The Messiah part 9

I "became" Sepharadic in the Spring of 1991. Two months later, I was in a Sepharadic synagogue for the Shavu'ot holiday. Special prayers were said at the opening of the Ark. I was reciting them, when I suddenly stopped in my tracks. One line of the prayer contained the words "Ateret Tzvi Meshichecha". That could mean two things. It could mean "the beautiful crown of your Messiah". Or, it could mean "the crown of Tzvi your Messiah". I asked the rabbi of the synagogue. He replied "yes, that is a Shabbatean prayer. Many of our customs come from there. Any that are obviously heretical we eliminate, but those that appear harmless, we keep". (It can also be understood as "the beautiful cown of Your anointed", but the context did not fit that). After the holiday, I asked the eminent rabbinic scholar, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, for an explanation. He said "How did you know?!?! We are trying to keep this quiet, and remove those things gradually, so as not to open up old wounds". At that point, I began to realize that 1666 was not yet over. Like in the aftermath of a hurricane, the landscape is never the same. Jewish communal life, in fact, Judaism as a whole, looked very different after Shabbetai Tzvi. History was rewritten. The annals of some Jewish communities had the pages for 1663 to 1666 simply ripped out. But bigger things were also ripped out. The Jews of Western Europe discarded Kabbalah, as that was seen as the cause of the problem. Central Europe didn't go that far,. but restricted Kabbalah to scholars who would only study it in private or in small groups. Anything smacking of Messianism was seen as a potential threat. Of course, Orthodox Jews clung to the belief in a Messiah... someday. The great rabbis of Central and Eastern Europe remade the course of study in the Yeshivot so as to deemphasize, or even eliminate, a sense of transcendence that might get out of hand. A sterilized Judaism emerged that I would consider...boring. Even study of the Talmud was limited to portions not lending themselves to speculation; marriage, divorce, damages, loans. The open questioning and exchange of ideas that had always characterized Judaism, was suddenly a potential weapon for heretics. Things became carefully defined. RAMBAM's Thirteen Principles of Faith became standard theology, even though they had been attacked by many rabbis as inconsistent with Talmudic principles. But they were better than the potentially explosive alternative. Books of halachah began to be composed for the layman. Rather than the openness of rabbinic discourse that is seen in more scholarly works, these were ultra-conservative. "Here's how we do it folks. Don't listen to anything else". The concept of Daat Torah was formulated, concerning which I have an entire series. (Check files). "Don't think, we will do that for you" became standard. Sepharadic lands handled it much better. The attitude was "OK, we made a mistake. Let's go back to where we were. Shabbatean ideas and practices that have already been adopted, just let them be, so long as they don't violate any essential principles". One finds in many of the writings published in Sepharadic lands such concepts as the suffering of the Messiah, his spiritual prison, as well as other Shabbatean concepts mingling freely together with more classical Kabbalah. The imminence of the Messiah is to be found in these works, but with care taken so as not to identify him with Shabbetai, or any other heretical figure. But the wild card was Eastern Europe. The pleas of rabbis not to get involved in Messianic fervor tended to fall on deaf ears, especially as far as the masses go. The result was Hasidism. Its roots and origins are still being debated. But new directions were formulated. The concept of Mashiach was still very alive and vibrant. But, at the same time, it was channeled in new ways. That will be the next part of our story.