Traditional Judaism maintains belief in two anointed ones who come once. Messianic Judaism, in contrast, finds its foundation firmly established upon the concept of one Messiah who makes two appearances (the Chabad movement believes the same as we do, One Messiah).

Traditional Judaism says that the King Messiah, who succeeds in his task of creating world peace, will be preceded by a warrior Messiah, who will be pierced, suffers and dies in the great battle with Gog and Magog (Some times called Mashiach ben Efraim). The military Messiah is dubbed the designation of "Messiah ben Joseph," which indicates his lineage from the most famous of the twelve sons of Jacob.

This Messiah ben Joseph will be resurrected by his Messianic successor "Messiah ben David," the descendant of the Israelite king to whom the throne belongs. Jewish anthropologist and former professor at Hebrew University in Israel, Raphael Patai, states, "Messiah ben Joseph, also called Messiah ben Ephraim, referring to his ancestor Ephraim, the son of Joseph, is imagined as the first commander of the army of Israel in the Messianic wars. He will achieve many signal victories, but his fate is to die at the hands of Armilus (the false Mashiach) in a great battle in which Israel is defeated by Gog and Magog. His corpse is left unburied in the streets of Jerusalem for forty days, but neither beast nor bird of prey dares to touch it. Then, Messiah ben David comes, and his first act is to bring about the resurrection of his tragic forerunner…."

The death of the Messiah, son of Joseph, establishes it’s foundation upon such Biblical passages as Zechariah 12:10b, "They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son."

The main Talmudic proponent of the messianic significance in the aforementioned reference in Zechariah arrives in the person of Rabbi Dosa, who lived at the time of the compilation of the Mishna (130 A.D). His interpretation of this verse is cited in the Babylonian Talmud, Sukkah 52a, "What is the cause of the mourning [of Zech. 12:12] … It is well according to him who explains that the cause is the slaying of Messiah the son of Joseph, since that well agrees with the scriptural verse: " And they shall look upon Me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him as one mourns for his only son." (Zech. 12:10)

The twofold nature of the Messiah, is noted by Dr. Patai, "When the death of the Messiah became an established tenet in Talmudic times, this was felt to be irreconcilable with the belief in the Messiah or redeemer who would usher in the blissful millennium of the Messianic age. The dilemma was solved by splitting the person of the Messiah in two: Messiah ben Joseph and Messiah ben David."

Mashiach’s suffering:

In Rabbinical literature, the concept of the King Messiah suffering for the sins of Israel is not foreign! In the Zohar, a book of mystical Jewish literature, it states, "In the Garden of Eden there is a hall that is called the "hall of the afflicted." Now it is into this hall that the Messiah goes and summons all the afflictions and pains and sufferings of Israel to come upon him. And so they all come upon him. And had he not eased the children of Israel of their sorrows, and taken their burden upon himself, there would be none who could endure the suffering of Israel in the penalty of neglecting the Torah. Thus it is written: "Surely our diseases he did bear and our pains he carried." (Yeshayahu / Isaiah 53:5) As long as the children of Israel dwelt in the Holy Land, they averted all afflictions and sufferings from the world by the service of the sanctuary and by sacrifice. But now it is the Messiah who is averting them from the habitants of the world," Shemot. fol. 212a. This is clearly an allusion to the highly debated and controversial passage found in Yeshayahu 53.

Skeptics and ‘anti-missionaries’ contend that this passage is speaking of Israel, despite the fact that numerous rabbis have interpreted it to speak of the Messiah. RADAK, Rabbi David Kimchi comments, "If we search the prophets we shall find that He who is promised as the Shepherd of Israel is the Messiah. The Messiah therefore is the person to be smitten before the scattering of the sheep."