This past weekend, Yuval Diskin, the former head of the Shin Bet- Israel Security Agency, seems to have declared his candidacy for the upcoming elections by criticizing the foreign policy of this government vis-à-vis Iran.
In a childish attempt to ridicule our Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, he alluded to them as False Messiahs, for their incessant preachings concerning the Iranian threat.
To underline their unsuitability for Messianic leadership, he quoted verbatim the Book of Zecharia, Chap. 9:9, which provides one of the biblical descriptions of the future advent of the Messiah: "Rejoice greatly O daughter of Zion, Shout O daughter of Jerusalem, Behold thy king [the King Messiah] cometh unto thee, He is triumphant and victorious, lowly [literally – "Ani" in Hebrew meaning "impoverished"] and riding upon a donkey, even upon a colt the foal of a donkey."
Since the Messiah is described as being a poor person arriving on the back of a donkey, he mocked the unsuitability for this role of the two politicians who live in very expensive accommodations which they own. He seems to be saying that wealthy individuals cannot be the true Messiah.
Diskin is no Biblical scholar, and his use of this passage, and concomitant characterization of leading politicians as Messianic wannabee's, was designed to trigger a media storm and promote his political fortunes, which of course it did, and not to enlighten the public concerning trends in contemporary eschatology.
Those who are familiar with Biblical references to the Messiah know (from Isaiah 11:1-11) that this personage will be unique because he will be invested with Ruah Hakodesh – the Divine Spirit, and will be the first true Prophet to appear since Prophecy disappeared after Malachi. Therefore, serious observers are at no risk of misidentifying these two gentlemen as the Messiah.
The politically sneering will recall with a smirk the text from Bava Batra 12b which posits that since genuine prophecy disappeared after the destruction of the Holy Temple, occasional flashes of such insight now originate with children or the mentally infirm, allowing the discerning listener to decide which of these was Diskin's inference for the personalitiies he was criticizing.
In any case, reference to the advent of the genuine Messiah was not intended.
However, Diskin unknowingly blundered into the exactly correct context for the Iranian threat. In the Yalkut Shimoni, a compendium of MIdrashic sources organized in the sequence of Biblical chapters to which they refer, the following passage appears under the entry for Isaiah 60 (Yalkut para. 499):
"Rabbi Yitzchak said: In the year that the King Messiah is revealed, all the rulers of the nations of the world are challenging one another, the Ruler of Iran (Persia in the original) challenges an Arab Ruler, the Arab ruler goes to Edom (the Christian kingdom) to obtain their advice, the Ruler of Iran responds and destroys the entire world. All the nations of the world are in an uproar and in a panic, falling on their faces, and they are gripped by pangs like those of a woman in childbirth. Israel is in an uproar and in a panic, saying 'whither shall we come and go, whither shall we come and go?' .
"The Creator responds: 'And I say to them – My children do not frighten yourselves – everything I have done I have done only for your benefit [in facilitating this scenario]. Why are you frightening yourselves? Do not be afraid, for the time of your Redemption has arrived. And this final Redemption is unlike the first Redemption [the Exodus from Egypt], for after the first Redemption, there followed pain and subjugation by the Nations, but after this final Redemption, there is no further pain or subjugation by the Nations.'"
One should note that the reference to "destroys the entire world" means "threatens to destroy the entire world" for if it were indeed destroyed at that point, the rest of the text is meaningless.
This passage was first brought to my attention in the early 1980's when Arab Saddam Hussein attacked Iran. At that time, no one understood what the reference to "destroy the entire world" meant. Today, the entire passage is startlingly clear, since it chillingly describes events covered by current headlines in the daily newspapers.
For our purposes now, Diskin was unknowingly correct in correlating the Iranian crisis with Messianic potential. Indeed, although the two personages currently discussed certainly are not the King Messiah anticipated since they fail the Prophecy test, they are functioning, as we all are, in a Pre-Messianic age, as the establishment of the state of Israel and its thriving success show.
Whether they are the Instruments of Divine Providence in guiding our Deliverance, or whether other actors will be nominated by the Creator for this task, we may take comfort in understanding that Jewish tradition has foretold this exact scenario, and our future is assuredly bright.
As the Maariv prayer states: "Yiru eineinu veyismach libeinu ve tagel nafsheinu bishuatecha." May our eyes witness, our hearts be happy and our souls rejoice in Your Salvation.