Paul had to justify believing in a Messiah who died on the cross, Sabbateans
had to justify the Messiah who converts to another faith. A solution to this
quandary was found by Abraham Cardozo (1626–1706), a Sabbatean and a
crypto-Jew living in Italy. If Nathan of Gaza was Shabbetai Zvi’s publicist,
Cardozo was the architect of Sabbateanism.
Cardozo found the solution in Lurianic Kabbala. Luria had described a ver-
sion of creation that led eventually to sparks of divine eminence being
trapped in this world. Accordingly, the aim of Judaism, and the central task
of Jews in the world, was to retrieve and liberate these sparks of the divine, so
they could reunite and bring about Tikkun ‘olam(the perfectivizing of the
world). Thus, Lurianic Kabbalists explained events since biblical times in
terms of the gathering of divine sparks. For example, the Jews had been
enslaved in Egypt to liberate the sparks trapped there; and Jews had been
exiled to the four corners of the world to retrieve sparks from all over the
world. Cardozo carried this explanation to a logical conclusion: Shabbetai Zvi
had converted in order to liberate the divine sparks trapped in the world of
Islam. This justification, in one fashion or another, provided the justification
for Sabbateans to maintain their belief in Shabbetai Zvi.
Historians distinguish two types of Sabbatean belief: conservative and
radical. Conservative Sabbateans were those who believed that Shabbetai
Zvi would eventually return to Judaism. In the meantime, they waited for
him to reappear, all the while living ostensibly normal Jewish lives. In
other words, conservative Sabbateans were secret Sabbateans. Occasionally,
secret/conservative Sabbateans would be discovered, precipitating a
Sabbatean controversy.
The most notorious secret Sabbatean at the beginning of the eighteenth
century was Nehemia Hayyon, a disciple of Abraham Cardozo. Hayyon was
an enthusiast and an evangelical who claimed to have had direct contact with
the divine. He published esoteric kabbalistic teachings, and was deemed by
his opponents to be subversive, dangerous, and a threat to rabbinic authority.
His arch-adversary and pursuer was Moses Hajiz. Hajiz followed him all
over Europe trying to apprehend him and prosecute him for heresy. He began
a massive letter-writing campaign, trying to expose Hayyon. Hayyon eluded
him repeatedly. A similar controversy revolved around Leib of Proznitz, who
allegedly conducted secret Sabbatean rituals and recruited a small coterie of
followers. He was also forced by his pursuers to flee.
By the mid-eighteenth century, the pursuit of Sabbatean heresy evolved
from efforts to eliminate Sabbateanism into a broader suspicion of any deviant
or unusual behavior as a possible instance of Sabbatean heresy. This latter sus-
picion was at the heart of the controversy that erupted in 1751 between
Jonathan Eybeschütz and Jacob Emden. Eybeschütz, one of the leading
talmudic scholars of his generation, was the rabbi of Altona and Prague before
being accused by Emden of being a Sabbatean. He denied it categorically, at
World Jewry in flux, 1492–1750 129