Transcript Shabatsai Tzvi - personal.stevens.edu

Shabatsai Tzvi
The Jewish Mystical Messiah
L. E. Levine
Faculty Forum April 2003
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Principle 12 of Maimonides’
(Rambam’s) Thirteen Principles of
Faith (1135-1204)
I believe with complete faith in the
coming of the Messiah, and even
though he may delay, nevertheless I
anticipate every day that he will
come.
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Portrait sketched by an eyewitness in
Smyrna, Turkey 1666
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Primary Source
Sabbatai S evi
The Mystical Messiah
By Gershom Scholem
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Basic Information
• Born in Smyrna (Izmir), Turkey
• August, 1, 1626 – 9th of Av, Sabbath
• Significance of day – destruction of
First and Second Temples
• Tzvi – family name
• Received traditional religious education
• Ordained at about 18
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More Basic Information
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Accomplished Talmudic Scholar
Began a life of solitude and piety
Goal: communion with G-d
Study of Kabbalah, mysticism
Mystery of the Godhead
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Strange Behavior
• At 22 married first wife, divorced in
short time. Same for second wife
• Manic-depressive
• Illumination and rejoicing
• Depression
• Chmielnicki massacres 1648-1649
• Ukraine 100,000 Jews killed
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Vision (Emotional Upheaval)
• In 1648 he claimed he was told he is the
savior of Israel
• Claimed he was anointed
• Pronounced holy name of G-d in public
• Nobody believed him because of his
strange behavior
• Denounced and rebuked
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Exile
• Sometime between 1651 and 1654
forced to leave Smyrna
• Went to Salonika, Greece
• Invited rabbis to a banquet
• Married himself to a Torah scroll
• Forced to leave Salonika
• Constantinople – excommunicated
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New Law
• Claimed that since he was the Messiah
he could do things forbidden by Jewish
Law
• Still suffered from his moods
• Left for Jerusalem in quest of a cure
• In 1664 left for Egypt and married Sarah
in March 1665
• In her youth claimed she would marry
the Messiah
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Nathan of Gaza
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Nathan Ashkenazi
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Brilliant scholar in Jerusalem
Eloquent writer
At 20 began study of Kabbalah
In 1664 had cataclysmic, ecstatic vision
Lasted for 24 hours
Saw AMIRAH as Messiah
Prophet
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Quest for Tikun for his Soul
• Shabatsai sought out Nathan to cure
him at end of winter or early spring of
1665
• Surprise cure, you are the Messiah!
• At first Shabatsai demurred
• Spent weeks together, Nathan
convincing Shabatsai of his Messianic
mission
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Messiah
• On night of Shavuous Nathan has
vision to declare Shabatsai the Messiah
• Great messianic awakening begins
• While together Shabatsai explains to
Nathan his right to transgress the Law
• Justify his strange actions
• Mystery of Godhead
• Proclaimed king and Messiah
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Movement
• Proclaimed himself Messiah in May,
1665
• Nathan his prophet
• State of manic illumination
• Charismatic personality, shining face
• Beautiful voice, regal appearance
• Nathan spreads news to world
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Belief in Him As Messiah
• Nathan creates an entire literature
about Shabatsai as the Messiah
• Scholarly, based on all sorts of
Kabalistic sources
• Spreads quickly throughout Egypt,
Turkey, Israel, and Europe
• Repentance of the masses
• People prophesizing
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Opposition
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Jerusalem rabbis oppose him
Excommunication
Others were silent
Believers – Ma’aminim; Opposers –
Koferim
• Passionate beliefs on both sides
• Can kill Koferim, if necessary
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Movement Gains Wide Following
• Ottoman Empire concerned
• Business stops
• Fights amongst those on both sides of
concern to government officials
• Unrest amongst Jews
• Ascetic actions – mortifications,
fasting, thorns, burial in snow
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Movement Sweeps Jewish World
• Spreads from Ottoman Empire to
Europe
• People go into state of ecstasy and
prophesize
• Hacham Tzvi (b. 1658), father of Yaakov
Emden
– Women – slay demons, collect blood
– Smell of Paradise, catch something in air
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Strange Actions of Shabatsai
• Mystical rings with Divine names
• Abolished Fast of 17th of Tammuz in
Gaza in 1665 – day of feasting and
rejoicing, Great Hallel recited
• He and others ate Chelev, forbidden fat
• Blessing – mattir issurim instead of
mattir asurim “Blessed ….., who
permittest that which is forbidden”
• Antinomian actions, new law
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Imprisonment
• Arrives in Constantinople: population
in a fervor for weeks before
• Officials of Ottoman Empire concerned
for stability
• Arrested and imprisoned in Gallipoli
• Not killed, treated well
• Held court in prison
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In Great Illumination
• Shechinah has risen from her exile
• Abolished Fasts of Seventeenth of
Tammuz and Ninth of Av
• Monday, 23rd of Tammuz (July 26, 1666)
declared as a “festival of lights”
• Moved Yom Kippur from Saturday to a
Thursday
• Has celebrated 3 festivals in one week
in 1658
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Gallipoli Prison
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Bribed officials
Hundreds of visitors from afar
Appeared as a king, entourage
Visit by Polish emissaries
Reported “the glory which they had
beheld, and the abundance of gold,
silver, precious cloth and ornaments,
royal apparel which he was wearing”
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Denounced to Turkish
Authorities
• R. Nehemiah Hakohen – martyr
messiah of Joseph
• Met with Shabatsai and refused to
recognize him as the Messiah
• Changes in Judaism
• Charges of immorality
• Fomenting rebellion against authorities
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Sultan’s Court
• Jews were convinced that Sultan would
give his crown to Shabatsai
• When questioned he denied any
messianic pretensions
• Offered choice of death or conversion
to Islam
• Apostatized!!
