The issue was not merely terminological and went far beyond the mutual mudslinging. The dichotomy between the true Israel and the mixed multitude constituted the major conceptual axis of the theological controversies that tore apart eighteenth-century Judaism. Approximately a century after the advent of Sabbatai Tsevi, most debates concerning Sabbatianism (and, more broadly, Jewish heterodoxy) did not revolve around messianism, let alone Sabbatai’s specific messianic claims. Rather, the disputes concentrated on the limits of religion and conditions for belonging to the Jewish people.37 Each side considered only its own version of Judaism legitimate and claimed to be the one true Israel. Each party branded the other as “progeny of the mixed multitude,” implicitly denying its Jewishness. Thus the discourse of the mixed multitude endeavored to establish the boundaries of Judaism and of the Jewish people independently of the traditional halakhic criteria of who is a Jew: within the framework of this discourse, certain groups of people might have been “externally” Jewish for generations but were said to remain alien in the depths of their souls. By drawing a line between those whose souls originated from “children of Abraham” and those who came from the erev rav, the Sabbatian debate aimed to distinguish between the “real” Jews and pseudo-Jews, “true” Judaism and false faith. Frankism, the movement that crystallized around Jacob Frank in the 1750s, was the last—and, in many ways, most dramatic—word in this debate.
Sabbatianism in the Eighteenth Century
The beginning of Sabbatianism was Sabbatai Tsevi’s messianic self-revelation and the prophecies of Nathan of Gaza. The news of the messiah’s advent spread like wildfire through Jewish communities in the Ottoman Empire and Europe and, for a brief period, the majority of the Jewish people seem to have been inclined to accept his claims. Sabbatianism became “the most important messianic movement in Judaism since the destruction of the Second Temple.”38 Yet Sabbatai was an odd messiah. The concept of true Israel’s simplicity, as expressed in the commentaries of Rabbi Israel Hazzan, had two fundamental aspects: belief in the superiority of non-mediated religious experience over any learned knowledge and the established religious canon; and the conviction that this experience by its very nature articulates itself in a totally paradoxical, incomprehensible way, one that may even be scandalous for nonbelievers. During the early stages of Sabbatai’s career, the second aspect quickly found its expression and theological elaboration in the concept of ma’asim zarim, “strange deeds”— odd or absurd acts that the messiah “had to commit under the spell of a mysterious impulse.”39 Some of these acts were merely bizarre. For instance, one day Sabbatai bought a large fish, dressed it up like a baby, and put it into a cradle.40 Others displayed a clearly antinomian character and were typified by evident transgressions of Jewish religious law, such as contravening the Sabbath and dietary laws, shifting the dates of religious festivals,41 abolishing fasts,42 and pronouncing aloud the ineffable Name of God.43
Worried by the rise of religious enthusiasm among the Jews, the Ottoman authorities had Sabbatai arrested. In September 1666, he faced Sultan Mehmed IV, and—in a move completely unexpected and profoundly shocking even to his most faithful followers—he performed the most bizarre of his bizarre acts: he cast off his Jewish garb and donned a turban, thereby signaling that he had embraced Islam. Most of his followers parted ways with Sabbatai and proclaimed him yet another false messiah. They undertook penitence and returned to their daily lives. But some did not. Sabbatianism did not die with Sabbatai’s conversion to Islam, but that act radically altered its social profile. After the conversion, Sabbatianism as a public messianic movement gave way to sectarian crypto-Sabbatianism: a secret creed observed by clandestine believers who pretended to be perfectly orthodox Jews but continued to regard Sabbatai Tsevi as the true messiah, redeemer of Israel. Confronted with rabbinic opposition, crypto-Sabbatians protested their innocence, vociferously rejected heresy, and, in some cases, even signed anti-Sabbatian bans of excommunication. Never did they intend to separate themselves openly from Judaism, and, for the most part, they practiced Sabbatian rituals in addition to normative Jewish observances rather than instead of them.
The two largest Jewish religious controversies that erupted in the eighteenth century were connected with crypto-Sabbatianism. The first scandal broke out in 1713 in Amsterdam, when the kabbalist Nehemiah Hayon (ca. 1650–ca. 1730) succeeded in publishing a tract titled Oz le-Elohim. Even though the book was printed with the approbations of several prominent rabbis and its text did not mention Sabbatai Tsevi by name, the Sabbatian character of the work was recognized almost immediately. This led to a bitter and protracted quarrel between Hayon’s supporters and his opponents, the latter led by Rabbi Moses Hagiz (ca. 1671–1750), who managed to rally other rabbis against heretics and, in the words of Elisheva Carlebach, transfigured “the rabbinate to a vigorous, aggressive force in the pursuit of Sabbatianism.”44
Twelve years later, another scandal emerged. In 1725, Moses Meir Kamenker, a Sabbatian emissary traveling from Poland to Germany, was detained by rabbinic authorities in Mannheim. A search of his luggage revealed a manuscript of the heretical treatise Va-avo ha-yom el ha-ayyin. The subsequent investigation disclosed that Kamenker had been disseminating copies of this work among sectarians all over Europe, and a clandestine network linking Sabbatian groups in different European countries came to light.45
The treatise itself, although distributed anonymously, was widely attributed to Rabbi Jonathan Eibeschütz of Prague (1690–1764), one of the most illustrious rabbinic scholars of the time. Along the lines of the crypto-Sabbatian paradigm, Eibeschütz promptly distanced himself from the heretics and signed a ban publicly condemning Sabbatai Tsevi and his followers.46 For a time, the matter was closed. But the accusations refused to go away. In 1751, Eibeschütz, by then having attained the position of chief rabbi of the triple community of Altona-Hamburg-Wandsbeck, was again charged with Sabbatianism, this time by another well-respected Jewish scholar, Rabbi Jacob Emden (1697–1776).
The Emden-Eibeschütz controversy turned into the most contentious rabbinic dispute of the early modern period: every major European community as well as virtually all the prominent rabbis became embroiled in the debate on one side or another. The European Jewish establishment split into two hostile factions. Excommunications and counter-excommunications were issued. Pamphlets and brochures supporting and denouncing the parties were printed and widely disseminated (especially by Emden, whose private printing press played a crucial role in the controversy).47 In some places, there were outbreaks of physical violence. Both sides sought justice in Gentile courts and sponsored press coverage promoting their respective positions. Non-Jewish authorities became involved in the quarrel, and Christian scholars took a keen interest in the debate.
Finally, in 1753, the Council of Four Lands of Poland, the most important organ of Jewish autonomous governance, stepped in. While some of the council’s rabbis were undoubtedly convinced that there was truth to Emden’s charges (the pro-Emden party among the council was led by its shtadlan (intercessor), Baruch me-Erets Yavan),48 the assembly as a whole resolved to do everything possible to quell the public dispute and restore the shattered image of the homogeneity of Jewish leadership: in October of that year, it issued a ban on printing and distributing publications supporting either side. Crypto-Sabbatianism might have been a theological threat for normative Judaism; a public quarrel that engulfed entire communities, compromised the reputation of the rabbinate, and exposed Jews to the interventions of Christian authorities and the prying of strangers was far worse. It cannot be emphasized too strongly that in the eyes of most rabbis, the man who had gone too far was not the (alleged or real) crypto-Sabbatian Eibeschütz but the anti-Sabbatian Emden: by incessantly trumpeting the charges of heresy, he turned an otherwise marginal matter into a central issue in Jewish life.