I have attempted, because I demand from myself, to provide definitions that are intrinsic and fundamental to each concept. So, the definition of zionism – as per this standard – must be unique and consistent to that specific ideology, meaning it applies to the first founders as well as each successive generation that carried their disgusting banner. And the inverse is true, meaning here if someone believes jews should NOT establish their own “Jewish” state anywhere in the world, they could never be called a zionist. While some have emphasized other ideas, working land, becoming rich, making peace, killing others, becoming secular, becoming religious, etc, the core defining feature of what is or is not “zionism” remains the same: establishing a “Jewish” state.
so too the definition of gulis I provided is consistent across all meforshim, both those meforshim who say that the years of Bayis Shaini were gulis and those who say they were geila.
However your feedback reveals a mistake you are making, perhaps in light of your reliance on artscroll translations. In Torah, “gulis” is a state of our relationship with Hashem, also called “gulis haShechina”. Pointing to the quote you mentioned, gulis is the reality of our sins standing in the way, and gulis is the means of fixing – and thereby removing – those sins. And this is not “added layers of meaning”, rather this is fundamental to the concept of gulis and geila, as chazal teach and is an explicit pasuk that gulis cannot end without tshiva.
A symptom of gulis and a key mechanism of gulis being the tikun is our dispersion amongst various nations and our exile out of eretz yisroel. Yet the reality of gulis exists even when jews gather together and even when we are in the physical borders of EY. This is why many haluches are different in EY during gulis vs geila. This is also why Yerishalmis today still say “leshuneh habu b’Yerishalyim”.
So, I would like to update my definition of “gulis” to: Gulis is a Divine decree for the Jews to suffer under “shibid malchiyis” specifically because of our sins to Hashem that caused “Gulis Shechina”. The gulis is the Divine mechanism towards our tikin and will necessarily only end when Jews do teshiva.
Regarding the definition of Moshiach, I omitted another distinct point worth mentioning: “מקבץ נדחי ישראל” as the Rambam says it, which means gathering all the dispersed Jews together. I’ve added it below.
RECAP:
Zionism is the movement which advocated for establishment of an independent ‘Jewish’ state anywhere.
Moshiachis a direct descendent of Duvid Hamelech who is a nuvi of Hashem (with all the established conditions of a nuvi) who brings back all Jews to tshiva (keeping all miztvos), can judge and issue psak with his smell, rebuild the Beis Hamikdash, gather all dispersed Jews together, and restore Malchis Beis Duvid as King. There are more details brought in chazal, such as Eliyuhi Hanuvi (also a nuvi of Hashem, of course) will publicly announce the arrival of Moshiach before he reveals himself, and all those details as well, even if here is not the place to expound on them all fully.
Gulis is a Divine decree for the Jews to suffer under “shibid malchiyis” specifically because of our sins to Hashem that caused “Gulis Shechina”. The gulis is the Divine mechanism towards our tikin and will necessarily only end when Jews do teshiva.
Please let me know if we are in agreement with the three definitions and I will continue to the next step.