Chapter VI, Judaism, Meaning in Messianism, Summary and Analysis

The climax of lessons learned from suffering for the Jews culminates in messianic hope. As underdogs, they have never given up hope and, as a result, have passed that spirit on to the Western world. The messianic idea carried with it the aspects of hope, national restitution, and world improvement. In one camp, the Jews looked for a person through whom God would restore their fortunes; in another, they looked for an age that would improve everything for all men everywhere. Another outlook was that of cataclysmic and abrupt change where God intervened personally. Each of these points of view come together collectively in some form or other and figure strongly in the modern Zionist movement.