Sabbatai Zevi (שַׁבְּתַאי צְבִי Shabbetai Tzvi, other spellings include Sabbatai Ẓevi, Shabbetai Ẓevi, Sabbatai Sevi, and Sabetay Sevi in Turkish) (August 1, 1626 – c. September 17, 1676[1]) was a Sephardic Rabbi[2] and kabbalist who claimed to be the long-awaited Jewish Messiah. He was the founder of the JewishSabbatean movement.
At the age of forty, he was forced by the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed IV to convert to Islam. Some of his followers also converted to Islam, about 300 families who were known as the Dönmeh (converts).[3]
Sabbateans (Sabbatians) is a complex general term that refers to a variety of followers of, disciples and believers in Sabbatai Zevi (1626–1676), a Jewish rabbi who was proclaimed to be the Jewish Messiah in 1665 by Nathan of Gaza. Vast numbers of Jews in the Jewish diaspora accepted his claims, even after he became a Jewish apostate with his conversion to Islam in 1666. Sabbatai Zevi's followers, both during his "Messiahship" and after his conversion to Islam, are known as Sabbateans. They can be grouped into three: "Maaminim" (believers), "Haberim" (associates), and "Ba'ale Milhamah" (warriors).[1]
Dönmeh (Turkish: Dönme) refers to a group of crypto-Jews in the Ottoman Empire who, to escape the inferior condition of dhimmis, converted publicly to Islam, but were said to have retained their beliefs. The movement was historically centred in Salonica.[1] The group originated during and soon after the era of Sabbatai Zevi, a 17th-century Jewish kabbalist who claimed to be the Messiah and eventually converted to Islam in order to escape punishment by the Sultan Mehmed IV. After Zevi'sconversion, a number of Jews followed him into Islam and became the Dönmeh. Since the 20th century, many Dönmeh have intermarried with other groups and most have assimilated into Turkish society.
By 1648 Sabbatai showed signs of what modern scholars (who are caught up in the meme of reductionist materialism) claim to be manic-depressive psychosis. In other words, strange behavior and violations of religious law, and proclaimed himself the Messiah. Expelled from Smyrna around 1651-54, he wandered through Greece, Thrace, Palestine, and Egypt. In 1665 he met the charismatic Nathan of Gaza, who persuaded him that he was indeed the Messiah. Sabbatai Zevi then formally revealed himself, named 1666 as the millennium, and soon gained fervent support in Palestine and the Diaspora. It is important to realize that the entire Jewish world of 1665-66 believed that Sabbatai was no mere "prophet" or "teacher" but the Promised Messiah and a living incarnation of God. It was the only messianic movement to engulf the whole of Jewry; from England to Persia, from Germany to Morocco, from Poland to the Yemen.
Sabbatai attempted to land in Constantinople in 1666, but was captured andimprisoned by the Turkish authorities in 1666. He converted to Islam, supposedly to escape execution, although Nathan and his other followers put a different interpretation on this. Sabbatai's conversion actually represented the descent into the klippotic realm in order to reclaim the lost sparks of light. Many of his followers converted likewise. Sabbatai - who, like Meher Baba and Max Theon was called "The Beloved" by his followers - may have had close relations with the Sufis. He died in exile in Ulcinj (in what is now Montenegro, part of the federation of Serbia and Montenegro). The Sabbatean movement was revived in the 18th century by Jacob Frank.
Sabbatai Zevi
The Jewish mystic and messiah, Sabbatai Zevi (1626-76), referred to by the abbreviated title of Amirah by his followers, was born in Smyrna (now Izmir), Turkey. Sabbatai's first teacher was the Gadol Reb. Isaac di Alba, a member of the Bais Din in Smyrna with whom he studied Kabbalah beginning in 1650. After six years under Master Isaac, Sabbatai continued his studies under the illustrious R. Joseph Eskapha, author of "Rosh Yosef" and a leading halakhist of his time. He most probably gave Sabbatai smicha and the rabbinical title of hakham ("wise" or "sage") when the latter was still an adolescent.By 1648 Sabbatai showed signs of what modern scholars (who are caught up in the meme of reductionist materialism) claim to be manic-depressive psychosis. In other words, strange behavior and violations of religious law, and proclaimed himself the Messiah. Expelled from Smyrna around 1651-54, he wandered through Greece, Thrace, Palestine, and Egypt. In 1665 he met the charismatic Nathan of Gaza, who persuaded him that he was indeed the Messiah. Sabbatai Zevi then formally revealed himself, named 1666 as the millennium, and soon gained fervent support in Palestine and the Diaspora. It is important to realize that the entire Jewish world of 1665-66 believed that Sabbatai was no mere "prophet" or "teacher" but the Promised Messiah and a living incarnation of God. It was the only messianic movement to engulf the whole of Jewry; from England to Persia, from Germany to Morocco, from Poland to the Yemen.
