MESSIAH
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A false messiah is the strongest test of a true believer. That paradox finds powerful proof in Martin Sherman’s 1982 Messiah, a fast-moving folktale set in a turbulent time: 1665, when Eastern European Jews, weary of pogroms by Ukrainian Cossacks, were inspired by a messianic figure. Shabbetai Tzvi, it was said, would ride into Constantinople accompanied by the prophet Elijah, dethrone the sultan, then march triumphantly to Jerusalem’s rebuilt temple to be crowned King of the Jews; the ten lost tribes, rediscovered in Arabia, would attack the Jews’ other enemies. Breaking Talmudic law, Shabbetai preached sexual equality and the pursuit of pleasure. His followers in North Africa, Europe, and Israel were urged to marry and procreate early–to rid the universe of unborn souls before the Day of Reckoning.
Their pilgrimage exposes the clash between Asher’s and Rachel’s quests for salvation: he looks for purity, she for love. When Asher dutifully acts on Shabbetai’s credo that “nothing is forbidden” by making love to Rachel, her taste of love far outweighs any messiah. Betrayed by the man he thought would save him, Asher can neither hope for heaven nor endure this earth. Equally shaken in her faith, but not her love, Rachel continues to believe that the “Messiah is inside of us.”
