Hope for the Messiah is one of the hallmarks of our faith, but its flip side is the all-too-ready acceptance of false messiahs. Rabbi Wein analyzes the various messianic movements that have risen over the millennia: Christianity and the Bar Kochba rebellion, both of which grew under Roman oppression; the widespread fervor over Shabsai Tzvi in the calamitous Middle Ages; and finally the utopian ideologies of Marxism and even Zionism, which continues to hold sway over us in the modern world of the 21st century.