As a child, I was told a story about a group of secular Russian immigrants to Israel who were sat around a communal seder table. Since Pesach is the festival of redemption, the Rabbi officiating at the seder made references to the Mashiach (Messiah) and to the final redemption, only to receive several blank faces in response. They found the entire messianic concept laughable – that someone should turn the world upside down and cause such a sudden change was, in their words ‘fantasy, not reality’.