(9/16/1666) Aziz
Mehemed Effendi
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After the Apostasy
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Colossal blow
Some cursed him, renounced him
End of movement - no
Entire Diaspora had been infused with
a spirit that the redemption had already
started
• Many people felt that it was indeed here
• Their view of the world did not
correspond to reality
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“Justifying” the Apostasy
• Danger to Jews from the Turks – he
saved them
• Holy sparks that are encompassed by
evil
• Messiah had to descend into the evil to
redeem these holy sparks for the final
redemption – Esther and Purim
• Messiah comes when either all good or
all bad
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Shabatsai After Apostasy
• In general did not insist that followers
also convert
• A few did initially, some of these
returned to Judaism
• Shabatsai vacillated back and forth
• Torah scroll in one hand Qur'an in other
– requested prayer book
• Turks hoped he would lead mass
conversion of Jews – did not
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Faithful Followers
• Movement not over by any means
• Nathan and others justify Shabatsai
• In 1675 Shabatsai married daughter of
Rabbi Joseph Filosoff
– Nathan’s disciple in Sabbatian Kabbalah
– Highly esteemed scholar in Salonika
– Deposed from rabbinate
– Shabatsai: Filosoff is an incarnation of
Saul, called daughter Michal
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End of Shabatsai
• Further angered authorities by strange
actions
• Banished
• In 1676 experienced last great
illumination
• After Passover wrote last letters and
royal proclamations
• Died on September 17, 1676 at 50, Yom
Kippur
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Dealing With His Death
• Demise kept secret and not widely
known until summer of 1677
• Nathan “the prophet” remained silent
initially – despondent
• Then formulated the Doctrine of
Occultation – did not “really” die
• “Whoever thinks that he died like all
men and his spirit returned to G-d
commits a grave sin.”
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Movement After Death
• Two approaches
– Most followers stay within the framework
of Judaism
– Appear outwardly to be “ordinary”
observant Jews, do not convert to Islam
• “Radical” Sabbatians
– Whoever is as he appears to be cannot be
a “true” believer
– True faith must always be concealed
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Redemption Through Sin
• Shechinah began to rise from dust
• Messianic age has begun, even though
many do not see it
• Two Torahs – Torah of Creation and
Torah of emanation
• Torah is still valid even though some of
its laws are now suspended
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Those Who Remain Jewish
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Appear and behave externally as Jews
Live by commandments
Maintain belief in Shabatsai Tzvi
Secret lives – Marranos
Rabbi Yaakov Emden
– Learned person, life devoted to Talmudic
study
– Broke commandments
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Sabbatian Movement
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Still widespread
Turkey and other oriental countries
Salonika
Sabbatian Rabbis – Eibeschutz
Leaders of Jewish enlightenment
Louis Dembitz Brandeis
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The DÖNMEH I
• 1683 – 200 to 300 families converted en
masse – Salonika
• Led by Joseph Filosoff, last father-inlaw of Shabatsai, Jacob Querido,
brother-in-law
• Kept close contact with other Jews in
Salonika
• Behaved outwardly as Muslims
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The DÖNMEH II
• Secret lives as external Muslims and
internal Sabbatians
• Two Torahs, Torah of creation and
Torah of emanation
• Bittulah shel Torah zehu kiyyumah The violation of the Torah is now its
true fulfillment
• New Marranos
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Antinomianism
• Eighteen Commandments
• Repeated 10 Commandments but with
marked Sabbatian modifications
• Intermarriage with Turks forbidden
• No forcible conversion of “believers”
who remain Jews to the “faith of the
Turban”
• Sexual restrictions of Torah abolished
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Came to Attention of World
• Creation of Turkey and Greece after
WWI
• Give each people its homeland – 192224: 1 million Greeks moved to new
Greece, 350,000 Turks to Turkey
• Identity defined according to religion
by Treaty of Lausanne
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Who is a Jew?
• Jews could stay put wherever they
happened to live
• Salonika – large Jewish population
• Port closed on Jewish Sabbath
• 10,000 to 15,000 Donmeh did not want
to move
• Not Turks but Jews – Jews who only
practiced the Moslem religion
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Appeal Denied
• For last 240 years only pretended to be
Moslems!
• Treaty defined Turks by religion not by
ethnic origin – claim rejected by
authorities
• A few Donmeh asked rabbis of Salonika
to accept them back as Jews
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Request Refused
• Did not dispute the Donmeh’s
contention
• Donmeh are mamzerim – bastards
• Annual orgies – Sheep Night
• Special feast night – ate mutton
• End of feast – wife swapping
• Redemption through sin!
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Jacob Frank (1726-91)
• Corrupt and degenerate
• Sabbatian who took “redemption
through sin” to new heights (lows)
• Totally immoral
• Hated rabbinical Judaism and rabbis
• Blood libel to Christian authorities
• Spoke against Talmud – burnt
• Followers converted to Christianity
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Vestiges Still Around
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Donmeh West
http://www.donmeh-west.com/
Subscribed to email list
Questioned about violation of Shabbos
Thrown off list!
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