Chapter 2 Me’ora’ot Tsvi and the Construction of Sabbatianism in the Nineteenth Century
Jonatan Meir
I
In 1814, a book called The Tale of Dreams: The End of Wonders (Sipur halomot kets ha-pla’ot, also called Me’ora’ot tsvi) was published in the town of Kopys. A year later, it was printed there again, this time with corrections, additions and far-reaching changes.1 The publisher, R. Israel Jaffe, was affiliated with Habad Hasidism, and towards the end of 1814 he printed the first edition of Shivhei ha-Besht (In Praise of the Baʻal Shem Tov). At first glance, Me’ora’ot tsvi seems unexceptional. In nineteenth-century Jewish Eastern Europe, many popular pamphlets of this sort spread wondrous tales, versions of historical events and hagiographic accounts of various holy men. But this book had a sensational topic: the Sabbatian movement. According to its title page, it con- tained the story of Sabbatai Tsvi, based on the writings of Moshe Hagiz, Jacob Sasportas, and Tsvi Hirsch Ashkenazi, the Hakham Tsvi. The title page of the first edition reads:
The Tale of Dreams: The End of Wonders which was taken directly from the books of the sages of the earlier generations. These include: the letter of Rabbi Jacob Sasportas who lived in the time of the false messiah Sabbatai Tsvi (may his name be blotted out); the book of the great Hakham Tsvi
1 Sipur halomot kets ha-pla’ot (Kopys: Israel Jaffe, [5] 574 [1814]) (54 pages); Sipur halomot kets ha-pla’ot (Kopys: n.p., [5] 575 [1815]) (63 pages). Some scholars mistakenly wrote that the book was first printed in Lemberg, 1804, but this is a later edition printed in 1834. The title page was forged due to the censor. See Shmuel Viener, Kehilat moshe, i (Petersburg: Russian Academy of Sciences, 1893–1902), 381, who convincingly determined the date of publication to be 1834; Avraham Yaari, “Beit dfusah shel ha-rabanit yehudit rozanes be-lvov,” Kiryat sefer 17 (1940): 97, 108; idem, Mehkarei sefer: perakim be-toldot ha-sefer ha-ivri (Jerusalem: Mosad ha-Rav Kook, 1958), 267; Yitshak Yudlov, Sefer ginzei yisra’el (Jerusalem: Bet ha-sefarim ha- leʼumi veha-universitaʼi, 1985), 205, #1277; Gershom Scholem, Sabbatai Sevi: The Mystical Mes- siah (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), 757; and see in what follows, notes 17 and 43.
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(may he continue to live); and the book of Rabbi Moshe Hagiz; and from others who were from the time. Also, small selections from the many writings of the sages of the generation in Asia, who were there in the days of this Sabbatai, who sent their letters to the sages of that generation in Europe. They chased after that broken deer [tsvi], and these [writings] were hidden in their chambers. We have now brought them to press to arouse and to strengthen the hearts of our nation, the children of Israel, so that they not stray at all from our commandments and laws and our Torah, and not heed the false words which oppose our holy Torah…2
However, the book was much more than a simple anti-Sabbatian anthology. Its contents and its literary style clearly indicate that its anonymous author had other sources at his disposal. While a negative attitude toward Sabbatianism characterizes the book, the author displays a deep understanding of the mes- sianic phenomenon and the secret of its phenomenal success. Moreover, the book’s plot is complex and detailed. Sabbatai Tsvi is portrayed as a powerful magician, and Nathan of Gaza is shown as a legitimate prophet who fell into the traps of the Sitra Ahra, the demonic “other side.” The book also features detailed descriptions of dreams, magical practices (including summoning de- mons and black magic), public prophecies and sexual incidents. It surveys the events which led to the spread of Sabbatianism and quotes widely from Sab- batian epistles. It includes long stories about Raphael Joseph, Sabbatai Tsvi’s wife Sarah (who receives a particularly detailed description), Abraham ha- Yakhini, Samuel Primo, Abraham Miguel Cardozo, Daniel Bonfice, Sabbatai Tsvi’s son Ishmael, Joseph Filosof, Jacob Querido, and others. It also includes extensive descriptions of various non-believers, including long monologues by the anti-Sabbatian Jerusalem rabbi – and teacher of Nathan of Gaza – Jacob Hagiz. The text integrates folktales about Joseph Della Reina, the Ten Lost Tribes and the Sambatyon River, Maimonides, the Queen of Sheba, and the Golem. The story ends with the tragic and chilling deaths of Nathan of Gaza, Sabbatai Tsvi, and Abraham Miguel Cardozo, and other details about Sabba- tianism from around the turn of the eighteenth century. Although the book reworks well-known anti-Sabbatian texts (particularly those by Sasportas), it appears that the author’s sources were more varied and that they even included Sabbatian manuscripts. The work includes many short notes by a person referred to as “Maʻarvi” (“Westerner”). Throughout, it brings odd anthropological and geographical facts (in the spirit of Orientalism) regarding rituals from Asia, Africa, and America which, in the author’s opinion,
2 Sipur halomot kets ha-pla’ot, (Kopys, 1814), title page.