Messiah On The Last Day Poem by gershon hepner

Messiah won’t come on the last day, but
the very last.
When he comes the doors will shut,
all bolted fast
for he’ll have come to late for all
of us, except
the few who on him weren’t in thrall
because they slept.

Kafka writes in Parables and Paradoxes ((p.81) :

The Messiah will only come when he is no longer necessary; he will only come the day after his arrival; he will come, not on the last day, but the very last.”

Cited by Elliot Wolfson in Open Secret: Postmessianic Messianism and the Mystical Revision of Menahem Mendel Schneerson.

1/26/10