Sabbatai Zevi – The False Messiah

Redemption Through Sin

NOTES FROM THE PAST

SEP 15, 2024

Sabbatai Zevi was born in 1626 to a wealthy merchant family in Smyrna, a town on the west coast of Turkey known as Izmir today. He rose to be a charismatic Rabbi and Kabbalist who, in 1666, declared himself to be the Messiah. This eccentric mystic managed to attract over a million devotees during his lifetime. A remarkable achievement given this was about half of the Jewish population in the 17^th century.

Thanks to the printing press in the previous century, the Lurianic Kabbalah (named after the famed Rabbi Isaac Luria), was broadly disseminated allowing Jews to everywhere access to the occult literature. Popularity of Jewish mysticism was on the rise during a time of persecution, and it was on this stage that Sabbatai Zevi stepped up to the podium. Drawing from ancient Babylonian occultism and interpretations of the Kabbalah, Sabbatai promoted the concept and practice of redemption through sin.

Share

There was a growing sense of hopelessness among the Jewish population for the long-awaited Messiah. Sabbatai played on the widely held expectation that the Messiah would return in 1646, and announced, during an episode of “illumination”, that he was indeed that Messiah. He was a man of charming personality, handsome, possessed an enchanted singing voice, and radiated an angelic aura, according to some first-hand reports. Converting the masses seemed to have come easily with many Rabbis even attesting to having dreams of Sabbatai appearing to them as the Messiah. Here was a charismatic mystic who seemed to fit the bill of a Messiah, although his “illuminated” episodes suggested something less than divine. Some interpret his behaviour as bipolar, others some form of psychotic disorder, or maybe possessed. Regardless, his esoteric mysticism, replacing Jewish law with depraved and immoral behaviour, had him expelled from Smyrna in the early 1650s.

Sabbatai resurfaced in 1658 in Constantinople where preacher Abraham Yachini declared Sabbatai’s Messianic destiny. With a document forged by the Talmudic scholar Joseph Trani prophesying Sabbatai’s legitimacy, Sabbatai went to Salonica to proclaim himself the “Anointed One”.  However, he was soon banished from the city by the local rabbis, sending him on a journey through a handful of major cities before settling in Cairo in 1660. Here he was supported by a wealthy and influential Jew, Raphael Joseph Halabi, who promoted Sabbati’s messianic claims. Moving to Jerusalem around 1663 he once again garnered a large following, in no small part due to his rich and powerful connection in Cairo who may be able to ease the Ottoman tax burden that was on the people. When he was sent to Cairo to appeal to Raphael Joseph Halabi on behalf of the Jerusalem Jews, another event took place that further elevated his fame.

There was a Jewish orphan named Sarah, from a Polish Christian convent, who, at 16, had made her way to Amsterdam and then Italy, where she became a prostitute. She was also convinced that she would be the bride of the Messiah. Sabbatai, after hearing the story of Sarah, claimed that he had been promised in a dream that he would fall in love with an unchaste woman, not unlike the prophet Hosea, and that Sarah was the one. He sent for her and they were married – her eccentric character and beauty apparently gained the would-be Messiah greater fame.

Sabbatai and his new wife went back to Jerusalem where he met Nathan Benjamin Levi (known as Nathan of Gaza) who saw himself as the risen Elijah who would usher in the Messianic Age. Nathan announced 1666 would see the conquest of the world and the beginning of the Messiah’s reign. But the rabbis of Jerusalem were less than impressed and threatened to excommunicate Sabbatai and his followers. Sabbatai retreated to his native Smyna where he would be more readily accepted as the Messiah.

It was in Smyna and in Philadelphia (about 105 miles east) that the book of Revelation describes “a synagogue of Satan who say that they area Jews and are not, but lie.”

By 1665 Sabbatai had become an international sensation with many prominent rabbis clinging to his claims. However, this was short-lived, by 1666, after Sabbatai’s plans to abolish much of the Jewish rituals shocked many of the previously sympathetic Jews. He left Smyrna, probably kicked out, early in 1666 where he went to Constantinople and was swiftly arrested and imprisoned by the Sultan of Turkey. 

