Israel's Survival and "The Coming of the Messiah": Reflections on the Parable by Franz Kafka

86 SHOFAR Winter 1994 Vol. 12, No.2 POINT OF VIEW: Israel's Survival and "The Coming of the Messiah": Reflections on the Parable by Franz Kafka by Louis Rene Beres Louis Rene Beres (Ph.D. Princeton, 1971) is the author of many books and articles dealing with internationalrelations and international law. A professor of political science at Purdue University, he lectures and publishes widely on Israeli'security matters. His newest book is titled Force, Order andJustice: International Law in an Age ofAtrocity . The Messiah will come only when he is no longer necessary; he will come only on the day after his arrival; he will come, not on the last day, but on the very last. Kafka himself never examined Messianism from the standpoint of Zionism, but it is surely reasonable for us to explore his parable, "The Coming of the Messiah," with a view to understanding Jewish redemption in the State of Israel. What might we learn from this parable about Israel's problematic survival in the coming years? Understood broadly as the requirements for such survival, rather than in the traditional sense of a Israel's Suroival and "The Coming of the Messiah" 87 particular "deliverer,,,1 the "Messiah" of the parable may hold messages of considerable importance for Jerusalem.2 What, exactly, are these messages? "The Messiah will come only when he is no longer necessary." Seemingly self-contradictory (the Messiah's very rationale, after all, is to arrive when he is still needed), this statement points, through paradox, to human responsibility.3 The Messiah will come, but only after antecedent conditions are met, in our adaptation by the State of Israel. What these conditions might be, and whether or not they are themselves dependent upon prior or coincident activity by the Nation of Israel in the diaspora, are now essential questions. Today, the survival ofIsrael as a State depends entirely upon a terrible and ironic awareness, that genocide against the Jews is not only still possible after the ingathering of exiles, but especially possible.4 This is the 'The term Messiah (Hebrew, Mahsiah) occurs in the Old Testament. The Jews who made the Septuagint (ca. 280 B.C.) translated it into the Greek word Christos, the Annointed One. In its origins, the Messianic idea probably came to western Asia from Persia and Babylon, especially from the Zoroastrian representation of history as war between the forces of light and the forces of darkness. As foretold by the prophet Isaiah, the Messiah would be an earthly king and deliverer born of the royal House of David. 21 assume here that "messages" for Israel are embedded in text, messages that can augnumt empirical findings found commonly in newspapers, books and magazines. In its generic form, where it pertains to truth-discovery in general, this assumption is wellestablished in Jewish tradition and was assuredly accepted by Kafka himself. 3Such a conclusion is supported by Martin Buber, who reminds us of a fundamental difference between prophecy and apocalypse, between a courageous grappling with even the most overwhelming dangers and a total withdrawal from human responsibility spawned by deterministic and unbearable views ofhistory. Following Buber, our task, in "uncovering" Kafka (apocalypse means "uncovering" in Greek), is the task of the prophet, not to predict an unalterable fate, but to confront Israel with decisional alternatives. 4For writings by this author on the subject of genocide, see: Louis Rene Beres, "Justice and Realpolitik: International Law and the Prevention of Genocide," The Americanjournal of jurisprudence, An International Forum for Legal Philosophy, Vol. 33 (1988), pp. 123-159; Louis Rene Beres, "Genocide, Law and Power Politics," Whittier Law Review, Vol. 10, No. 2 (1988), pp. 329-351; Louis Rene Beres, "Genocide and Power Politics: The Individual and the State," Bulletin of Peace Proposals, Vol. 18, No.1 (1987), pp. 73-79; Louis Rene Beres, "Reason and Realpolitik: International Law and the Prevention of Genocide," Chitty's Law journal, Vol. 30 (October 1982), pp. 223-242; Louis Rene Beres, "International Law, Personhood and the Prevention of Genocide," Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Lawjournal, Vol. 11, No.1 (1989), pp. 25-65; Louis Rene Beres, "Genocide, State and Self," DerIVerjourrzal ofInterrzationalLaw andPolicy, Vol. 18, No...