Judaism as having the mission of being a "light unto the nations" and Kabbalah seeks universal redemption through the performance of mitzvot. This was in contrast to Leibowitz's idea that mitzvot should be performed solely to serve God and not for any other explicit purpose. He also claimed that placing the State of Israel, Jewish history, and Jewish culture above God was committing Avodah Zara, or idol worship. Leibowitz did not believe in the Messianic Age as traditionally understood: "the profound religious meaning of the messianic idea consists in presenting a goal and a purpose towards which one must strive eternally. The Messiah is essentially he who always will come, he is the eternal future. The Messiah who comes, the Messiah of the present, is inevitably the false Messiah." He viewed the expectations of a literal Messianic Age as blurring the line between "religious faith aimed at the service of God and psychological yearnings for the satisfaction of human aspirations." In his view, prayer for personal reasons, done for the needs of the person praying, was religiously meaningless and even blasphemy, as it seeks to influence God and sees God as an agent for fulfilling human needs. In his eyes, the only legitimate form of prayer was one done to fulfill commandments without any reference to the needs of the person praying. In contrast to his strict views on some matters, he was liberal on others. On the subject of homosexuality, for example, Leibowitz believed that despite the ban on homosexual relations in Judaism, homosexuals should do their best to remain observant Jews. Views and opinions Although Leibowitz was a Zionist and Israeli patriot, in his later years he did not support Zionism for religious reasons but rather as an "endeavor to liberate Jews from being ruled by the Gentiles." In his view, the State of Israel had no religious significance and merely served a noble political purpose by fulfilling human needs. Despite being an Orthodox Jew, the version of Zionism he espoused was totally secular in nature. In line with his view that holiness was totally separate from the material world, Leibowitz denied that the Land of Israel was holy and that the Jews had a special right to it, writing that "the idea that a specific country or location has an intrinsic ‘holiness’ is an indubitably idolatrous idea" and that "talk of rights is pure nonsense. No nation