Chapter 19: Life is nihilism till we encounter the Divine

Ickapoo finds life absurd. To find meaning he has to encounter the Divine and give to Others.

Only the Messiah himself consummates all history, in the sense that he alone redeems, completes, creates its relation to the Messianic. (Benjamin, 1978: 312)

The above quote posits the Messiah as the culmination of history, all the injustices of worldly life will be righted and all the oppressed classes will be redeemed by the Messiah as the Messiah completes history and will represent the culmination of Messianic time which history is moving inexorably towards.

For this reason nothing historical can relate itself on its own account to anything Messianic.(Benjamin 1978: 312)