In the gloom of the great synagogue, while the worshippers swayed
ghostly, and the ram's horn sounded shrill and jubilant, Sabbataï,
standing before the Ark, where the Scrolls of the Law stood solemn,
proclaimed himself, amid a tense awe as of heavens opening in
ineffable vistas, the Righteous Redeemer, the Anointed of Israel.
A frenzied shout of joy, broken by sobs, answered him from the vast
assembly.
"Long live our King! Our Messiah!" Many fell prostrate on the ground,
their faces to the floor, kissing it, weeping, screaming, shouting in
ecstatic thankfulness; others rocked to and fro, blinded by their
tears, hoarse with exultation.
"_Messhiach! Messhiach!_"
"The Kingdom has come!"
"Blessed be the Messiah!"
In the women's gallery there were shrieks and moans: some swooned,
others fell a-prophesying, contorting themselves spasmodically,
uttering wild exclamations; the spirit seized upon little children,
and they waved their arms and shouted frantically.
"_Messhiach! Messhiach!_"
The long exile of Israel was over--the bitter centuries of the badge
and the byword, slaughter and spoliation; no longer, O God! to cringe
in false humility, the scoff of the street-boy, the mockery of
mankind, penned in Ghettos, branded with the wheel or the cap--but
restored to divine favor as every Prophet had predicted, and uplifted
to the sovereignty of the peoples.
"_Messhiach! Messhiach!_"
They poured into the narrow streets, laughing, chattering, leaping,
dancing, weeping hysterically, begging for forgiveness of their
iniquities. They fell at Sabbataï feet, women spread rich carpets for
him to tread (though he humbly skirted them), and decked their windows
and balconies with costly hangings and cushions. Some, conscious of
sin that might shut them out from the Kingdom, made for the harbor and
plunged into the icy waters; some dug themselves graves in the damp
soil and buried themselves up to their necks till they were numb and
fainting; others dropped melted wax upon their naked bodies. But the
most common way of mortification was to prick their backs and sides
with thorns and then give themselves thirty-nine lashes. Many fasted
for days upon days and kept Cabalistic watches by night, intoning
_Tikkunim_ (prayers).
And, blent with these penances, festival after festival, riotous,
delirious, whenever Sabbataï Zevi, with his vast train of followers,
and waving a fan, showed himself in the street on his way to a
ceremony or to give Cabalistic interpretations of Scripture in the
synagogue. The shop-keepers of the Jewish bazaar closed their doors,
and followed in the frenzied procession, singing "The right hand of
the Lord is exalted, the right hand bringeth victory," jostling,
fighting, in their anxiety to be touched with the fan and inherit the
Kingdom of Heaven. And over these vast romping crowds, drunk with
faith, Melisselda queened it with her voluptuous smiles and the joyous
abandon of her dancing, and men and women, boys and girls, embraced
and kissed in hysterical frenzy. The yoke of the Law was over, the
ancient chastity forgotten. In the Cabalistic communities of
Thessalonica, where the pious began at once to do penance, some dying
of a seven-days' fast, and others from rolling themselves naked in the
snow, parents hastened to marry young children so that all the unborn
souls which through the constant re-incarnations, necessary to enable
the old sinful souls to work out their Perfection, had not yet been
able to find bodies, might enter the world, and so complete the scheme
of creation. Seven hundred children were thus joined in wedlock.
Business, work was suspended; the wheel of the cloth-workers ceased;
the camels no longer knelt in the Jewish quarter of Smyrna, the Bridge
of Caravans ceased to vibrate with their passing, the shops remained
open only so long as was necessary to clear off the merchandise at any
price; whoso of private persons had any superfluity of household stuff
sold it off similarly, but yet not to Jews, for these were interdicted
from traffic, business being the mark of the unbeliever, and
punishable by excommunication, pecuniary mulcts, or corporeal
chastisements. Everybody prepared for the imminent return to
Palestine, when the heathen should wait at the table of the Saints and
the great Leviathan deck the Messianic board. In the interim the poor
were supported by the rich. In Thessalonica alone four thousand
persons lived on gifts; truly Messianic times for the Abraham Rubios.
In Smyrna the authority of the Cadi was ignored or silenced by purses;
when the Turks complained, the Seraglio swallowed gold on both sides.
The _Chacham_ Aaron de la Papa, being an unbeliever and one of those
who had originally driven him from his birthplace, was removed by
Sabbataï, and Chayim Benvenisti appointed _Chacham_ instead. The noble
Chayim Penya, the one sceptic of importance left in Smyrna, was
wellnigh torn to pieces in the synagogue by the angry multitude, but
when his own daughters went into prophetic trances and saw the glory
of the Kingdom he went over to Sabbataï's side, and reports flew
everywhere that the Messiah's enemies were struck with frenzies and
madness, till, restored by him to their former temper and wits, they
became his friends, worshippers, and disciples. Four hundred other men
and women fell into strange ecstasies, foamed at the mouth, and
recounted their visions of the Lion of Judah, while infants, who could
scarcely stammer out a syllable plainly, repeated the name of
Sabbataï, the Messiah; being possessed, and voices sounding from their
stomachs and entrails. Such reports, bruited through the world by the
foreign ambassadors at Smyrna, the clerks of the English and Dutch
houses, the resident foreigners, and the Christian ministers, excited
a prodigious sensation, thrilling civilized mankind. On the Exchanges
of Europe men took the odds for and against a Jewish kingdom.
Upon the Jews of the world the news that the Messiah had passed from a
far-off aspiration into a reality fell like a thunderbolt; they were
dazed with joy; then they began to prepare for the great journey.
Everywhere self-flagellation, almsgiving, prophetic ecstasies and
trances, the scholars and the mob at one in joyous belief. And
everywhere also profligacy, adultery, incest, through the spread of a
mystical doctrine that the sinfulness of the world could only be
overcome by the superabundance of sin.