain some of his most bizarre behavior. He is ordained as a rabbi and begins to gain a following of Kabbalists. At 22, he makes his first Messianic claims. He does so by pronouncing the Tetragrammaton while leading prayer and study for his congregants. (only the High Priest on Yom Kippur is allowed to pronounce this name).
Tzvi also claimed he could fly but told his followers they were not worthy of witnessing such a display.
The Rabbis of Smyrna excommunicate him and exile him from Smyrna in 1651. He travels to Constantinople where me meets Abraham Yachini, who becomes a loyal follower and forges a manuscript that attests to Tzvi's claims called, "The Great Wisdom of Solomon," which reads as follows:
"I, Abraham, was confined in a cave for forty years, and I wondered greatly that the time of miracles did not arrive. Then was heard a voice of proclaiming, 'a son will be born in the Hebrew year 5386 (1626 CE) to Mordecai Tzvi; and he will be called Shabbatai. He will humble the great dragon; ... he, the true Messiah, will sit upon My throne."
Follower Nathan of Gaza, Levy declared himself to be Elijah the Prophet, risen from the dead.
He also declared that the next year, 1666, would begin the messianic age and that Shabbtai Zvi would lead the ten lost tribes of Israel back to the Promised Land.
Tzvi was unique because he carried his message beyond the Jewish in his community to both Sephardic and Ashekzik communities.
What Happened?
In 1666, he was arrested in Constantinople by Muslim authorities. Given a choice between being executed or converting to Islam, Zvi chose the latter. He was given the Muslim name Aziz Mehmed Effendi and lived for another decade, outwardly as a Muslim, but secretly still practicing Judaism, and according to some evidence, still believing that he was the Messiah.
Zvi's followers were devastated. Most abandoned their beliefs and returned to traditional Judaism, but many continued to believe in Shabbtai Zvi, refusing to give up hope. Some, who became known as the Dönmeh, which means “convert” in Arabic, followed Zvi’s example and converted to Islam, outwardly practicing Islam, but secretly still following Zvi’s brand of Judaism.
as many as a hundred people succumb to what's known as Jerusalem Syndrome, a type of psychosis that causes some who visit Jerusalem to have messianic delusions, often wrapping themselves up in white hotel sheets and wandering around the city saying Messiah-like things.
20th Century - Menachim Mendel Schneerson - 7th Rebbe of Lubavitch Hasidim
Born into a leading Hasidic family in 1902 in what is today Ukraine, Schneerson was, like Shabbtai Zvi, a Talmud prodigy. He immigrated to New York in 1941 to escape the Nazis, and in 1950, was named Rebbe of the Lubavitch sect. Soon he began making big changes, turning what had been a mostly insular community into an outreach organization that sent the Rabbi's followers out into the world to help Jews remake the world into a place of radical transformation and renewal.
Starting in the 1980s, an increasing number of his followers began to claim that the Rebbe was the Messiah.
Hasidic Judaism was built around the belief that the arrival of the Messiah was imminent, and that Jews are obligated to raise awareness of his coming.
his rise to prominence as a response of what happens in the wake of the Holocaust.
Rabbi Schneerson died in 1994. Still, many of his followers continue to believe that the Rebbe will one day rise and reveal himself in all his messianic glory.