Sabbatai Sevi: The Mystical Messiah (Bollingen Series, No. 93)
(A richly detailed account of the only messianic movement ...)
A richly detailed account of the only messianic movement ever to engulf the entire Jewish world. The twentieth century produced a galaxy of extraordinary Jewish historians. Gershom Scholem stands out among them for the richness and power of his historical imagination. Born in Berlin in 1897, Scholem became a Zionist as a young student in a revolt against his family's bourgeois and assimilated life. He learned Hebrew and studied Kabbalah, the world of mystical teachings that had become marginalized--indeed stigmatized--within the mainstream rationalist Jewish tradition. In 1923, Scholem emigrated to Palestine and eventually joined the faculty of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, publishing groundbreaking studies in the field of Jewish mysticism. In the 1930s, Scholem's scholarship turned to an obscure kabbalist rabbi of seventeenth-century Turkey, Sabbatai ?evi, who aroused a fervent following that spread over the Jewish world after he declared himself to be the Messiah. The movement suffered a severe blow when ?evi was forced to convert to Islam, but a clandestine sect survived. A Bollingen Foundation grant enabled Scholem to complete the original Hebrew edition of his biography in 1957. Bollingen also supported R. J. Zwi Werblowsky's masterful English translation. A monumental and revisionary work of Jewish historiography, Sabbatai ?evi stands out for its combination of philological and empirical authority and for its passion. It is widely esteemed as one of Scholem's masterworks. The author himself always regarded the Princeton/Bollingen edition as a highlight of his scholarship.
Sabbatai Zevi: Testimonies to a Fallen Messiah (Littman Library of Jewish Civilization)
(Sabbatai Zevi (1626-1676) stirred up the Jewish world of ...)
Sabbatai Zevi (1626-1676) stirred up the Jewish world of the mid-seventeenth century by claiming to be the messiah, then stunned it by suddenly converting to Islam. His story, and that of the movement he created, is a landmark event in early modern Jewish history and a dramatic example of what can happen when mystic dreams and messianic hopes combine in an explosive mixture. Now, for the first time, English readers can experience these events through the words of those who lived through them, in lucid and compelling translations by a leading authority in the field. Of the contemporary 'testimonies' translated by David J. Halperin, three are accounts by Sabbatai Zevi's followers of the life and deeds of their messiah. These are the Najara Chronicle, an eyewitness narrative which Gershom Scholem called 'one of the most extraordinary documents shedding light on Sabbatai's personality'; Baruch of Arezzo's Memorial to the Children of Israel, a sober yet devout biography of Sabbatai written shortly after his death; and the bizarrely fanciful hagiography composed in 1692 by Abraham Cuenque of Hebron. These 'believers' narratives' are supplemented by two seventeenth-century letters, pungent in their style and colourful in their details, in which Sabbatai and his followers are described by a contemporary rabbi who detested them and everything they stood for. Finally, a reminiscence of Sabbatai's last days, preserved by one of the most independent-minded of his followers, conveys the enigma of the man that was to haunt the generations.
Women and the Messianic Heresy of Sabbatai Zevi, 1666 - 1816 (Littman Library of Jewish Civilization)
(Women are conspicuously absent from the Jewish mystical t...)
