Brad Burston has a brilliant satirical piece in today’s Haaretz in which he imagines the Messiah attempting to return to Israel to announce the End of Days. Naturally, he attempts to enter Israel without papers and is arrested as an illegal alien, then taken to a Shabak cell for questioning:
When the Messiah comes, he will be without papers.
When the Messiah comes, he will be taken into a small room, off-white and chilled, with one gray metal chair at each side of a gray metal desk.
When the Messiah comes, he will be questioned by a junior officer of the Shin Bet, and by an official of the Interior Ministry, who got his job through his cousin, who is an inspector of ritual dietary observance at a cookie bakery and who got his job through his sister’s father-in-law, third assistant to the deputy chair of the Shas party branch in Ramla.
When the Messiah comes, no one will know.
I was truly honored that Brad made a “coded” reference to Tikun Olam in the following passage:
When the Messiah comes, the first sign will be a gag order.
A coded report on a high-profile news website will be made to disappear. It will reappear on a blog in Seattle, and then in the Guardian. The government will delay response, finally issuing a statement ascribed to sources in Jerusalem, reading “We have no knowledge of this.” The IDF, quoting an unnamed senior military official, will state that there is no evidence that a Messiah of any kind has come. It will later soften the denial, saying it is checking the report and directing reporters to the Defense Ministry, which turfs them to the Prime Minister’s Office, which cannot be reached for comment.
I just sent him an e mail saying if he heard anything about this Messiah guy that he should let me know as I’d be honored to try to get him sprung from that isolation cell in which he’s being held at Ayalon Prison. I’m going to start calling him “Messiah X.”
Thanks to readers Linda and Dena for letting me know about this.
I noticed this morning when I saw the article; kudos!
When the Messiah comes to Israel, the first words He’ll utter will be:
END THE OCCUPATION AND SET MY PEOPLE FREE
But this time, the Sanhedrin will be played by the Christian Right and the Romans will be Zionists.
Everything about the Messiah is a paradox.
The following has been sent to many people all around the world over the last seven years.
MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTION
Do you believe “Moshiach” is…
(a) A tasty Polish stew best served in the depths of winter.
(b) An irrelevant, archaic concept with no relevance to today’s world.
(c) A metaphor for an age of world peace and does not imply an actual person.
(d) Alive and breathing right now on Planet Earth and is doing his work.
(e) Has already lived and will return one day.
(f) Not born yet and is not physically present on earth yet.
(g) Best represented by the collective Jewish people and/or the State of Israel.
Are statistics available about the answers people gave?