Shabbtai Zvi

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Shabbtai Zvi

Schabbtai Zvi , also Sabbatai Z e wi or Schabbatai Zwi (born 1626 in Smyrna , Ottoman Empire , today Turkey ; died September 16, 1676 in Ülgün , Ottoman Empire, today Montenegro ), was a religious scholar and, as a self-declared Messiah, the founder of the after Sabbatianism named for him .

Life

Origin and early time

Schabbtai Zvis family probably originally came from the Peloponnese . Only his father Mordechai, Hebrew מרדכי (died 1653), moved to Smyrna . His first and last name as well as his origin indicate a Romaniotic (Italkim) origin of the family; according to other sources, Shabbatai Zvi is a self-chosen name that he adopted after speaking the unpronounceable name of God, YHWH . Emanuel Frances, however, reports that Shabbtai Zvi's father comes from an Ashkenazi family based in Germany . Gershom Scholem does not consider this statement by Frances to be credible.

Shabbtai was (probably) born on the Tischa beAv 5386 Jewish calendar in Smyrna as the second of three sons of a poultry dealer. Regarding his date of birth, however, there are various sources. Nathan of Gaza gives the year 5386. It is believed that he received this information from Zvi himself. Another tradition claims that he was born in 5385. There is no reliable information about childhood and adolescence, nor about his education. He presumably received a traditional Jewish education, and he also spoke the Spanish of the many Marranos in Smyrna , whose Jewish identity was often not established after their return to Judaism. One of his teachers was the Kabbalist Josef Eskapa. He began an ascetic life when he was sixteen , and it is reported that a Rabbi Isaac led him in it. He often alternated between euphoric and deeply melancholy feelings. Various contemporary historians therefore describe him as manic-depressive .

Prophet and Kabbalist

In 1648, when more than 100,000 Jews were killed in pogroms in Eastern Europe during the Ukrainian revolt against the Polish aristocracy under the leadership of the Cossack Bogdan Khmelnitsky , Shabbtai experienced a vocation. According to some reports, he told friends that he was a prophet . Between 1651 and 1654 he was expelled from the Jewish community and had to leave Smyrna. He then moved to Saloniki , where he was also expelled after irritating the community with a demonstration in which he "married" a Torah scroll under a wedding canopy. After that he lived in various Greek cities. In 1658 Shabbtai was in Constantinople , where he continued to study Kabbalah and was expelled here in 1659. He returned to Smyrna with Rabbi David Chabillo, a Kabbalist and envoy of the Jerusalem Jews whom he had met in Istanbul.

Jerusalem and Cairo / marriage

In 1662 Shabbtai Zvi traveled to Jerusalem via Cairo . During his stay in Jerusalem, the local Jewish community was forced to pay a large sum of money in 1663, which they could not raise. An envoy was supposed to raise money from the wealthy Jewish community of Cairo in order to be able to pay the sum. The choice fell on Shabbtai Zvi, who won the benevolence of the leader of the Egyptian Jews, Raphael Joseph Chelebi . He began his journey towards the end of 1663 and stayed in Cairo until the spring of 1665.

On March 31, 1664, Shabbtai married a Jewish woman named Sarah, who was probably from Poland or Lithuania , in their third marriage, after having married twice before without consummating the marriages and divorcing both women. This woman seems to have already claimed in Amsterdam in 1655 that she would marry the messianic king. It may have been this statement that Shabbtai moved her to marry. Some authors describe it as "mentally confused". Michel Abitbol describes her in his book Histoire des juifs as a prostitute who devoted herself to this activity out of religious conviction. In Markus Brann's Jewish story from 1903, however, there is no mention of it: The idea of ​​the bride-to-be of Christ, i.e. the Messiah, was by no means a sign of spiritual confusion, but then as now an integral part of the self-image of every Christian nun, symbolized by wearing the Nun ring. According to Brann, Sarah was admitted to a nunnery at the age of six after being violently separated from her family in Poland and grew up there. Under unexplained circumstances, she later returned to the Jewish community in Amsterdam and came to Livorno via Germany . From there, Shabbtai had a confidante fetch her to Cairo after he learned of her story.

