The Binding of Isaac and Messiah: Law, Martyrdom, and Deliverance in Early Rabbinic Religiosity

11. When the Messiah

Chapter Eleven When the Messiah 1) . Joshua ben Levi (Palestine, first half of the third century) comes ~live to us richly through tradition, and yet in such a way as to reveal the adumbration of a messianic myth that is deeply a part of rabbinic consciousness. That we must await a particular biography for such illumination is liable to create a historical illusion. We may easily conclude that the myth is very young in the period in which we first uncover its clear outline. But the fact that it is fully blossomed, as we shall see, should be sufficient warning as to the illusion of youth. I suspect that we might consider personalities like R. Akiva and his impatient colleagues in the Bar Kokhba struggle, by taking the biography of R. Joshua ben Levi as our starting point. Ifwe, the distant generations, seek illumination ofthe myth in biography, then we must wait patiently for tradition to give us the biography that not only lives out the myth but also, a much rarer thing, embodies it in a form and meaning that we can hear as authentic. However , the development ofideas itself need never await that degree oftransparency we demand. A biblical formulation of yearnings that come to be centered around the figure of a messiah is present in the following sentences from Isaiah. These passages are read as one of the seven Haftarot of consolation after the mourning of the fast of the Ninth of Av, which commemorates the destruction of both Temples. For brass I will bring gold, And for iron I will bring silver, And tor wood brass, And for stones iron; 223 224 The Binding ofIsaac and Messiah I will also make thy otl-icers peace, And righteousness thy magistrates. Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, Desolation nor destruction with thy borders; But thou shalt call thy walls Salvation, And thy gates Praise. The sun shall be no more thy light by day, Neither tor brightness shall the moon give light unto thee; But the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, And thy God thy glory. Thy sun shall no more go down, Neither shall thy moon withdraw itself; For the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, And the days of thy mourning shall be ended. Thy people also shall be all righteous, They shall inherit the land fIX ever; The branch of My planting, the work of My hands, Wherein I glory. The smallest shall become a thousand, And the least a mighty nation; I the Lord will hasten it in its time. (Isaiah 60:17-22) This passage is ambiguous to the point of enigma. It may be understood simply as a vision of redemption in the historical dimension, ofthe reconstruction ofpolity. But even ifthe imagery appearing here is metaphorical, it implies straining the historical dynamics and their meaning beyond recognition. Does not this chapter in Isaiah already offer more than an intimation of that deep yearning for deliverance that is rooted in the experiences of history but gazes beyond it? The words of the tinal verse of the chapter-"The smallest shall become a thousand, And the least a mighty nation"-seem to be echoed in the words of R. Joshua ben Levi: R. Joshua ben Levi said: I In the future the Holy One Blessed is He will give in perpetuity to each and every righteous person three hundred and ten worlds, as the verse says, "That I may cause those that love me to inherit substance,2 And that I may till their treasuries" (Proverbs 8:21). (M Ukzin 3: 12)3 Both passages seem to promise a deliverance that will be a bursting of the boundary between small and great. In the passage from Isaiah, this impression is contrasted by the end of the verse, "I the Lord will hasten it in its When the Messiah 225 time," which sets up a tension between impatience and patience, between a "hastening" and a "ripening of the time": here deliverance must bear the tension and not burst it. R. Joshua ben Levi unravels Isaiah's vision into his own perception of things: "R. Alexandri said that R. Joshua ben Levi juxtaposed the two parts of the verse, 'I the Lord will hasten it' and 'in its time' (Isaiah 60:22): If they are worthy, then 'I the Lord will hasten it', if they are not worthy...