You may have heard the strange story of a young group of Jewish men who had built an underground tunnel beneath their New York synagogue on 770 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn Heights connecting it with a neighboring building.

In addition to serving as a local synagogue, the building also serves as the headquarters for the Chabad-Lubavitch Jewish sect. It is a Hasidic organization within Judaism with synagogues around the world and approximately 95,000 adherents.

When the synagogue rabbi found out about the tunnel, he immediately ordered it to be demolished. This led to a violent confrontation between the young Hasidic men who had built it and those trying to destroy it. The police were eventually called in, leading to the arrest of nine of the young men.

But the bigger question is why did the young Hasidic men construct it in the first place.

Well as bizarre as this sounds, it is actually connected to the Jewish belief that their Messiah will soon be coming, the Daily Mail reports.

Though most Orthodox Jews have rejected Jesus as the Jewish Messiah, they still believe that their Messiah is coming.

Many members of this particular synagogue believe that a former, now deceased, rabbi, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, is the Jewish Messiah. He led the Chabad-Lubavitch movement from this synagogue between 1951 and his death in 1994.

In fact, the members of this group have even paid for billboards (seen above) promoting this belief that Schneerson is the Messiah.

Some members of this group also believe that their local synagogue, which is made up of two buildings including the former home of Rabbi Shneerson, needs to be expanded to prepare for his return.

In fact, they believe it is a requirement that must be fulfilled before Schneerson can come back.

The group of young men has been frustrated by the unwillingness or at least the slowness of the local leadership to expand their base.

As a result, they took matters into their own hands and constructed a secret tunnel connecting their synagogue with the building next door. Though the neighboring building is no longer in use, it once served as a Jewish bathhouse several decades earlier.

There appears to be some dispute over who owns the neighboring building, as the synagogue is currently in litigation trying to get control of it.

According to the Daily Mail, the Chabad-Lubavitch leadership also believes that their base needs to be expanded, but said the young men just went about it the wrong way.

Jesus did warn that before His imminent return, there would be many claims that other people were in fact the Messiah (Matthew 24:5).