levite

It depends on where you were. In the USA, not very. It was here, but it was very much lost in the jumble, just another enterprising Jewish idealist movement (at least until the onset of troubles associated with the rise of Nazism gave significance to Jews having somewhere to flee).... On the other hand, it was huge in Eastern Europe. Probably because life was good for Jews in America, and it sucked donkeys in Eastern Europe. When you're a penniless Russian peasant, and even if you're a penniless Soviet peasant, the adventurous, idealistic life of a kibbutznik (a worker on a socialist farming collective, which was what most early Zionist settlements were becoming by the end of the 1910s, and had become by around the 1920s or so) seemed pretty freaking sweet. So they made aliyah (emigrated to British Palestine, as it was then called) by the thousands. And not just Russians, either, but from all over the lands that were becoming the Soviet bloc after 1917.... And the support for it was enormous in those quarters. Slightly less in Western Europe, but still more than in America. I think Western European Jews saw this as their great chance to fulfill the Enlightenment dream at last, and be a regular nationalist entity among other nations.

Messianism is a tricky business. I'll be honest with you, there are so many different ideas about messianism floating around the Jewish people, I have no idea what other people are looking for. Except the Chabad hasidim: they're looking for their dead rabbi to come back, and they don't get why the rest of us find that appalling.... I think some people are looking literally for a savior from the House of David to appear. Some are just looking for a Great Leader. The wiser ones aren't looking for a person but for events: Rambam (Maimonides) says that you'll know a man is the messiah if he fulfills the prophecies by reconquering the Land of Israel, building a Third Temple, making peace with the nations, etc. If the events come to pass, the one who led in them is the messiah, if not, claims are worthless.

Myself, I don't necessarily believe in that laundry list of events. But even to the extent I do, it's pretty plain to see none of them will be happening any time soon. There isn't even peace among the Jewish People, let along peace among the nations. And there won't be a Third Temple anytime soon given that the spot it's supposed to be built on is currently occupied by the Dome of the Rock and the Masjid al-Aqsa, whose owners don't strike me as likely to volunteer to move their buildings to one side.

But I do believe in a messiah that will come, and I think Rambam was right to look for events, not people. Because I personally think that the messiah will come not to lead us into a new age, but to inaugurate such a new age with leadership once we have brought it about. I think finding peace among ourselves and the nations is our task as a whole people. And when all those problems are solved, it won't be a problem to build the Temple where it's supposed to be built, nor will the Muslims object to moving their buildings, because the Third Temple will be a joint venture of the Sons of Abraham, and it will be open to all, not just Jews. This, I think, is what Isaiah means when he says, "Even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer...for mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people." (Is. 56:7)

If you actually read the list-- which I recommend, it's a fascinating little book-- you'll note that it's actually impossible to follow all 613 in one lifetime, since some are specifically commandments for priests, and not regular-joe-israelite Jews, and there are even a couple that are mutually exclusive, although I can't bring them to mind at the moment.

There are some that are inoperable without a Temple, and no Jew can follow them at present, nor will be able to until the time of the messiah.

And there are some that I personally believe must be misunderstood in their classical interpretations, or even perhaps that their phrasing in the Torah constitutes a misinterpretation of what God was attempting to convey to the prophet who wrote them down first. These I do not follow, nor do I demand their observance from others: so, for example, the laws of menstrual purity I find utterly stigmatizing and without redemption. I don't demand of my fiancee that she follow them, and she doesn't, and I don't bother with the business of not coming into contact with a menstruating woman. Any Orthodox person who heard me say that would be horrified, and would consider it a gross betrayal of a fundamental principle of Jewish observance. But there you are. Likewise, the prohibition on homosexuality. I personally am not gay, but I don't demand that anyone follow that prohibition because I refuse to believe in a God who creates gay people and then tells them they must live in celibate shame because they are abominations. Whatever God was trying to convey, the prophet must have been confused, because that verse could not be a word of God. These two items, by the way, are notable not because they represent a vastly different observance from Orthodox observance, but because they are two things that there are currently no legal decisions in halakhah supporting my practice. I am, suffice it to say, researching the precedents in halakhah as part of writing teshuvot (legal decisions) to back up what I am saying here. But generally I don't refuse to do things unless there is a legal decision or precedent in halakhah that supports me.

I follow what I can of those that are possible to follow, there being no Temple, and me not being a priest. With just a couple of exceptions, like those I mentioned above, if I miss some, it's mostly unintentional.

I can only presume you mean tzitzit, the fringes on the corners and sometimes the edges of the tallit (prayer shawl)? The tzitzit are generally four long fringes of interlaced and tied thread on the corners of the tallit, but some people also tie smaller, puffier knots along the edge. Let's see if I can manage to get pictures in here.... You ought to be able to see what I mean-- the close-up shows the usual fringe, the wider shot shows the difference between the tzitzit on the corner and the puffier knots along the edge. So, the little puffy ones are not necessary: they are there, some say, as a reminder of the decorative bells and gold pomegranates that adorned the edges of the high priests outfit in the days of the Temple. But the long tied-thread fringes on the corners are required. They fulfill the commandment that you will find in Numbers 15:37-41. The intricate tying of the fringe varies from Ashkenazi (North/Eastern European) tradition to Sefardi (Spanish/Portuguese tradition) to Mizrahi (North African/Arabian/Persian), with differences in some Hasidic communities, but in all cases is reflective of Kabbalistic notions about patterns and numbers and magical protection.

If you don't mean tzitzit, I'm not sure what you mean.


No, we have a plot.

Just kidding, of course. I dunno. We play to our strengths. Why are most basketball players black? Why are there so many Asians involved in technology? Who knows? But we all seem to be enjoying the fruits of the coincidence....

Attached Images

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__________________
Dull sublunary lovers love,
Whose soul is sense, cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
That thing which elemented it.

(From "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" by John Donne)