Abstract

I Politics and “exilic” experience One remarkable aspect of this “Myth of Exile” is that it served two conflicting purposes: through its mystical interpretation of exile as action instead of suffering, it could rouse the people to hasten the coming of the Messiah [… ] But [… ] it served equally well the needs of the disillusioned people, who, having lost the Messianic hope, wanted a new, more general justification of exile, of their inactive existence and mere survival.