SABBATAI ZEVI AND THE WORLD-TO-COME

A GREAT AND TRAGIC CHAPTER IN JEWISH HISTORY


1. A Glow Of True Messiah

a glow of true messiah
whose faithful saw joy light
his rising from the nether depths
spear set on rock
o he was light
...I'm faithful
to believers in Zevi Sultan
my belief in him a tree
lit up high mountains
days since he crushed that snake
lit up high mountains
lit up the moon by daylight

--Four Poems For Sabbatai Zevi The True Messiah As Drawn From Hymns Sung By His Faithful Followers After His Conversion To Islam For The Greater Glory Of The God Of Israel, translated from Ladino by Jerome Rothenberg and Harris Lenowitz

If we study kabbalah it becomes clear that the "raising of the sparks," the restitution of mankind's original spiritual nature, is complex and time-consuming. But even so there are those who are able achieve it:

In every generation a few souls escape from the qelippah [the 'shell' and sphere of evil] and enter the cycle of purification and tiqqun ['mending,' 'restoration,' and 'regeneration'], migrating from one body to another throughout the four kingdoms of nature until their tiqqun is complete.
--Gershom Scholem, Sabbatai Sevi: The Mystical Messiah, p. 40

Historically the adherents of Gentile religions abandoned the task of tiqqun, which was first given to Adam. Non-Jewish religions, like Judaism, also include some holy "sparks" waiting to be raised and restored. However, the most opportunities for tiqqun olam, global healing, were and are among Jews. Had Jews achieved it in the past then the lion would have lain down with the lamb, fulfilling Isaiah's promise of world peace.

That is one meaning of the concept of the chosen people.

Surely an opportunity for tiqqun olam, when it presents itself, is one of the greatest events in the history of the planet. Sabbatai Zevi (b. Izmir, Turkey, 1626-1676) proclaimed almost 350 years ago that such an opportunity was at hand. Even after his forced conversion to Islam and subsequent natural death Sabbatai's followers asserted that it was not too late to seize the opportunity presented by his mission.

After three centuries of existence the last remaining Sabbatians, a community of Turkish secret Jews called the Donmeh, finally died out. But at the same time, thanks to the scholarship of Gershom Scholem at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, accurate knowledge of Sabbatai among academics and the general population has spread. There are today more openly-identified Jews who know about Amirah (a title which Sabbatai received from his followers) than there were a century ago.

Indeed, the knowledge of Sabbatai Zevi's past, present and glorious future is growing and will grow for as long as there are Jews until it covers the planet. People will understand that the rebirth of Israel in modern times, the end of Exile, the Haskalah, the rise of the Hasidim and of Sabbatai's successor Nachman of Bratslav all occurred in part because of Sabbatai. If he had not lived then it would all have ended in the last century. Everything.

We wouldn't be here. We can only be here online reading and writing this because Sabbatai lived. Sure things went wrong; he didn't get to fulfill his messianic promise when he lived.

Put it another way: materialism is pain. Remember that only a few, out of millions of Jews, are able to transmigrate their souls and leave the qelipah behind. It doesn't have to always be that way, but it has been so ever since the days of Adam Qadmon, the Primordial Man.

Traditional Sabbatianism is gone. Because its last vestiges in the 20th-century were based upon apostasy it had outlived its usefulness. By 1756, when non-Sabbatian Jews excommunicated the remaining Sabbatians, the tradition went completely underground.

Sabbatianism, like Karaism, is one of several alternative Judaisms that have either died out or are now on their last legs. Now is the opportunity to reintegrate Sabbatai Zevi back into mainstream Judaism: what went right in his mission; what went wrong; what should not have happened; and what has to happen again someday.

It is time to rescue Sabbatai Zevi from the qelippah. That is what the saying "bring moshiach now" means. And, when we do, tikkun olam will occur and the entire planet will bask in "a glow of true messiah."