Over the centuries, the messianic tradition has provided the language through which modern Jewish philosophers, socialists, and Zionists envisioned a utopian future. Michael L. Morgan, Steven Weitzman, and an international group of leading scholars ask new questions and provide new ways of thinking about this enduring Jewish idea. Using the writings of Gershom Scholem, which ranged over the history of messianic belief and its conflicted role in the Jewish imagination, these essays put aside the boundaries that divide history from philosophy and religion to offer new perspectives on the role and relevance of messianism today.

Introduction
Michael L. Morgan and Steven Weitzman

Part I. Blurred Lines and Open Secrets in Early Jewish Messianism
1. Messianism between Judaism and Christianity Annette Yoshiko Reed
2. He that Cometh Out: On How to Disclose a Messianic Secret Steven Weitzman
Part II. Between Here and Eternity in Medieval Judaism
3. Maimonides and the Idea of a Deflationary Messiah Kenneth Seeskin
4. 'And the Crooked Shall be Made Straight': Twisted Messianic Visions, and a Maimonidean Corrective Menachen Kellner
5. Seeking the Symmetry of Time: The Messianic Age in Medieval Chronology
Elisheva Carlebach
Part III. Messianism and Ethics in Modern Jewish Thought
6. Messianism and Ethics Matt Goldish
7. To Infinity and Beyond: Cohen and Rosenzweig on Comportment towards Redemption
Benjamin Pollock
8. Levinas and Messianism Michael L. Morgan

Part IV. Politics and Anti-Politics in Contemporary Jewish Messianism
9. What Zvi Yehudah Kook Wrought: The Theopolitical Radicalization of Religious Zionism
Shai Held
10. Messianic Religious Zionism and the Reintroduction of Sacrifice: The Case of the Temple Institute
Motti Inbari
11. The Muted Messiah: The Aversion to Messianic Forms of Zionism in Modern Orthodox Thought
David Shatz
12. The Divine/Human Messiah and Religious Deviance: Rethinking Chabad Messianism
Shaul Magid

Part V. Messianism between Religious and Secular Imagination
13. Isadore Isou's Messianism Awry Cosana Eram
14. Arthur A. Cohen's Messianic Fiction Emily Kopley

15. Reading Messianically with Gershom Scholem Martin Kavka

Index