The Mixed Multitude. Pawel Maciejko

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СКАЧАТЬ the ascension of the planet Saturn hints [at the coming of the messiah] and is a sign of Redemption,”²⁶ and he linked the renewal of messianic claims among the Jews with the ascent of the “bloody star,” Sabbatai-Saturn.²⁷ In this context, Sasportas’s invocation of the quotation from the Zohar tying the symbolism of Saturn with that of the mixed multitude was an exegetical masterstroke: it drew upon previous separate Sabbatian interpretations of both motifs and, by connecting them, inverted their meanings: the ascension of Saturn was indeed linked with the advent of Sabbatai Tsevi, but it signified the beginning of the reign of the erev rav, not the coming of the messiah. The mixed multitude were not, as Nathan of Gaza would have it, the rabbis who opposed Sabbatai but the Sabbatians themselves. What is even more interesting is what Sasportas left out of the passage he quoted: in printed editions of the Zohar, the dead dogs and donkeys that are thrown onto the dunghill are equated with “sons of Esau and Ishmael,” the Christians and the Muslims, respectively. Some manuscript versions explicitly identified the dead dog with Jesus and the dead donkey with Muhammad.²⁸

      The astrological notion that the advent of Sabbatianism paralleled the birth of Christianity was strengthened by the concept of the so-called coniunctio maxima, the conjunction between Saturn and Jupiter. Astrology—both Jewish and Christian—often interpreted the great conjunction as the moment of emergence of a new religion.²⁹ The Star of Bethlehem was taken to be a great conjunction,³⁰ and some astrologers linked the messianic pronouncements of Sabbatai Tsevi with the great conjunction that took place in November 1648. While Sasportas made no explicit mention of the 1648 conjunction, he linked the ascension of the planet Saturn with the rise of a threat of a profound rift within the Jewish people that “would turn the hearts of sons from their fathers and set husband against wife.”³¹

      Intellectually fascinating as it must have been, this interpretation was far too radical for other rabbis; the subsequent rabbinic anti-Sabbatian works used the literary form of Tsitsat novel Tsevi (a collection of letters, firsthand testimonies, and polemical commentary) as a blueprint for polemics and borrowed many specific motifs from Sasportas’s writings, but they largely refrained from accepting his conclusions. Sasportas’s conceptualization of Sabbatianism as a new religion had no direct continuation: the most important anti-Sabbatian work of the early eighteenth century, Moses Hagiz’s Shever poshe’im (1714), contained only one reference each to the erev rav and the establishment of a new faith, and both terms were used loosely to suit the argument.³² It also lacked any mention of Sasportas.³³

      During his lifetime, Sasportas was a lone fighter against Sabbatianism: his open opposition to Sabbatai during the height of the movement earned him little sympathy among the Jews of Hamburg and might even have endangered his life.³⁴ Tsitsat novel Tsevi had been prepared for publication but remained in manuscript.³⁵ In 1737, Sasportas’s son produced an abridged edition of his father’s magnum opus. However, leaders of the community, who were eager to suppress the memory of the involvement of their families in Sabbatian enthusiasm sixty years earlier, ordered that the entire print run be confiscated and destroyed.³⁶

      The book would have disappeared completely, if not for the fact that a copy (allegedly the only remaining one) of this suppressed edition was found in Amsterdam by Rabbi Jacob Emden. In 1757, at the height of the polemics against the Frankists, Emden published this abridged version of Tsitsat novel Tsevi.³⁷ The publisher felt a deep affinity between himself and Sasportas: he emphasized that his namesake Rabbi Jacob shared the same anti-Sabbatian zeal and had been required to pay a similarly high price for his relentless campaign against the heretics. Like Sasportas—and in contrast to other rabbis of the period—he also believed that heresy should not be swept under the carpet but engaged in an open polemics, without regard for communal feelings, family ties, reputation, or the high social status of his opponents. Since the pattern of rabbinic apologetics established in the first half of the eighteenth century failed to eradicate Sabbatianism, and the conceptual tools employed in the battle against crypto-Sabbatians in Western Europe were not apt to engage their more outspoken brethren in Podolia, Emden abandoned the line of polemics exemplified by Hagiz and returned to the first major opponent of Sabbatai Tsevi, Rabbi Jacob Sasportas. He became the most important figure in the rabbinic campaign against the Frankists. Before analyzing his understanding of Sabbatianism, I shall discuss the practical side of his involvement in the Frankist affair.

