Adam Levin - The Instructions

“And granted: to argue that examining what Adonai has not done can predict, with any kind of certainty, what He will or might do — that would be blinkered, and I would never even dream of attempting to put such sophistry into your ears and call it wisdom. I say, ‘The time of Judges is past,’ and Rabbi Gurion, who breathes deep, hands animating, he wants to say, ‘While no longer in the time of Judges, Emmanuel, we are no longer in the time of Kings, either, and this, the time of the disapora, is certainly on its way out.’ He wants to say, ‘Times change, earnest student, and times are always changing. It is impossible to define clearly the characteristics of our own era, let alone those of eras to come.’ And with Gurion ben-Judah — by whose suddenly relaxed posture I can see is satisfied with the words I have put in his mouth — I would, as always, agree. The argument from eras may be compelling, but it is well shy of convincing. I only note the history as an introduction to the following explanation, which, among other things, may help account for the history. And while you consider the following explanation, I ask you to note that you’re being asked to do nothing other than consider, however more explicitly, that which you already consider every waking moment of your lives.

“We have the written Torah. We have the one document that contains the universe, and therefore all the truth in the universe; all the truth that is, was, and will be. As well, we have this world; a world that Adonai is constantly acting on. And finally, we have scholars who study both — the Torah and the world. We are scholars who study both, and we are scholars who study the methods by which we study and the methods by which others who were like us have studied.

“In other words, all the truth is before us, arranged perfectly. And so I submit that it would be inelegant of Adonai to speak into ears with words. And Adonai is elegant. I submit that it would be sloppy, and He is not sloppy. For Adonai to speak into ears with words would furthermore be shmaltzy in the slickest, schlockiest Hollywood tradition, and He is no more a Spielberg than was Moses a homesick alien or Ruth a tragic cutie pie in a little red dress.

“It is through studying Torah, the world, and the way others have studied them that the messiah will know how to bring about the events which will characterize the messianic era. It is through studying those same things that we will know how to recognize the messiah when he arrives; for though he will be a scholar like the rest of us, he will be better than us; he will teach us how to be like him and we will be ready to learn. In the end, that is why we seek truth, why we study Torah: Our scholarship speeds the coming of the messiah. If we did not believe that, we would not be scholars. In sum: The messiah will not need to hear the voice of Adonai in his ears, and so the messiah will not hear the voice of Adonai in his ears.

“And now Samuel Diamond, my wise, forward-leaning friend, leans forward, wisely, wondering to himself, ‘How does all of this fit itself into Rabbi Gurion’s teachings about potential messiahs and proper environmental conditions?’”

“It fits perfect,” said Samuel Diamond, elbows on the table, chair balanced on two legs.

“ Perfect you’re saying?” said Emmanuel, averting his eyes. “You’re saying perfect ? Does that mean I should be flattered or anxious? Because I am beginning to feel anxious. Have I mistaken an enumeration of the obvious for a strong argument? What must you guys think of me? ‘Loquacious Liebman’? ‘Mamzer, stop asking questions you and we already know the answer to’? ‘Button up, you windbag shmendrick’?”

“No,” the scholars protested. “Tell us,” they said. “Finish,” they said. “Tell us how it all fits together.”

With shaky hands, Emmanuel touched his yarmulke. It was still there, held fast by black bobbypin. “If not the sole ,” he said, “then we are, at the very least, the most central environmental condition that needs to get proper. We are the ones who will make actual the potential messiah. And as I have already said in so many words: that is why we are scholars.”

And that is when the applause started. It was me who started it.

In Conclusion s

It seems to me that even though the messiah can’t know he is the messiah until he has had the undeniable victory of the messiah, it would not be unreasonable to assume that he would, prior to the victory, suspect he was his generation’s potential messiah.

Therefore: A person who suspects he is his generation’s potential messiah is not necessarily false, or crazy.

But what would such a person do with this suspicion? What, if anything, should he do with this suspicion? There is no doubt that he should keep the suspicion to himself, no doubt that he should not speak about it to anyone, at least not directly, that’s a no-brainer: Were he to mention the suspicion, those who already shared it — assuming there were any — could overreact and annoint him too early, spoiling his potential. Those who did not share the suspicion could spoil the potential in other ways. They could — as is done with so many of those who claim they are the messiah — lock the person up.

But what should he do ? In the world. How should he act?

What if, for example, a part of the world is persecuting him? What if he’s already locked up?

What is the righteous thing for this person to do?

Is it righteous for him to throw his hands up and say to himself, “Right now I am, at best, only this generation’s potential messiah, and I suffer persecution because the proper environmental conditions that would allow me to become the actual messiah and bring perfect justice to the world have clearly not been met”? = Is it righteous for this potential messiah to be humble about his potential? To allow that messianic actuality is solely in the hands of the world at large?

Or is it righteous for him to say to himself, “In persecuting me, a potentially potential messiah, my persecutors may be haunting the world’s future, and I will therefore rise up and smite them?” = Because the potential messiah might one day become the actual messiah, might not smiting his enemies be righteous? Might not this smiting, in itself, help to render him the actual messiah?

Clearly, if the person who suspects he is the potential messiah is being persecuted because he is an Israelite, he must try to rise up and smite his persecutors — not necessarily because they are his enemies, but because they are the enemies of the Israelites, and therefore the enemies of the world, who all Israelites must face down. But if that’s not the case, or if — even more confusingly — some of his persecutors are, themselves, Israelites, then what is righteous becomes much harder to figure out.

It is what I am trying to figure out.

It wasn’t easy to stay pissed at Benji, the way his chin would drop. After I finished my detention assignment and Nakamook still hadn’t said anything, I saw I’d really hurt his feelings. I was trying to figure out how to make it up to him when I noticed the top half of his assignment was sticking out from under his nearer arm. I saw the title of it was Villainy , and I started to read the intro:

The world may be villainous, the world may be virtuous, but to believe the world wholly villainous is no less blinkered than to believe it wholly virtuous, for a virtuous world is one in which the virtuous overcome the villains, and a villainous world one in which the villains overcome the virtuous. Thus: without virtue, there can be no villainy; without villainy, no virtue. So if we value our belief in the tendency of the world to be virtuous, we must be grateful for the villainous aspects of the world which test the instances exemplifying that tendency. Yet that is a macro-level assertion, and such assertions are easy. What of true love? What of mine? Or yours? We can agree that true love is the sweetest of all things, yet love untested cannot be known to be true. And who tests true love if not villains? And so if we value our true love, must we not, in turn, be grateful for the existence of the villains who would thwart it? Must we not be grateful for their attempts to thwart us? And how do we reconcile this gratitude with our insistence that they are villainous? How can anything that is necessary be considered villainous? If, for example——