The Messianic Idea in Judaism: And Other Essays on Jewish Spirituality

Gershom Scholem, who created the field of Kabbalah studies as a scholarly discipline, gradually came to see the complex relationship between Jewish mysticism and Messianism. This relationship is important not only for an appreciation of the mystic and Messianic movements but for Jewish history in general.
Scholem clarifies the Messianic concept and analyzes its transformation in the Kabbalah up to the paradoxical versions it assumed in the Sabbatian and Frankist movement, in which sin became a vehicle of redemption.