Women are conspicuously absent from the Jewish mystical tradition. Even if historically some Jewish women may have experienced mystical revelations and led richly productive spiritual lives, the tradition does not preserve any record of their experiences or insights. Only the chance survival of scant evidence suggests that, at various times and places, individual Jewish women did pursue the path of mystical piety or prophetic spirituality, but it appears that they were generally censured, and efforts were made to suppress their activities. This contrasts sharply with the fully acknowledged prominence of women in the mystical traditions of both Christianity and Islam. It is against this background that the mystical messianic movement centred on the personality of Sabbatai Zevi (1626 - 76) stands out as a unique and remarkable exception. Sabbatai Zevi addressed to women a highly original liberationist message, proclaiming that he had come to make them 'as happy as men' by releasing them from the pangs of childbirth and the subjugation to their husbands that were ordained for women as a consequence of the primordial sin. This unprecedented redemptive vision became an integral part of Sabbatian eschatology, which the messianists believed to be unfolding and experienced in the present. Their New Law, superseding the Old with the dawning of the messianic era, overturned the traditional halakhic norms that distinguished and regulated relations between the sexes. This was expressed not only in the outlandish ritual transgression of sexual prohibitions, in which Sabbatian women were notoriously implicated, but also in the apparent adoption of the idea - alien to rabbinic Judaism - that virginity, celibacy, or sexual abstinence were conducive to women's spiritual empowerment. Ada Rapoport-Albert traces the diverse manifestations of this vision in every phase of Sabbatianism and its offshoots. These include the early promotion of women to centre-stage as messianic prophetesses; their independent affiliation with the movement in their own right; their initiation in the esoteric teachings of the kabbalah; and their full incorporation, on a par with men, into the ritual and devotional life of the messianic community. Their investment with authority was such as to elevate the messiah's wife (a figure mostly absent from traditional messianic speculations) to the rank of full messianic consort, sharing in her husband's redemptive mission as well as his divine dimension. By the late eighteenth century, a syncretistic cult had developed that recognized in Eva - the unmarried daughter of Jacob Frank, one of Sabbatai Zevi's apostate messianic successors - an incarnate female aspect of the kabbalistic godhead, worshipped by her father's devotees as 'Holy Virgin' and female messiah. This was the culmination of the Sabbatian endeavour to transcend the traditional gender paradigm that had excluded women from the public arena of Jewish spiritual life.
Sabbatai Zevi was a Sephardic ordained Rabbi, though of Romaniote origin and a kabbalist, active throughout the Ottoman Empire, who claimed to be the long-awaited Jewish Messiah. He was the founder of the Sabbatean movement.
Background
Sabbatai Zevi was born in Smyrna, Ottoman Empire (İzmir in present-day Turkey), on supposedly Tisha B'Av (the 9th of Av), 1626, the holy day of mourning. His name literally meant the planet Saturn, and in Jewish tradition "The reign of Sabbatai" (The highest planet) was often linked to the advent of the Messiah. Zevi's family were Romaniotes from Patras in present-day Greece; his father, Mordecai, was a poultry dealer in the Morea. During the war between Turkey and Venice, Smyrna became the center of Levantine trade. Mordecai became the Smyrna agent of an English trading house and managed to achieve some wealth in this role.
Education
In accordance with the prevailing Jewish custom of the time, Sabbatai's father had him study the Talmud. He attended a yeshiva under the rabbi of Smyrna, Joseph Escapa. Studies in halakha (Jewish law) did not appeal to him, but apparently Zevi did attain proficiency in the Talmud.
Career
Good looking and highly intelligent, he was ordained as a hakham (sage) when he was only eighteen. He began, however, to show strange symptoms, probably of manic depression, that marked his entire career. His fantasies included messianic elements which coincided with a messianic fervor among Jewish communities. Predictions that the Messiah would appear in 1648 (according to kabbalistic calculations) seemed to be confirmed by the terrible massacres that year of Polish Jewry by Cossack invaders which were interpreted as the anticipated birthpangs of the Messiah. Shabbetai Tzevi claimed to have experienced a heavenly voice identifiying him as the redeemer. One Sabbath in the synagogue, he defiantly pronounced the tetragrammaton name of God, traditionally forbidden to all except the high priest on the Day of Atonement, and announced the cancellation of certain fast days, notably the Ninth of Av. the anniversary of the destruction of the Temples, and foretold as the birthday of the Messiah his own date of birth. The rabbis of Smyrna exiled him from the city and placed him under a ban of excommunication.
He moved to Salonika, where he symbolized his messiahship by “wedding” the Torah in a mystic marriage ceremony. The Orthodox rabbinate expelled him and he spent the next years wandering throughout Greece and Turkey, shocking the rabbinate, but also winning disciples. In Constantinople a respected kabbalist produced an ancient parchment purporting to predict the arrival of Shabbetai Tzevi as Messiah. With a growing band of followers, Shabbetai Tzevi moved to the Holy Land and, clothed in a dazzling robe, prayed at the Western Wall and at the tomb of the patriarchs in Hebron. He was even sent as an emissary to Egypt to collect funds for the support of the Jewish community in Jerusalem.
In Cairo he married a girl named Sarah (he had been married twice previously but the unions were not consummated), who had previously announced that she would be wed only to the Messiah. Of Marrano origin, she came from Poland, had been raised in a convent in Amsterdam, and had earned her living as a prostitute. At his wedding Shabbetai Tzevi quoted the precedent of the prophet Hosea’s betrothal of Gomer and called Sarah “the bride of the Messiah." She was a striking beauty who brought added allure to his cause.
