The month of Ab approached--the Messiah's birthday, the day of the
Black Fast, commemorating the fall of the Temples. But Melisselda
protested against its celebration by gloom and penance, and the word
went out to all the hosts of captivity--
"The only and just-begotten Son of God, Sabbataï Zevi, Messiah and
Redeemer of the people of Israel, to all the sons of Israel, Peace!
Since ye have been worthy to behold the great day, and the fulfilment
of God's word to the prophets, let your lament and sorrow be changed
into joy, and your fasts into festivals; for ye shall weep no more.
Rejoice with drums, organs, and music, making of every day a New Moon,
and change the day which was formerly dedicated to sadness and sorrow
into a day of jubilee, because I have appeared; and fear ye naught,
for ye shall have dominion not only over the nations, but over the
creatures also in the depths of the sea."
Thereat arose a new and stranger commotion throughout all the Ghettos,
Jewries, and Mellahs. The more part received the divine message in
uproarious jubilation. The Messiah was come, indeed! Those terrible
twenty-four hours of absolute fasting and passionate prayer--henceforward
to be hours of feasting and merriment! O just and joyous edict! The
Jewish Kingdom was on the eve of restoration--how then longer bewail
its decay!
But the staunchest pietists were staggered, and these the most fervent
of the followers of Sabbataï. What! The penances and prayers of
sixteen hundred years to be swept away! The Yoke of the Torah to be
abolished! Surely true religion rather demanded fresh burdens. What
could more fitly mark the Redemption of the World than new and more
exacting laws, if, indeed, such remained to be invented? True, God
himself was now incarnate on earth--of that they had no doubt. But how
could He wish to do away with the laws deduced from the Holy Book and
accumulated by the zealous labors of so many generations of faithful
Rabbis; how could He set aside the venerated prescriptions of the
_Shulchan Aruch_ of the pious Benjamin Caro (his memory for a
blessing), and all that network of ceremonial and custom for the
zealous maintenance of which their ancestors had so often laid down
their lives? How could He so blaspheme?
And so--in blind passion, unreasoning, obstinate--they clung to their
threatened institutions; in every Jewry they formed little parties for
the defence of Judaism.
What they had prayed for so passionately for centuries had come to
pass. The hopes that they had caught from the _Zohar_, that they had
nourished and repeated day and night, the promise that sorrow should
be changed into joy and the Law become null and void--here was the
fulfilment. The Messiah was actually incarnate--the Kingdom of the
Jews was at hand. But in their hearts was a vague fear of the dazzling
present, and a blind clinging to the unhappy past.
In the Jewry of Smyrna the Messiah walked on the afternoon of the
abolished fast, and a vast concourse seethed around him, dancing and
singing, with flute and timbrel, harp and drum. Melisselda's voice led
the psalm of praise. Suddenly a whisper ran through the mob that there
were unbelievers in the city, that some were actually fasting and
praying in the synagogue. And at once there was a wild rush. They
found the doors shut, but the voice of wailing was heard from inside.
"Beat in the doors!" cried Isaac Silvera. "What do they within,
profaning the festal day?"
The crowd battered in the doors, they tore up the stones of the street
and darted inside.
The floor was strewn with worshippers, rocking to and fro.
The venerable Aaron de la Papa, shorn of his ancient Rabbinical
prestige, but still a commanding figure, rose from the floor, his
white shroud falling weirdly about him, his face deadly pale from the
long fast.
"Halt!" he cried. "How dare you profane the House of God?"
"Blasphemers!" retorted Silvera. "Ye who pray for what God in His
infinite mercy has granted, do ye mock and deride Him?"
But Solomon Algazi, a hoary-headed zealot, cried out, "My fathers have
fasted before me, and shall I not fast?"
For answer a great stone hurtled through the air, just grazing his
head.
"Give over!" shouted Elias Zevi, one of Sabbataï's brothers. "Be done
with sadness, or thou shalt be stoned to death. Hath not the Lord
ended our long persecution, our weary martyrdom? Cease thy prayer, or
thy blood be on thine own head." Algazi and De la Papa were driven
from the city; the _Kofrim_, as the heretics were dubbed, were
obnoxious to excommunication. The thunder of the believers silenced
the still small voice of doubt.
And from the Jewries of the world, from Morocco to Sardinia, from
London to Lithuania, from the Brazils to the Indies, one great cry in
one tongue rose up:--"_Leshanah Haba Berushalayim--Leshanah Haba Beni
Chorin._ Next year in Jerusalem--next year, sons of freedom!"