According to Louis Ginzberg, Berab's undertaking was part of a larger Messianic vision. In this period, Ginsburg says, "...the imaginative and sentimental persons thought that the promised Messianic time was approaching; they regarded their great sufferings as the process of purgation, as the חבלי משיח, the eschatologic "birth-throes," of the Messianic era". These hopes "afforded the right person an excellent opportunity to create for the Jews a recognized central authority, spiritual—and perhaps, in time, political—in character. There is no doubt that the man for the purpose was Berab; he was the most important and honored Talmudist in the Orient, and was endowed with perseverance amounting to obstinacy."