{"id":75095,"date":"2020-05-23T09:43:11","date_gmt":"2020-05-23T06:43:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=75095"},"modified":"2020-05-23T09:43:11","modified_gmt":"2020-05-23T06:43:11","slug":"visions-of-a-perfected-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/visions-of-a-perfected-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Visions Of A Perfected World"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-content\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[],"acf":{"old_id":"75095","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":64460,"related_cahpter":"486","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"But who exactly will be in charge?\u00a0\r\n\r\n","content":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Who is the proper ruler of the people Israel? Different answers to this question seem to have circulated in antiquity. Some texts evince a kind of \u2018royal theology\u2019 according to which the king plays a mediating, quasi-priestly role on which the fate of the people depends. Others have a much dimmer view of royal power; the Book of Deuteronomy, for example, envisages a king who is subservient to religious law and to the priests who teach it, and whose ability to amass wealth and military power is strictly curtailed. Still more extreme are those moments which reject the institution of human monarchy entirely. The judge Gideon rejects the throne which the people offer him, saying \u201cI will not rule over you myself, nor shall my son rule over you; the LORD alone shall rule over you\u201d (Judges 8:23).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These different answers to the question of who should rule Israel have their echoes in the ways in which different texts imagine the messianic era \u2014 sometimes this is described in terms of a single messianic king, descended from David, whose reign will usher in a universal peace; at other moments the era seems to be one in which it is <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">God<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, unmediated and alone, who will assume the rulership of humanity.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the 34th chapter of Ezekiel, we encounter what seems to be a synthesis of these visions. After a tirade against the rulers of Israel (\u201cshepherds\u201d in Ezekiel\u2019s metaphor) who have used their authority to enrich themselves and care little for the spiritual and material fate of the people, we read that \u201cI Myself will graze My flock, and I Myself will let them lie down\u2014declares the Lord GOD. I will look for the lost, and I will bring back the strayed; I will bandage the injured, and I will sustain the weak; and the fat and healthy ones I will destroy. I will tend them rightly\u201d (15-16). But no sooner have we read of the assumption by God of the kingship of Israel than we read a very different vision of Israel\u2019s salvation: \u201cI will rescue My flock and they shall no longer be a spoil. I will decide between one animal and another. Then I will appoint a single shepherd over them to tend them\u2014My servant David. He shall tend them, he shall be a shepherd to them\u201d (33:22-23).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The vision of a personal messiah with which Ezekiel concludes became the dominant position in Jewish history, enshrined in the daily <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><em>amidah<\/em> <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and inspiring a longing which repeatedly burst forth in messianic movements throughout Jewish history. But the appeal of the messianic era ruled by God alone never disappeared, informing theologies as varied as the ethical monotheism of classical Reform movement, the religious anarchism of Martin Buber, and even some strains of religious Zionism. The strange shape of Ezekiel\u2019s prophecy, which refuses to choose absolutely between these options, indicates the enduring appeal of both of these visions of a perfected world.<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":75096,"id":75096,"title":"ez34-king ruler statuate","filename":"ez34-king-ruler-statuate.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/ez34-king-ruler-statuate.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/visions-of-a-perfected-world\/ez34-king-ruler-statuate\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"ez34-king-ruler-statuate","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":75095,"date":"2020-05-23 06:42:58","modified":"2020-05-23 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Of A Perfected World","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"But who exactly will be in charge?\u00a0","preview_embedded":"","preview_image":{"ID":75096,"id":75096,"title":"ez34-king ruler statuate","filename":"ez34-king-ruler-statuate.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/ez34-king-ruler-statuate.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/visions-of-a-perfected-world\/ez34-king-ruler-statuate\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"ez34-king-ruler-statuate","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":75095,"date":"2020-05-23 06:42:58","modified":"2020-05-23 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