The promise of the Messiah was the rabbinic regime's way of dealing with the manifest powerlessness of the Jewish people in diaspora. Some once and future king would redeem the Jewish nation's and its leadership's exilic humiliation. Thereby did halakha make theological what was at root a political issue.
This shift from politics to theology further misconstrued the Israelite relation between Church and State, between theology and politics. The centerpiece of Israelite politics is sovereignty for the sake of its embrace of the mitigating institutions of shabbat and miqdash. The issue is shabbat and miqdash, not sovereignty per se.
The politics of Israel's sons is embedded not in the government of the nation of Israel nor in the economic order of its state but in the institutions that mitigate under whichever government and whichever economic order it conducts its affairs, be that government and economic order Israelite or foreign. Yes, there is a considerable difference between homeland and diaspora but not as much a difference as it would at first blush seem.
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