Jewish history— from Bar Kokhbah at the time of the Jewish rebellion against Rome, to Jesus, to the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe—is full of people who are all (as yet) failed Messiahs. What is the messianic mystique in Jewish religious culture? How and why did these men and (yes,) women attract followers willing to follow them literally all the way—sometimes out of Judaism as we know it? How has the messianic impulse been sublimated and transformed in movements like Christianity, socialism and Zionism?