In imitation of the prophet Hosea , Shabbatai Zvi wanted to marry a prostitute. This marriage broke the spell and paved the way for gaining a following. Brann writes:

“By these events the Jews of Egypt and the Holy Land were carried away to a frenzy of exuberant hope. The ban imposed on Sabbatai was forgotten, and even his hometown received him with loud jubilation as the Messiah and, according to his prophecy, definitely awaited the new salvation for the year 1666, which was to dawn for Israel and the world. "

Messiah

A decisive event was when Shabbtai Zvi wanted to be given a spiritual instruction (a tikkun ) by Nathan Ashkenazi , a Kabbalist and self-proclaimed prophet in Gaza , towards the end of 1664 / beginning of 1665, who was around twenty years his junior . Surprisingly, the rabbi, who had previously not been conspicuous as a Lurian Orthodox author of religious treatises, informed him that he did not need a Tikkun because he was the Messiah. In doing so, Nathan relied on alleged ancient documents that he had newly discovered and that would support his testimony.

In his publication, Nathan began to strongly reinterpret the one and a half millennia old concept of the Messiah, but always moved within the traditional Kabbalistic foundations. In doing so, he formulated a divine mediation of the Messiah, which was completely alien to Judaism and which contradicted the direct relationship between man and God, which also always placed the burden of bringing about redemption on the individual believer. In Nathan's view, fervent emuna ("belief, trust") was enough for believers to redeem the universe.

On May 31, 1665, during a stay in Gaza , Shabbtai, encouraged by Nathan's prophecies and "voices" he had received, declared himself the Messiah. He symbolically appointed twelve members of the community in Gaza to represent the twelve tribes of Israel . This was the beginning of the messianic movement called Shabbtais (also known as Sabbatianism ) that would shake the entire Jewish diaspora . Schabbtai Zvi now also acquired royal titles and was addressed accordingly by his followers. His followers made a triumphant entry into Jerusalem for him, but he was expelled at the instigation of Rabbis Jakob Hagiz and Jakob Tsemah.

distribution

First, the messianic enthusiasm reached Gaza and from there Hebron , Safed and Cairo. Where there were many representatives of the Lurian Kabbalah , the movement grew strong. The news that the “Messiah” had appeared must have spread very quickly. On the one hand, Nathan Ashkenazi, who became the movement's theologian, sent letters to other congregations, and on the other, followers and travelers spread the “good news”, which, since it came from the Holy Land, was considered particularly credible. The spread must be seen against the background of the Thirty Years War in Germany and the great Cossack uprising under Bogdan Chmielnicki against the Polish upper class and its administration, many of them Jews.

Shabbtai moved to Palestine . In Jerusalem, where he appeared with the twelve representatives of the tribes of Israel to offer a sacrifice on the Temple Mount, there was a conflict with the local rabbinate. Shabbtai's messianic claim was rejected. After Shabbtai tried unsuccessfully to challenge Muslim rule, he was forced to leave Jerusalem. He returned to Smyrna via Safed , Damascus and Aleppo , where he arrived in autumn 1665. In the meantime he had been banned by the Jerusalem rabbinate .

Smyrna and Constantinople

From spring 1666 back in Smyrna, Shabbtai initially behaved cautiously. In his hometown, too, the Jews were divided on how to behave towards him. In December Shabbtai Zvi took the next step: he occupied the Sephardic synagogue. He began to repeal religious commandments on his own initiative, for example moving Shabbat to Monday, or calling women to read the Torah . On December 30, 1665, he went to Constantinople, accompanied by four rabbis. If the Turkish authorities had reacted calmly so far, they now stepped in and arrested the “Messiah” and his entourage when he arrived in Constantinople at the beginning of February 1666. He was given a kind of honorary detention in Gallipoli , where he could receive envoys and give audiences. His closest collaborators were his childhood friends Abraham Baruch and Chaim Penia, to whom he had promised kingdoms in the world to come.