      The Contacts between the Council of Four Lands and Rabbi Jacob Emden

      Shortly after the Lanckoronie affair, Rabbi Jacob Emden was contacted by one of the most prominent members of the Jewish establishment in eighteenth-century Poland, Abraham ha-Kohen of Zamońć, a district rabbi in Brzeńć and a rabbinic judge in Tarle. The extant sources first mention him in 1751; despite his relative youth, he already belonged to the inner circle of trustees (ne’emanim) of the Council of Four Lands and signed the council’s approbation for the Amsterdam edition of the Talmud.³⁸ A year later, he became embroiled in the Emden-Eibeschütz controversy and denounced “the writer of the amulets,”³⁹ stating, nevertheless, that it could not be conclusively determined who this writer was.⁴⁰ In October 1753, when the council condemned the printing and distribution of pamphlets related to the controversy and ordered the existing writings to be burned (which, in practice, meant burning mainly of the writings of Emden), he signed the writ of condemnation together with other Polish rabbis.⁴¹ Nevertheless, Abraham of Zamońć was apparently not actually convinced of Eibeschütz’s innocence. Two months later, he wrote a letter calling for the public condemnation of Sabbatians and qualified some writings attributed to Eibeschütz as clearly heretical.⁴²

      In 1755, the victory of the Eibeschütz supporters seemed to be complete: Rabbi Jonathan collected letters of prominent scholars in his favor and published them in Altona under the title Luhot edut. Within a few months, Emden responded with his refutation, Shevirat luhot ha-even. The Council of Four Lands’ 1753 ban on publications pertaining to the Eibeschütz controversy was still in force; however, in contrast to earlier polemical works by Emden, which all came from his private printing press in Altona, Shevirat luhot was first printed in Żółkiew. The edition featured an approbation from Abraham ha-Kohen of Zamońć:⁴³ the open violation of the council’s ban and his endorsement of the publication of the book in Poland constituted an unequivocal signal of support for Emden. Abraham became a leader of the anti-Eibeschütz faction among the rabbinic establishment in Poland.

      The July–September 1756 sessions of the Council of Four Lands had two main items on the agenda. The first one was the wave of blood libels—in particular, the Jampol ritual murder trial, which had commenced in April of the same year.⁴⁴ The second was the rise of Sabbatianism, culminating in its repeated overt challenges to the authority of the rabbinate and in the involvement of the Catholic consistory of Kamieniec in the Lanckoronie affair. The blood accusations will be discussed in detail in Chapter 4; for now, suffice it to say that the council obviously spoke in one voice on this issue: in order to counter the accusations, the delegates decided to send an emissary to Rome, Elyakim ben Asher Zelig, and to seek an official papal condemnation of the libel.

      The matter of Sabbatianism was more complicated. As noted, during the first part of the eighteenth century, the council avoided direct involvement in the campaigns initiated by anti-Sabbatian activists. Throughout the early 1750s, the parnas (president) of the council, Abraham ben Hayyim of Lublin, was a staunch Eibeschütz supporter and the major force behind the attempts to quash the accusations against Rabbi Jonathan, which led to the burning of Emden’s pamphlets in 1753. However, during the 1756 sessions, Abraham ha-Kohen of Zamońć, Baruch me-Erets Yavan, and Isaac ben Meir of Biała⁴⁵ managed to convince the parnas that Emden’s writings did contain some true information (it is not clear if this referred to Eibeschütz himself or only to the cases of less prominent Sabbatians in Poland).⁴⁶ The former president of the council and a staunch rival of Abraham of Lublin, Abraham Yoski of Lissa, also threw his weight in favor of unequivocal and forceful action against the Sabbatians in Podolia: he agreed СКАЧАТЬ