Writing on the apostate Jewish Messiah, Sabbatai Zevi, Gershom Scholem argued that there are two kinds of messianic ideas: one is restorative and the other is apocalyptic. The latter idea is, for Scholem, the most dangerous because, in imagining the new world that will emerge when the messiah comes, it appeals to a sensibility that is desirous of miracles and things that are unimaginable.   It promises to, as Scholem puts it, destroy or radically alter the course of history.   In this sense,  it appeals to a sensibility that yearns for a violent conclusion to history, a revolutionary sensibility. Since it is so radical it will most likely, according to Scholem, lead to kind of nihilism. Scholem rightly points out that the Rabbis of the Talmud – and Moses Maimonides in particular – suppressed this idea because of its wild appeal to the imagination and its antinomian tendencies. Sabbatai Zevi and…