Bob Dylan’s Hasidic Plagiarism of Rabbi Manis Friedman’s Secret Messianic Notebook Somebody Representing Lubavitch Will Be on the Scene From Tempest ’s ‘Tin Angel’ (2012): Well, he threw down his helmet and his cross-handled sword He renounced his faith, he denied his Lord Rather rich this lyric, coming from Dylan, who in his post-evangelical Year of Our Lord 1985 espoused the ‘Messianic complex’. But leaving aside this Saxonesque ‘intrusion’ into Dylan’s ‘Black Jack Davey’-esque ‘Tin Angel’, the song immediately following ‘Early Roman Kings’, which isn’t about early Roman kings, the language here is part of Dylan’s current slightly ostentatiously and stiltedly religious ‘Our Lord’ Messiah trip. From Sir Walter Scott’s ‘The Fire-King’ – courtesy of the ‘muddiest superhighway in the universe’ – by definition instantly public domain it would seem, where no attribution is needed. He has thrown by his helmet and cross-handled sword, Renouncing his knighthood, denying his Lord; He has ta’en the green caftan, and turban put on, For the love of the maiden of fair Lebanon. Good Infidels ‘code in the lyrics’ fodder there. Does Dylan refer to ‘Our Lord’ when he is chatting with his Hasidic pal Rabbi Manis Friedman? Not on your nelly. Dylan to Scott Cohen for Spin magazine in 1985 (as reported by Cohen but by definition without the all-significant vocal nuance to give the full context of where the pauses and emphases are): . What I learned in Bible school was just another side of an extension of the same thing I believed in all along, but just couldn’t verbalize or articulate. Whether you want to believe Jesus Christ is the Messiah is irrelevant, but whether you’re aware of the messianic complex, that’s all that’s important. What's the messianic complex? All that exists is spirit, before, now and forever more. The messianic thing has to dodo with this world, the flesh world, and you got to pass through this to get to that. Thehe messianic thing has to do with the world of mankind, like it is. This world is scheduled to go for 7,000 years. Six thousand years of this, where man has his way, and 1,000 years when God has His way. Just like a week. Six days work, one day rest. The last thousand years is called the Messianic Age. Messiah will rule. He is, was, and will be about God, doing God's business. Drought, famine, war, murder, theft, earthquake, and all other evil things will be no more. No more disease. That's all of this world. What's gonna happen is this: you know when things change, people usually know, like in a revolution, people know before it happens who's coming in and who's going out. All the Somozas and Batistas will be on their way out, grabbing their stuff and whatever, but you can forget about them. They won't be going anywhere. It's the people who live under tyranny and oppression, the plain, simple people that count, like the multitude of sheep. They'll see that God is coming. Somebody representing Him will be on the scene. Sometimes it’s hard to tell for Sutton Hoo is who – where Messianic denial or equivocation is concerned. Then we got the Messianic haughty culture of a hoarse live ‘In the Garden’ with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers in 1986 and ’87, whereby Dylan introduces his ‘hero’. From Dylan’s Modern Times (2006): Put on your cat clothes, mama, put on your evening dress Put on your cat clothes, mama, put on your evening dress Few more years of hard work, then there'll be a 1,000 years of happiness Why will the levee break? (Put on your camp clothes, atheistic totally assimilated A J Weberman). Because ‘no more water but fire next time’; the Day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night . ‘Not this time, babe, no more of this’. Fearful symmetry: the ‘code in the lyrics’. ‘Suffer ye thus far’ with Michael Gray’s bluesy infatuation with the ‘Authorized Version’ (which King James never really authorized). Luke 22:50-52 New International Version (NIV) 50 And one of them struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his right ear. 51 But Jesus answered, “No more of this!” And he touched the man’s ear and healed him. 52 Then Jesus said to the chief priests, the officers of the temple guard,(A) and the elders, who had come for him, “Am I leading a rebellion, that you have come with swords and clubs? Compare this from ‘Belief in Moshiach: Possibility or Certainty’ c) 1992 Wellsprings , an interview with Rabbi Manis Friedman by Susan Handelman: HANDELMAN: In the passage you quoted earlier, Maimonides says you can "assume" someone is Moshiach, but you don't know it for sure unless certain conditions are met. FRIEDMAN: Right. Assume it, and hope it, like Rabbi Akiva did. He went and carried Bar Kochba's armor for him. HANDELMAN: But as with Shabbetai Zvi, we have seen that when people do get very worked up about Moshiach and they're wrong, the consequences are bad. Moshiach is coming today. Always today Never tomorrow. FRIEDMAN: But how can you reconcile this fear of a false Moshiach with your belief in Moshiach? What does your belief in Moshiach consist of if you're afraid that he might be a false Moshiach? When the real Moshiach does come, what are we going to say? Who's going to believe him? Are we going to say, "Got to be careful - remember Shabbetai Zvi? HANDELMAN: Still people find finger-pointing very unsettling. They feel that it's very dangerous to point to someone and claim that he is the Moshiach. FRIEDMAN: If people can point a finger to someone and say, "This is Moshiach," that simply shows how alive and vibrant their faith in Moshiach is. Whether this person is or is not Moshiach is irrelevant. HANDELMAN: Would you say that it is irrelevant even if, for example, we decide on the wrong person? New religions have been formed as a result of the belief that certain persons were the Moshiach, and Judaism suffered considerably when these other religions persecuted the Jews for refusing to accept these "Messiahs." ‘Man of Peace’ (1983): Well, first he’s in the background, then he’s in the front Both eyes are looking like they’re on a rabbit hunt Nobody can see through him No, not even the Chief of Police You know that sometimes Satan comes as a man of peace Michael J. Gilmour, Assistant Professor of New Testament Providence College, Otterburne, MB in Journal of Religion and Popular Culture Volume I: Spring 2002 They Refused Jesus Too: A Biblical Paradigm in the Writing of Bob Dylan [18] "Jokerman" (1985, 471-72) explores ambiguity and the dangerous deceptions possible for those looking to place their faith in something or someone..[21] Of course the question ‘who is he?’ is the one usually asked though clear identification seems out of reach. Professor Gilmour reached too high. How so? Because the connection is not too difficult for an NT scholar. Deuteronomy 30 (one of the Jokerman’s ‘only teachers’) New International Version : 11 Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach.. From Michael Gray's damned King James Bible, what he likes to call the Authorized Version (authorized, supposedly, by Bob): 11For this commandment which I command thee this day, it is not hidden from thee, neither is it far off.. 12It is not in heaven, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it? 13Neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it? 14But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it. ‘Foot of Pride’, out-take from the 1983 Infidels sessions, about a fool of pride: He reached too high, was thrown back to the ground You know what they say about bein' nice to the right people on the way up Sooner or later you gonna meet them comin' down ‘Jokerman’: Freedom just around the corner for you But with the truth so far off, what good will it do? Fearful (a)symmetry: the Infidels ‘code in the lyrics’ (Dylan to Jonathan Cott in 1978). Max Dimont in The Indestructible Jews :: Sabbetai then headed for Egypt where, in fulfilment of the prophecy that the messiah would marry an unchaste woman, he took as his fourth wife a whore named Sarah. Sarah’s life imitates fiction. Indeed it does. Dimont on Shabbetai in Jews, God & History p 276: Sabbatai’s evangelistic itinerary took him to Egypt, and here the century’s most talked-about marriage took place. He was betrothed to Sarah, an international, peripatetic prostitute. Sarah is so implausible she could not have been invented. At the age of six she had been taken to a convent after her Jewish parents had been killed in a Polish pogrom. Early in her teens she had made her escape, deciding to see Europe before settling down. Her quick wit, bucolic beauty, and ready body preserved her life as she trekked from Poland to Amsterdam. Here she had a double hallucination, one voice informing her about Sabbatai Zevi and another voice telling her to become his bride.