Even in prison Sabbatai was able to spin the whole ordeal in his favour, garnering more fame and prayers as stories of the miraculous deeds of this Messiah were disseminated and the Messianic craze intensified. Hungarian Jews unthatched their roofs in preparation for the end of their exile, and Jews in Amsterdam prepared to sell their homes. In Hamburg synagogues Jews would be dancing and jumping in jubilation over the coming redemption.

This would continue until a certain Nehemiah ha-Kohen managed to get word to Sultan Mehmed the Forth, who became aware of Sabbatai’s ambitions. Things would end abruptly for Sabbatai when, on September 15, 1666, the Turkish Sultan gave him three choices: be tested regarding his divinity (by avoiding a volley of arrows); be impaled; or convert to Islam. Other commentators say he was offered two choices – Islam or beheading – it is not certain exactly what happened but Sabbatai’s choice was clear. He chose to convert to Islam the next day on the 16^th, along with his wife and 300 families who were following him. He also took on a second wife to confirm his conversion and was employed as the Sultans doorkeeper. He wrote to the community at Smyrna saying “God has made me an Ishmaelite; He commanded, and it was done. The ninth day of my regeneration.”

Not to be outdone, Sabbatai’s right-hand man, Nathan, perpetuated an alternative interpretation of events. Apparently Sabbatai’s conversion to Islam was to descend in order to reclaim the lost ‘spark’ of divine light that was required to repair the world. Such mystical actions based on a reading of the Kabbalah must have impressed some faithful followers, but for the majority there was just disillusionment.

Sabbatai died in isolation on September 17, 1676, not having ushered in the Messianic Age.

Nevertheless, a remnant of Sabbateans remained and a revival would come about in the 18^th Century under Jacob Frank, who claimed to be a reincarnation of Sabbatai Zevi. Frank expanded on the ideas of Sabbatai, including the idea of ‘redemption through sin’, a paradoxical teaching that the coming messianic age transforms sexual prohibitions into permissions, and even obligations. Frank taught that engaging in sexual orgies was the way to purify the soul from sin. In an extreme departure from morality, he insisted that child sacrifice, rape, incest and the drinking of blood were acceptable and necessary religious rituals. This was all part of his philosophy that to usher in a new society there must be the destruction of the old, albeit done in secret – a doctrine called the “way of Esau”. He also endorsed the Gnostic idea that the Biblical God was evil and not the creator.

In total rejection of the Torah and traditional interpretations, Frank converted to both Islam and Catholicism, slept with his followers (including his daughter), and preached that the imitation of God was to transgress every taboo, cross every boundary, and mix the sacred with the profane.

As part of the secret mission of his believers, Frank convinced his followers that just as Sabbatai had descended into Islam, that they should outwardly become Christians to conceal the secrets of their faith. Frank led 60,000 European Jews in baptism into the Catholic Church. Although his following was something like 20-times less than Sabbatai, his nihilistic mystical cult did have powerful European royalty, nobility and bankers among the ranks. A remarkable feat given Frank’s totally corrupt and degenerate philosophy and religious nihilism.

According to Frank one must be free of all laws, conventions, religions, all positive systems of belief, and commit strange acts of voluntary abasement, in utter disregard to authority, in order to descend into the abyss and fix the soul. This was to be done in silence, with deceit, the so-called burden of silence.

And then, in the 1770s, there came about a powerful alliance in Frankfurt, when Jacob Frank would join forces with another secret society and a very wealthy individual.

Johann Adam Weishaupt was the son of Jewish parents who had converted to Catholicism in Bavaria. His father, a professor of law at the University of Ingolstadt, died when Adam was just 5 years old. Adam was educated by the Jesuits, learning 5 languages and becoming a professor of Canon Law at the University of Ingolstadt. When he was just 28 he founded the Orden de Perfektibilisten (otherwise known as the Illuminati, named in honour of Lucifer, the ‘bearer of light’) on May 1^st, 1776.

