Rachel<\/strong><\/p>\n Here\u2019s a question, and feel free to ignore it if it feels too personal (it almost does tome): do you believe in the coming of the Mashiach, e resurrection of the dead, the everlasting Third Temple? It\u2019s part of our prayers, it\u2019s been part of\u00a0Jewish thought for millennia, but do you believe?<\/p>\n I feel like personally, I believe in it in sort of an \u201cof course\u201d way, I\u2019ve never questioned its existence, but it also doesn\u2019t really affect my daily life very much \u2014 I don\u2019t think about it on a day-to-day basis, and it seems somewhat impractical compared to other structures of\u00a0Jewish\u00a0life. It\u2019s more than a superstition to me, but it\u2019s also so irrelevant to my daily life that I don\u2019t really think about it. Just because it\u2019s not a personally relevant belief doesn\u2019t mean I want to discard it, though\u2026so I\u2019m conflicted.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n Anat<\/strong><\/p>\n Ever since I became comfortable with my atheism (age 17) I no longer hold any supernaturalistic beliefs, which includes anything interesting happening to oneself after one dies (that was a relief) as well as there being some pre-designated fate in future history for any group of people. Just to make sure our readers understand. Before that \u2013 as a child I more or less accepted whatever belief that was presented to me as what \u2018we\u2019 believe, or are supposed to. In my teens I was working on trying to make those beliefs work within a scientific worldview. Hence atheism.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n Hilary<\/strong><\/p>\n Regarding resurrection of the dead \u2013 like I mentioned, I hadn\u2019t even heard of it growing up and I can\u2019t quite take the thought of a righteous zombie uprising seriously.\u00a0 However, it was interesting to learn about how that idea developed in \u201cJewish\u00a0views of the Afterlife.\u201d\u00a0 Ditto for praying for the return of the Temple and sacrifices; I am totally fine with them never coming back.\u00a0 They\u2019re interesting to learn about, what they were, what type of world that was, how we got from there to here, but I\u2019m going with Ben Zakkai\u2019s advice after the Temple was destroyed, \u201cWe have other means of atonement, charity and acts of loving kindness.\u201d<\/p>\n About the Messiah, a literal belief in some great Messiah coming to save us, re-create Israel, bring all the\u00a0Jews\u00a0there to live in peace and generally create peace throughout the world was another traditional view Reform ditched from its beginning.\u00a0 Instead we get the \u2018Messianic Era\u2019 of universal brotherhood and peace, which we as\u00a0Jews\u00a0are supposed to work for \u2018as a light unto the nations.\u2019\u00a0 The other way I\u2019ve heard the Messianic age described is that we have to do the work of healing the world in order to bring the\u00a0Messiah to us.\u00a0 This taps into Tikkun Olam \u2013 bringing together the broken pieces of the world to make them whole, and help bring a little more peace into the world. \u201cThey shall beat their swords into plowshares, their spears into pruning hooks.\u00a0 Nation shall not rise sword against nation, nor shall they study war . . . All shall sit under their fig tree, and none shall be afraid.\u201d<\/p>\n I have\u00a0a couple\u00a0of opinions on this:<\/p>\n 1. It\u2019s\u00a0a\u00a0good way to describe our covenant with God as a partnership, where\u00a0each side (God and the people of Israel) both had responsibilities to fulfill, but \u00a0needed the other to work together in order to fulfill the promise of a world at peace.<\/p>\n 2.\u00a0 It\u2019s\u00a0also a very good\u00a0way to inspire\/manipulate\/guilt trip\u00a0liberal\u00a0Jews\u00a0to try and\u00a0solve everybody else\u2019s problems,\u00a0without too closely examining our own.<\/p>\n 3.\u00a0 It makes\u00a0us feel good about ourselves for all the important social justice work we did because that\u2019s what Judaism was, to the point of sometimes feeling like that was\u00a0all that Judaism was, social justice with some Hebrew thrown in.*<\/p>\n 4.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s a\u00a0cop\u00a0out, where we have to do all the hard work of fixing things down here, and only then would the\u00a0Messiah show up and be like,\u00a0\u201cHey,\u00a0I\u2019m here now \u2013 the party can\u00a0finally get started!\u201d\u00a0And we\u2019re all too tired from the centuries of hard work to overcome all the hate, fear, greed and evil\u00a0in the world to even flip\u00a0him the bird for showing up so late.<\/p>\n *In the book \u201cJewish\u00a0Literacy\u201d by Rabbi Telushkin for the entry on Reform Judaism he includes this joke: \u201cThere are two kinds of rabbis, those who think Judaism is all about social justice, and those who know Hebrew.\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s\u00a0a cruelly pointed joke that\u00a0cuts both ways, and is very dismissive of both\u00a0non-Orthodox scholarship and any care or concern more traditional\u00a0Jews\u00a0have for the rest of the world.\u00a0I got the feeling that he admitted the value of Reform Judaism\u2019s emphasis on social ethics and justice through gritted teeth\u00a0in his book.<\/p>\n However, my counter argument with myself on\u00a0points 2 & 3 was that even if it was a little on the manipulative\u00a0side, or self congratulatory side, at least it inspires people to get good things done.\u00a0 Although to counter that counter point, I know it\u00a0is also true that good deeds should be done just for the sake of doing them because they are worth doing whether or not the Messiah ever does bother\u00a0to show up.\u00a0Which gives me a total\u00a0of six opinions on the Messianic Era\u00a0when I even bother to think about it which wasn\u2019t very often.\u00a0 It\u2019s not like it\u2019s a big topic of conversation or very important, and I think that does have something to do with Jesus.\u00a0\u00a0Because as\u00a0liberal American\u00a0Jews\u00a0we\u00a0don\u2019t shut ourselves away from our Christian neighbors (we tend to marry them instead)\u00a0and generally live in\u00a0such a predominantly Christian environment\u00a0that the words\u00a0\u2018messiah\u2019 or \u2018savior\u2019 meant Jesus Christ, not Mashiach ben David. Actually talking about or praying for the Messiah feel like a Christian thing to do, and therefore not very\u00a0Jewish.\u00a0But at least in our vague beliefs about the messiah we didn\u2019t get ride of this song:<\/p>\nhttp:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=HpYWQbCSl54<\/a>\n Elijah the Prophet, Elijah the Tishbite, Elijah of Gilead.<\/p>\n Soon, in our days, he will come with the Messiah, the son of David.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/166\/2013\/06\/Messiah.jpg\" "\\"Messiah\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\n