On the one hand the neo-Nationalists deny any Messianic hopes. When that great leader, Theodor Herzl, started a Zionistic movement without claiming to be the Jewish Messiah, he was putting the seal on a far-reaching change in Jewish sentiment. Dr. J. H. Greenstone, who has just published an interesting volume on the Messianic Idea in Jewish History, writes (p. 276): 'After the first Basle Congress (1897), when Zionism assumed its present political aspect, Dr. Max Nordau, the vice-president of the Congress, found it necessary to address an article to the Hebrew-reading public, in which he disclaimed all pretensions of Messiahship for himself or for his colleague Dr. Theodor Herzl.' We have thus this extraordinary situation. Many orthodox Jews stood aloof from the Zionistic movement because it was not Messianic, while many unorthodox Jews joined it just because of the movement's detachment from Messianic ideas.
It may be well to cite Dr. Greenstone's verdict on the whole question, as the reader may care to have the opinion of so competent an authority whose view differs from that of the present writer. 'Sacred as Zionism is to many of its adherents, it cannot and will not take the place of the Messianic hope. Zionism aims at the establishment of a Jewish State in Palestine under the protection of the powers of Europe. The Messianic hope promises the establishment, by the Jews, of a world-power in Palestine to which all the nations of the earth will pay homage. Zionism, even in its political aspect, will fulfil only one phase of the Jewish Messianic hope. As such, if successful, it may contribute toward the full realisation of the hope. If not successful, it will not deprive the Jews of the hope. The Messianic hope is wider than the emancipation of the Jews, it is more comprehensive than the establishment of a Jewish, politically independent State. It participates in the larger ideals of humanity, the ideals of perfection for the human race, but it remains on Jewish soil, and retains its peculiarly Jewish significance. It promises universal peace, an age of justice and of righteousness, an age in which all men will recognise that God is One and His name One. But this glorious age will come about through the regeneration of the Jewish people, which in turn be effected by a man, a scion of the house of David, sent by God to guide them on the road to righteousness. The people chosen by God to be His messengers to the world will then be able to accomplish their mission of regenerating the world. This was the Messianic hope proclaimed by the prophets and sages, and this is the Messianic hope of most Jews to-day, the difference between the various sections being only a difference in the details of the hope' (op. cit., p. 278).
Dr. Greenstone surely cannot mean that the question of a 'personal Messiah' is a mere detail of the belief. Yet it is on that point that opinion is most divided among Jews. The older belief undeniably was what Dr. Greenstone enunciates. But for this belief, none of what Mr. Zangwill aptly terms the 'Dreamers of the Ghetto' would have found the ready acceptance that several of them did when they presented themselves as Messiah or his forerunners. And no doubt there are many Jews who still cling to this form of the belief.
On the other hand, there has been a slow but widespread tendency to reinterpret the whole intention of the Messianic hope of Judaism. In 1869, and again in 1885, American Conferences of liberal Rabbis adopted resolutions to the following effect: 'The Messianic aim of Israel is not the restoration of the old Jewish State under a descendant of David, involving a second separation from the nations of the earth, but the union of all children of God in the confession of the unity of God, so as to realise the unity of all rational creatures and their call to moral sanctification.' This view sees in the destruction of the Temple and the dispersal of Israel not a punishment but a stage in the fulfilment of Israel's destiny as revealed to Abraham. Israel is High-Priest, and can only fulfil his mission in the close neighbourhood of those to whom he is elected to minister.
This, no less than the non-Messianic Zionism, is a considerable change from older beliefs. As a Messianic hope it transcends the visions of Isaiah. The prophet looks forward to an ideal future, a reign of peace and felicity, but the nations are to flow to Zion. The significance of the change lies in this. The Messianic idea now means to many Jews a belief in human development and progress, with the Jews filling the role of the Messianic people, but only as primus inter pares. It is the expression of a genuine optimism. 'Character, no less than Career,' said George Eliot, 'is a process and an unfolding.' So with the Character of mankind as a whole. But this idea of development, unfolding, is quite modern in the real sense of the terms; it is something outside the range even of the second Isaiah. Judaism was never quite sure whether to join the ranks of the 'laudatores temporis acti,' or to believe that man never is but always to be blest. On the one hand, the person of Adam was endowed with perfections such as none of his successors matched. On the other hand, the Golden Age of Judaism, as Kenan said, was thrown forward into the future. That on the whole Judaism has taken the prospective rather than the retrospective view, is the sole justification for the modern conception of the Messianic Age which is fast becoming predominant in the Synagogue. The Synagogue does not share the Roman poet's sentiment:
'A race of men baser than their sires
Gave birth to us, a progeny more vile,
Who dower the world with offspring viler still';
but the English poet's trust:
'Yet I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs,
And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns.'
Denouncing the 'Calculators of the End,' a Rabbi said (Sanh. 97 b): 'All the computed terms have passed, and the matter dependeth now on repentance and good deeds' (cf. S. Singer, The Messianic Idea in Judaism, pp. 1 and 18)
If, however, Israel is not destined to a Restoration, if the Jewish Mission is the propagation of an idea, on what ground is the continued existence of Israel as a separate organisation defensible or justified? Israel is indestructible, said Jehuda Halevi in the twelfth century; certainly Israel is undestroyed. When Frederick the Great asked what should make him believe in God, he received in answer, 'the survival of the Jews.' Dr. Guttmann of Breslau not long since put forward a similar plea in vindication of the continued significance of Judaism. In nature all forms die when their utility is over; in history, peoples succumb when their work in and for the world is complete. Shall, he asks, we recognise Judaism as the solitary exception, as the unique instance of the survival of the unfit and the unnecessary?