His secret society had a list of long-term goals of abolishing monarchies, governments, private property, inheritances, patriotism, nationalism, family life, marriage, religion, and to establish communal education for children. Socialist phenomenon that had long been grasped by various groups through the centuries, and indeed, would be foundational to Karl Marx’s communist manifesto.  In short, the illuminati manifesto was to secretly rule the world by establishing a New World Order. The illuminati then successfully infiltrated the Masonic lodges for their power and influence in society.

Weishaupt was calculating, scheming, immoral and narcissistic. A French Jesuit Priest who studied Weishaupt in the late 18^th century said he was, “An odious phenomenon in nature, an Atheist void of remorse, a profound hypocrite, destitute of those superior talents which lead to the vindication of truth, he is possessed of all that energy and ardour in vice which generates conspirators for impiety and anarchy. Shunning, like the ill-boding owl, the genial rays of the sun, he wraps around him the mantle of darkness; and history shall record of him, as of the evil spirit, only the black deeds which he planned or executed.”

The third member of this trio was Mayer Amschel Rothschild, founder of the Rothschild dynasty, who provided financial backing for the work of the Illuminati and brought the Sabbatean-Frankists (sometimes referred to as the “Cult of the All-Seeing Eye”) into a secret, yet powerful, trinity. This cabal, initially working through Freemasonry, was dedicated to bring about a New World Order.  Recruits to this cabal were intelligent men from the arts, science, business and politics. They were tasked with social engineering: bribery, extortion, opportunity, promotion, scholarships, whatever was necessary to steer policies and people in whatever direction was required.

But was this cabal just looking for world domination through a ‘new world order’? It seems there was a deeper motivation. A motivation to usher in the Messiah and Messianic Age – in which, of course, this new enlightened cabal would rule and reign. This was to be done by the increase of sin –  by turning the established moral code on its head – destroying, no less, the European heterosexual Christian character of Western society. The destruction of Christianity, monarchies, nationalism, family and marriage, private property, and any collective identity, would all be key features of this spiritual and political revolution. The promotion of promiscuity, and all manner of sexual deviance, undermining nationalism, race, gender, and promoting ‘diversity’ and the ‘universal brotherhood’ would all play a part in a kaleidoscopic Hegelian dialectic of East-and-West, of communism-and-capitalism, of rich-and-poor, black-and-white, male-and-female – resolving everything into the expected ‘synthesis’ of a One World Order.

This grand scheme could not possibly be done without the Rothschild’s purchasing, and thus controlling, Reuters and other influential news agencies. This gave the cabal the means to control the narrative through the most influential press outlets in Europe. Additionally, the Anti Defamation League, established in 1913, gave cover for the cabal’s activities, slandering anyone who dared question the Rothschild’s agenda as being anti-semetic. And to empower even more an already powerful dynasty, Congress voted on the Rothschild’s Federal Reserve Act in December 1913. Woodrow Wilson, the president at the time, said later in his book “The New Freedom”:

” However it has come about, it is more important still that the control of credit also has become dangerously centralized. It is the mere truth to say that the financial resources of the country are not at the command of those who do not submit to the direction and domination of small groups of capitalists who wish to keep the economic development of the country under their own eye and guidance. The great monopoly in this country is the monopoly of big credits. So long as that exists, our old variety and freedom and individual energy of development are out of the question. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is privately concentrated.”

And concentrated indeed was the power of these illuminated elites with a view to rule the world. The stage was set for this Illuminati/Sabbatean-Frankists/Rothschild trio to manipulate the world stage throughout the 20^th Century.

Has the legacy of Sabbatai Zevi become fuel for a cabal of elite religious ideologues, hell-bent on ruling the world through a stranglehold on politics, finance and the media? Or is this just the vivid fantasies of conspiracy theorists?