Deep Sabbatianism pt. 2 Theological Dissimulation

Most Sabbatians remained in mainstream Judaism but hid their secret messianic Sabbatian faith. The way of Shabbtai Zvi himself was not considered generally the directive for all, but a particular calling. This was a secret faith, that acclaimed and spiritualized dissimulation.

Remember, there was the life and times of Shabbtai Zvi, and then there was the religious trend that followed. The major phenomenon of Sabbatian messianism occurs after the failure and passing of Shabbtai Zvi, over 1-2 centuries mostly, as crypto-Sabbatian messianic believers within the Jewish world. 

They believed in a Messiah that converted to Islam, embracing dissimulation...

They thought of it as a great messianic mission, using ample biblical material - such as Moses, the great redeemer, in the house of Pharaoh, as Egyptian prince, in the kingdom of impurity. 

They used the example of Joseph, also in Egypt, in the highest royal position of service and authority, who concealed his identity as a Hebrew for the sake of a divinely orchestrated moment, a critical moment of redemption for the people, in order to save his family, the House of Jacob. 

They also thought of Queen Esther, whom the Sabbatians were obsessed with, learning from her the necessity and justification of conscious dissimulation, and in her case perhaps even living in sexual immorality or sexual impurity, as the Queen of Persia, mistress of the Emperor. It was she who saved the Jews from a holocaust, because of her concealment and dissimulation. 

Thus thousands upon thousands of Sabbatians built a worldview and network of faith and practice, and theology, for hundreds of years. 

Twisting Concepts

They also utilized interpretations that undermined prominent scriptures - scripture that were famous, that articulated the big traditional concepts and notions or tenants of faith and practice... 

An example: in Sanhedrin chapter 11 of the Babylonian Talmud, “for the Son of David will not come until the entire Kingdom is overturned to heresy…” 

The original meaning surely was a catastrophic unfortunate circumstance before the redemption, but the Sabbatian interpretation makes it part of the agenda!

Instead of the Messiah coming to make a tikkun, the Messiah is he who makes the heresy for the sake of hastened redemption.

Suffering Servant Obviously

Another example: Isaiah 52-53, famously used in Christian interpretation to show the suffering servant Messiah, the Sabbatians used alternatively -

“He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of pains, and acquainted with disease, and as one from whom men hide their face he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely our diseases he did bear, and our pains he carried; whereas we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted…”

The Christians read their Messiah there - “he was wounded because of our transgressions, he was crushed because of our iniquities…” But the Sabbatians tweaked it - instead of מחולל (wounded) they read מחולל desecrated, or violated… 

In other words, not a Christian Messiah who takes on the sin of others, but the Sabbatian Messiah, desecrated or is induced into strange or heretical acts.

He took upon himself to be desecrated for a special secret messianic Lurianic kabbalistic mission. He entered deep into the Kingdom of Evil, the Other Side, to raise the sparks and rescue them from within the evil, and in order to do that, he had to become, at least externally, as that evil.