Sabbatai attempted to land in Constantinople in 1666, but was captured andimprisoned by the Turkish authorities in 1666. He converted to Islam, supposedly to escape execution, although Nathan and his other followers put a different interpretation on this. Sabbatai's conversion actually represented the descent into the klippotic realm in order to reclaim the lost sparks of light. Many of his followers converted likewise. Sabbatai - who, like Meher Baba and Max Theon was called "The Beloved" by his followers - may have had close relations with the Sufis. He died in exile in Ulcinj (in what is now Montenegro, part of the federation of Serbia and Montenegro). The Sabbatean movement was revived in the 18th century by Jacob Frank.
Early life and education[edit]
Sabbatai Zevi was born in Smyrna on (supposedly) Tisha B'Av or 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.[4]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.
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 he did attain proficiency in the Talmud. On the other hand, he was fascinated by mysticism and the Kabbalah, as influenced by Rabbi Isaac Luria. He found the practical kabbalah - with its asceticism, through which its devotees claimed to be able to communicate with God and the angels, to predict the future and to perform all sorts of miracles - especially appealing.
Influence of English millenarianism[edit]
During the first half of the 17th century, millenarian ideas of the approach of the Messianic time were popular. They included ideas of the redemption of the Jews and their return to the land of Israel, with independent sovereignty. The apocalyptic year was identified by Christian authors as 1666 and millenarianism was widespread in England. This belief was so prevalent that Manasseh ben Israel, in his letter to Oliver Cromwell and the Rump Parliament, appealed to it as a reason to readmit Jews into England, saying, "[T]he opinions of many Christians and mine do concur herein, that we both believe that the restoring time of our Nation into their native country is very near at hand."[5] Besides being involved in other commercial activities, Sabbatai's father was the agent for an English trading house in Smyrna and must have had some business contact with English people. Sabbatai could have learned something about these Western millenarian expectations at his father's house. - [note: this theory was originally suggested by Graetz; Gershom Scholem argued forcefully against it in his major work on Sabbatai quoted throughout this entry.]
Claims of messiahship[edit]
Apart from this general Messianic theory, there was another computation, based on an interpreted passage in the Zohar (a famous Jewish mystical text), and particularly popular among the Jews, according to which the year 1648 was to be the year of Israel's redemption by their long-awaited Jewish Messiah.
At age 22 in 1648, Sabbatai started declaring to his followers in Smyrna that he was the true Messianic redeemer. In order to prove this claim he started to pronounce the Tetragrammaton, an act which Judaism emphatically prohibited to all but the Jewish high priest in the Temple in Jerusalem on the Day of Atonement. For scholars acquainted with rabbinical, and kabbalistic literature, the act was highly symbolic. He revealed his Messiahship early on to Isaac Silveyra and Moses Pinheiro, the latter a brother-in-law of the Italian rabbi and kabbalist Joseph Ergas.
However, at this point he was still relatively young to be thought of as an accepted and established rabbinic authority; and his influence in the local community was not widespread. Even though Sabbatai had led the pious life of a mystic in Smyrna for several years, the older and more established rabbinic leadership was still suspicious of his activities. The local college of rabbis, headed by his teacher, Joseph Escapa, kept a watchful eye on him. When his Messianic pretensions became too bold, they put him and his followers under cherem, a type of excommunication in Judaism.
About the year 1651 (according to others, 1654), the rabbis banished Sabbatai and his disciples from Smyrna. It is not certain where he went from there. By 1658, he was in Constantinople, where he met a preacher, Abraham Yachini (a disciple of Joseph di Trani), who confirmed Sabbatai's messianic mission. Yachini is said to have forged a manuscript in archaic characters which, he alleged, bore testimony to Sabbatai's Messiahship. It was entitled "The Great Wisdom of Solomon", and began:
----Joseph Trani (1538–1639) or Joseph di Trani was a Talmudist of the latter part of the 16th century who lived in Greece. By contemporary scholars he was called Mahrimat (Hebrew: מהרימ"ט), and regarded as one of the foremost Talmudists of his time. Today he is more widely known as Maharit (Hebrew: מהרי"ט).
He was the author of She'elot u-Teshubot (responsa), a work in three parts: part i comprises 152 responsa, together with a general index (Constantinople, 1641); part ii consists of 111 responsa in the order of the first three parts of the ritual codex (Venice, 1645); part iii contains responsa to the fourth part of the ritual codex, together with novellæ to the tractate Ḳiddushin, and supercommentaries on RaN's andAlfasi's commentaries on the tractates Ketubot and Ḳiddushin (ib. 1645). The entire work appeared in Fürth in 1764. Joseph also published novellæ to the treatises Shabbat, Ketubot, and Kiddushin(Sudzilkov, 1802), and the responsa which were embodied in Alfandari's Maggid me-Reshit (Constantinople, 1710). He left several commentaries in manuscript on Alfasi, on Maimonides' Yad, and on R. Nathan's Aruk.
In 2008, Trani's grave was discovered in Safed by the noted bibliophile and book dealer Shlomo Epstein, near the grave of Rabbi Moshe Alshich.[1][dead link] Although the Maharit died and was buried inConstantinople, his sons later transferred his remains to Safed as he had requested so that he could be interred near his father, Moshe di Trani. -----