The Messianic Age

'Everything lies in the hands of God except the fear of God': that's what it says in the Talmud, W. says. – 'But when you have no fear of God? When the word God, to you, means nothing at all, which it doesn't?' What is he going to do with me?, W. wonders. How is he going to teach me the meaning of sin? For you have to have some sense of shame in order to understand sin. And when shame is entirely lacking …

At least Moses had his Levites, his faithful! At least he had a vanguard who understood the real meaning of Canaan! The Hebrews, full of resolve at first, fell to whining about their hunger and the desert heat. They fell to building idols and to defying the covenant each had made with God. Only the faithful understood. Only they knew their aim was to become a holy nation, a kingdom of priests …

Each was to be a prophet. Each the outcome of a prophecy. For the promised land is the messianic age, where each, in his own way, has become the Messiah. The vanguard dissolve into the people; and there will be no leaders and no followers. Each will live in accordance to the Law. Each will wholeheartedly obey the Law.

And in that way, Canaan was no longer to be understood as a place, no longer as a bounded territory. We will reach the promised land only when we live fully under the law, only when we accept ourselves as sinners. And while we have not? Even the lushest countryside is a desert. Even the countryside of Devon beside us, lush and green, is but an infinite expanse of sand.