The Amsterdam Jews, under the direction of their chief rabbi Isaak Aboab de Fonseca, were among the most passionate defenders of Shabbatai Zvis. From there her writings spread to Germany. Especially in Germany, which was devastated by the Thirty Years War, the messianic frenzy gripped large parts of the Jewish communities:

“The large congregations of the European West, especially those of Amsterdam and Hamburg, received with enthusiasm the multifaceted reports that reached them from Turkey. Portuguese and German Jews hoped to see an extraordinary transformation of all things through Sabbatai Zwi in the near future. Some prepared themselves excitedly with song and dance, the others in humble contrition through mortification and penance exercises, but all in feverish excitement prepared for the new messianic kingdom. In Smyrna, the day of fasting on the 17th of Tammuz was abolished because Sabbatai Zwi spread the news that on that day the divine calling had been bestowed on him. The day the temple was destroyed, as his birthday, should in future no longer be celebrated with gloomy mourning customs but with loud festivities. "

Many Jews sat on packed suitcases, but there were also resolute opponents of the self-proclaimed Messiah. These tried him u. a. to defame his family origin. It was rumored that Shabbtai Zvi's father had sold him for a pair of shoes and that his mother had prostituted herself to earn a living.

Conversion and end

On June 18, 1666 (15 Sivan 5426), the deadline for the redemption of the world announced by Nathan of Gaza had expired without the announced miracles. On September 15, 1666, Shabbtai presented himself to the court in Andrinopol . The trial was preceded by an encounter with the Polish Jew Nehemia ha-Cohen , who also claimed to be the Messiah. Ha-Cohen asserted that Shabbatai Zvi could not be the Messiah because this - by definition a descendant of David - must first be preceded by a descendant of Joseph as the Messiah. After Ha-Cohen denounced his competitor to the authorities , Shabbatai was faced with the decision of “death or acceptance of Islam” - the former in the form of an archer shooting an arrow at him so that his invulnerability would prove messianic. The following day (September 16), he refused the request and converted to Islam (by putting on a turban ); it was given the name of Sultan Mehmed IV , who had cast doubt on the Messianic Shabbatai Zvis because of his poor knowledge of Turkish. Shabbatai's wife Sarah also converted to Islam, as did many - but not all - followers. It was up to Nathan of Gaza to justify the unexpected event: From his point of view, the time of redemption had actually begun with Zvi's conversion to Islam. The Messiah, as he saw Shabbatai Zvi, had merely taken up the fight with the forces of evil and, in his disguise as a Muslim, had penetrated into the core of the "kingdom of evil" in order to overcome it in a final battle. Nathan found several passages in the Bible, Talmud and Zohar which, as he interpreted them, indicated the need for such a conversion. In doing so, Nathan referred several times to those biblical passages that are also cited by Christians as references to the coming of a Messiah.

At the end of 1672 Shabbtai Zvi was arrested on charges of apostasy from Islam . But he was not sentenced to death, as was customary in similar cases, but sent into exile in Albania . There he led a Jewish-Muslim double life and further developed his religious doctrine . He died in exile on September 16, 1676.

aftermath

As a result, the followers of Shabbatai Zvis formed both in Islam and in Judaism, while the majority of his followers returned to the orthodox Jewish doctrine. Several thousand supporters known under the name Dönmehs (also Dönme , German "Stranger", according to another source: "Converted") settled in Albania, Greece and Turkey. Their own name , however, was Mamin (Eng. «The believers»). They made a prominent appearance in the Young Turkish Revolution in particular . Small groups still exist today. There were also various Neo-Sabbatian groups close to Islam such as the Karakaşlar or the Yakubiler (Jacobite).

