The Romantic Messiah

Perpetual reveries separated Sabbatai from the outer world. Only through a soft and gentle mask were his smiles and frowns, his laughter and his anger, revealed to his friends. In moments of profound exaltation his deep-set eyes burned with a pure and luminous fire, like emeralds sparkling with red.

But in none of this lay Sabbatai’s essential strength.

Two strange qualities aroused the mystical interests of his followers. One was his voice, which lent a deep and troubling beauty to his most ordinary remarks, while the second was the perfume of his body, a perfume like none other in this world; though scarcely perceptible, it filled those who smelt it with exuberant joy.

“Sabbatai Zevy is a mystery,” his frineds often repeated, and they anxiously wondered what his destiny would be.

Seduced by his singing, the most beautiful and richest young girl of Smyrna had married him when he was twenty years old. His life was spent in luxury, his marriage was a happy one. He diligently studied the Kabbala and passed his leisure moments with his friends. There was no hint his easy, and screne existence could be broken.

But one day Sabbatai’s father, Mordecai, brought him a fugitive from the Ukraine, an old man whom he had found, homeless and hungry, wandering through the market place in Smyrna.

The fugitive told Sabbatai about the great Cossack massacre. He told him about his past as a rich merchant, his devout and happy family, his studious sons. He described in detail the horrors of that day when all his happiness had been destroyed, his family slain, and his house burned to ashes. Sabbatai listened, consoling the old man when, overcome by the memory of his sorrows, he wept uncontrollably.

From this time Sabbatai’s life suffered a profound change. He left his beloved wife, and it was rumored that he could no longer endure earthly ties. His enemies declared, however, that he had never had any relations with her, but was addicted to perverse practices. Sabbatai would only laugh at this idle talk. Entering Pinheiro’s group, he gave himself up with unwonted zeal to a study of the Kabbala.

At the same time, for pleasure, he attended the banquets of his friends, drank wine, and sang. But only one song would he sing. All those who loved gaiety in Smyrna repeated it even though they did not understand its meaning and were, in fact, inclined to find it dull.

The song had only one stanza, but Sabbatai would sing it the whole evening long, repeating it again and again and each time more passionately.

Going up the mountains,

Coming down the valleys,

I saw Melisselda,

The King’s daughter.

She came out of her bath To wash her hair.

Her body is whiter than milk,

Her lips are redder than coral.

Sabbatai often left his companions feasting and went to the synagogue where he lived after leaving his wife. There, stretched upon the ground all night long, he prayed and scourged himself with leather whips. He would often disappear for days at a time, would return hungry to join the banquets of his friends, and then would depart for the synagogue to pray and scourge himself again.

At this time he persistently questioned Rabbi Eliezer on the secret of the world’s end. Why was the great Liberator so long in coming? Why did he hide? Was not the time ripe for him to appear?

Rabbi Eliezer loved these questions, for above everything he cherished a faith in the ineluctable advent of the Liberator. But the cherished it less for himself (he was content in his universe of dreams) than for God the Father who would rejoice in the day of Redemption.

“Yes, my children, yes, my Sabbatai,” he answered. “It is a great question and a great mystery. But I hear the beating of wings, I hear it, I hear it…. I hear His steps upon the Mountains. He is near, He knocks at the door… Perhaps He is even here, among us, unknown, invisible. It is a great mystery.”

He shut his eyes, howed his head as though he slept. Then; suddenly rousing himself, he said:

“He comes forth in purple and gold. His voice will be like David’s harp and his lips will be perfumed.”

Sabbatai trembled at his words. Was not his voice compared to David’s harp and did not the perfume of his body astonish his friends and his enemies?

No, no! With horror he repulsed the audacious thought. The heresy of the idea terrified him, yet at the same moment he read, with a thrill of happiness, the same conviction in the eyes of Pinheiro and Primo.

“Rabbi Eliezer”, asked Pinheiro one day, “if the Messiah is near, if he is at the door and does not reveal himself, may it not be that he is still ignorant of his mission?”

“Do not rouse love before it awakens,” counselled the old man in a firm, sad voice. “Do not stir sleeping waters before their time. When the hour strikes for the Chosen One, the waves of the sea, the beasts of the forest, and the birds of the heaven will warn him. He will see visions. Signs will appear to him. He will recognize the voice of God in the thunder and in the gentle breeze…. Mystery! Mystery! Ask no further; there is no answer to your questions.”

Henceforth, Sabbatai observed a change in the attitude Primo and Pinheiro bore him. Their simple friendship gave way to ill-disguised adoration. Sometimes when they they would seem to touch the hem of his garments inadvertently, Sabbatai realized they did so intentionally, as if they sought a mystic communion with him which would give him strength.

He feared asking them openly what they believed, for he had a horror of disillusionment. But meanwhile he also lost his simple and brotherly affection for them. To him they had become mirrors in whose depths he ceaselessly searched for the reflection of his own secret face.

To be continued tomorrow