On his journey back to the Holy Land, Shabbetai Tzevi met a kabbalistic rabbi, henceforth known as Nathan of Gaza, who claimed to have experienced a vision in which Shabbetai's messiahship was revealed. Nathan now became Shabbetai's “prophet” and played a major role in further developments, first crowning Shabbetai as “King-Messiah." He also sent messengers and leaflets to many parts of the Jewish world announcing the advent of the Messiah, who would depose the sultan of Turkey and lead the Jewish exiles of the world back to the Holy Land.
Now it was the turn of the rabbis of Jerusalem to excommunicate Shabbetai (after Hoggings had failed to change him) and he traveled with his entourage back to Turkey, triumphantly entering Smyrna, from where he had been so ignominously expelled fifteen years earlier. By 1665 a mass frenzy had seized the Jewish world and Jews from Holland to Yemen began to make preparations for returning to the Holy Land. Nathan of Gaza announced that he had a further vision revealing that 1666 would be the year of redemption, when Shabbetai Tzevi would ride into Jerusalem on a lion, with a seven-headed serpent as its bridle. Shabbetai Tzevi made a public declaration of his messianic mission in a synagogue, to the accompaniment of the blowing of rams' horns. He proceeded to issue a series of antinontian decrees — turning fasts into feasts, reciting the tetragrammaton in regular services, abolishing the separation of men and women at services, and substituting his own name for that of the sultan in the prayer for the authorities. He also announced that he would now have intercourse with his wife for the first time. He then announced that he was dividing his territories into twenty-six kingdoms, to be allocated to his colleagues, each being given a biblical title, with his brother being called "King of Kings."
By now the Turkish authorities had become worried. When Shabbetai sailed to Constantinople to depose the sultan he was arrested on arrival and imprisoned in a fortress in Gallipoli. With the help of bribery, he was able to hold court in his prison and continued to preach to his followers, who maintained their faith and spread stories of the miracles lie was performing. It was believed that the tribulations he was suffering were only to be expected for the Messiah. The Turkish authorities were infuriated by his behavior and summoning him to the sultan’s privy council offered him the choice of conversion to Islam or death; he chose the former and before the sultan, removed his Jewish hat and accepted the turban of a Muslim, and emerged from his audience as Mehmet Effendi. The sultan gave him a new wife and appointed him royal doorkeeper.
Shabbetai now tried to play a double game — maintaining his relations with the Turks (and getting some of his followers to accept Islam) while continuing to claim to the Jewish world that he was indeed the Messiah. Most of the Jewish world was shattered but many still clung to their faith in him. Their faith was derived from the mystical belief that the savior would have to plumb the depths of evil in order to “redeem the scattered sparks” and save the world. The Turks eventually tired ol his duplicity and banished him to a fortress in Dulcigno, Albania, where he remained in touch with his believers. He died there on the Day of Atonement, 1676.
Even his death did not bring an end to his movement. Shabbatean sects flourished for many years and one group, the Donmeh, continued to exist in Turkey until the 20th century, still believing that Shabbetai Tzevi was the Messiah who would return one day.
Another event helped spread Sabbatai's fame in the Jewish world of the time in the course of his second stay in Cairo. During the Chmielnicki massacres in Poland, a Jewish orphan girl named Sarah, about six years old, was found by Christians and sent to a convent for care. After ten years, she escaped (through a miracle she claimed), and made her way to Amsterdam. Some years later she went to Livorno where, according to reports, she led a life of prostitution. She also conceived the notion that she was to become the bride of the Messiah, who was soon to appear.
When the report of Sarah's adventures reached Cairo, Sabbatai claimed that such a consort had been promised to him in a dream because he, as the Messiah, was bound to fall in love with an unchaste woman. He reportedly sent messengers to Livorno to bring Sarah to him, and they were married at Halabi's house. Her beauty and eccentricity reportedly helped him gain new followers. Through her a new romantic and licentious element entered Sabbatai's career. Even the overturning of her past scandalous life was seen by Sabbatai's followers as additional confirmation of his messiahship, following the biblical story of the prophet Hosea, who had also been commanded to take a "wife of whoredom" as the first symbolic act of his calling.