In Judaism the belief in the already appeared Messiah lived on in numerous secret sects. Such Jews gave themselves the appearance of orthodoxy , but celebrated regular festivals in small groups in memory of Shabbatai Zvi. These "Crypto- Shabbatians " were called Schebslach or Schoepsen . Rabbis across Europe tried to track down such groups and identify their books. In Poland, the remaining groups of supporters ended up in the movement of Jakob Frank , who in turn converted to Christianity. In Prague around 1730 the chief rabbi Jonathan Eybeschütz was accused of Sabbatianism, which recent research has confirmed. Other "accused" of internal controversy were Rabbis Moses Chaim Luzzatto , Nathan ben Simon Adler Katz and Nehemia Hiyya ben Moses Hayon . These various movements in Judaism are said to have completely dissolved by the end of the 19th century.

The messianic movement Shabbatai Zvis had a decisive influence on the emergence and development of the later innovation movements in Judaism; Haskala and Hasidism , both of which benefited for their development, the breaking up of old self-evidentities and authorities in the previously dominant Orthodox Judaism.

Literary reception

Ludwig Storch let himself be drawn from Schabbtai Zvi's life story for his four-volume novel Der Jakobsstern. Inspire a Messiad (1836–1838). The impact of the messianic movement of the Shabbtai Zvi (Sabbatai Zewi) on a Jewish community in Central Franconia is the subject of the first part of Jakob Wassermann's novel Die Juden von Zirndorf (1897). The Polish Nobel Prize for Literature, Olga Tokarczuk, refers to the aftermath of Shabbtai Zvi in her historical novel Die Jakobsbücher (2014).

literature

Web links

Commons : Shabbatai Tzvi  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Richard H. Popkin: Christian Jews and Jewish Christians in the 17th Century ; in RH Popkin and GM Weiner (eds.): Jewish Christians and Christian Jews - From the Renaissance to the Enlightenment , Springer Science + Business Media, 1994, ISBN 0-7923-2452-8 , p. 68
  2. ↑ a b c Simon Sebag Montefiore : Jerusalem, the biography . 4th edition. S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2014, ISBN 978-3-596-17631-1 , pp. 429 ff .
  3. ↑ Gershom Scholem: Sabbatai Sevi - The Mystical Messiah - 1626-1676 , Princeton University Press, 1973, p 106
  4. ↑ Gershom Scholem: Sabbatai Sevi - The Mystical Messiah - 1626-1676 , Princeton University Press, 1973, pp 105 and 106
  5. ↑ a b c d Michel Abitbol: Histoire des juifs . Ed .: Marguerite de Marcillac. Éditions Perrin, Paris 2016, ISBN 978-2-262-06807-3 , pp. 316-323 .
  6. ↑ a b c Joseph Dan: The Kabbalah . 2nd Edition. No. 18946 . Reclam-Verlag, Stuttgart 2012, ISBN 978-3-15-018946-7 , p. 124-135 .
  7. ↑ David Biale: Traditions of Secularization Jewish Thought from the Beginnings to the Modern Age , Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2015, ISBN 978-3-647-37038-5 , p. 122
  8. ↑ a b c d Klaus Davidowicz : Mystische Häretiker, In: Kabbalah . Ed .: Domagoj Akrab, KD, Mirjam Knotter. 1st edition. Jewish Museum Vienna and Kerber Verlag, Vienna and Bielefeld 2018, ISBN 978-3-7356-0518-4 , pp. 147-157 .
  9. ^ Markus Brann: Jewish history . Löwit-Verlag, Vienna 1903, Volume 4, p. 50.
  10. ↑ Gershom Scholem: Sabbatai Ṣevi - The Mystical Messiah - 1626–1676, Princeton University Press, 1973, p. 107
personal data
SURNAME Zvi, Shabbtai
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mehemed Efendi; Zewi, Sabbatai; Zewi, Sabbathai; Zvi, Shabbetai
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Smyrnatic Jewish religious scholar and pseudomessiah
DATE OF BIRTH 1626
PLACE OF BIRTH Smyrna , Ottoman Empire
DATE OF DEATH September 16, 1676
Place of death Ulcinj , Ottoman Empire