The author of the Sefer ha-Peli'ah we-ha-Ķanah sets out first to establish the fact that the Waw has redemptive value. By a process of permutation and combination of letters, he shows that the Waw is equal to 'x'= Redemption. The value of the five final letters 'r'''',16 integrated and taken in their major numerical value () plus the value of the letter Taw, equals 6,000. The sixth millennium is the Messianic millennium. The first half of it, i. e. 500 years, is under the dominion of the Sefirah Keter-Crown, and in one-half of that period, i. e. 250 years 5250 A. M. = 1490 C. E., "the children of Israel will c. go forth from exile."17 In another connection the author states that the time prophesied by Jesus for the destruction of the world is really the time of the destruction of his followers and the beginning of the reign of the blessed one (the Messiah), and this will take place in the year 5250 A. M. 1490 C. E.18 It is likely that the author had in mind the defeat of Christendom at the hands of the Turks in 1453, when Constantinople was conquered. = = He seems to find support for his calculations in Job When the morning stars sang") בר'ן' יחד כוכבי בקר :38.7 = together"). The value of ' is 250 1490 c. E.19 Zunz mentions the Messianic calculation of Abigdor Kara, Bohemian Kabbalist and Payyetan (d. 1439) who also gave the year 1490 c. E. as the year of Redemption.20 16 The Rabbis had already connected these final letters with the various redemptions from exile (see Lev. R. 18.17). 17 Op. cit., pp. 12c-13a., see also p. 76d. 18 Ibid., p. 12c. 19 Still another figure is given, in the Sefer ha-Peli'ah, quoted undoubtedly from an earlier source (ibid. p. 76c): "The number of its years (the exile) will be 1222 years" (1290 c.E.). This is Abulafia's year based on Lev. 25.10: "And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year (of the sixth millennium - 5050 = 1290 c. E.) and ye shall proclaim freedom in the land." The author here seems to be strongly influenced in thought and style by Abulafia. The Christians will be destroyed in the 1290th year = 1358 c.E. 20 Ges. Schr., III, p. 228. Pillars of the Waw (literally the hooks of the pillars), and he builds his argument around the letter Waw (see David Cahana, o'yin as, App. III, p. 142. Shabbetai Zebi claimed to be this sixth Sefirah, which was also called God (see ibid., "Letter of Abraham Michael Cordosa," pp. 144-148). The author seems also to have been a firm believer in astrology.21 3. Simeon ben Zemaḥ Duran (1361-1444), author of "Oheb Mishpat," a commentary on the Book of Job, gives the year 1850 c. E. as the Messianic year. Having first given his own critical comments on chapters 40 to 42 of Job, which contain references to the Behemot and the Leviathan, he is tempted to present also the older allegorical interpretation of these passages. The two chapters 40 and 41 are in reality an allegory on the epic of Abraham, his experiences with Pharaoh (the Leviathan of Job), the sacrifice of Isaac, Lot, etc.: "God revealed to Abraham the hardness of the exile."22 The sword mentioned in Job. 41.18 refers to the sword of Rome which will not prevail against Israel. The arrow (verse 20) refers to Ishmael. The key sentence, which gives the means of calculating He") אחריו יאיר נתיב יחשב תהום לשיבה :24 the end, is verse (the Leviathan) maketh a path to shine after him. One would think the deep to be hoary"). This sentence should be taken to read: "He who wishes to understand this and to know the light of God's ways, let him calculate (a) Tehom=the abyss = the years during which Israel sinned against God, to be equal to 70 (naw='yaw). Thus Moses prophesied, "Your sins will be equal to 70."23 This, too, is the meaning of Daniel's prophecy:2 24 The "season"--is 70 years, which is the length of a man's life. This verse in Daniel, therefore, states that when Ty is taken to mean 70 years (Typ), then the Redemption will come at the end of 70 times 35 (у, " being one-half of 70), or after 2,450 years.25 This figure is also hinted at in Ezek. 4.4 ff. Ezekiel is commanded by God to lie on his left side 390 days for the sins of Israel, and 40 days on his right side for the sins of Judah. The days, of course, are years. Deduct the 40 years of Judah's sins from the 390 of Israel's, for both 21 Ibid., II, pp. 57 ff. = בצוארו ילין עז :41.13 .Job 22 .הראה לו עז הגלות שבע כחטאתיכם :26.21 .a Lev 24 12.7. % uDuD anın, ed. Venice, 1589, pp. 201b-202a. Judah and Israel will be redeemed at the same time, and you have 350 years=35x10=35x10x7 (the author maintains that each unit of ten is equal to seven: opm nyawb 708 701awn) = 2450 years. It is difficult to establish the terminus a quo which the author had in mind. His chronology is somewhat confused. He seems to think that 150 years elapsed from the expulsion of some of the tribes of the northern kingdom,26 under Tiglath-Pileser (c. 734), to the final expulsion under Sennacherib (c. 722), thereby accounting for the discrepancy in the two revelations of Dan. 12.7 and Dan. 8.14, the first, according to Duran, giving the figure 2,450, and the second, 2,300. If we assume Duran's starting point to have been the final destruction of the kingdom of Israel, which, according to the old chronology, was around the year 450 B. C. E.,27 then the Redemption would take place 2300 years later, or in the year 1850 c. E. The figure given in Dan. 12.11, "from the time of the removal of the continual burnt offering... .. there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days," refers to the conquest of Jerusalem by the Mohammedans. According to the author, the end of Mohammedan rule would occur 1290 years after the rise of Mohammed (1290+622=1912 C. E.); the beginning of the end would be sixty years earlier, i. e. c. 1850 c. E C. PSEUDO-MESSIAHS This period of 150 years seems to offer but one pseudoMessiah-Moses Botarel-Spanish scholar and Kabbalist. Moses Botarel wrote a commentary on the Sefer Yezira in which he shows his complete familiarity with the Kabbala. He even boasts of this fact: "By my head I swear that I did not leave any book treating of this science without first studying it thoroughly."28 He announced 26 Cf. II K. 15.29; I K. 5.6. 27 Gedalia ibn Yahya gives the date as 3206 A. M., which would be 446 B. C. E. ,ed. Mantua) ספר יצירה כי חיי ראשי לא הנחתי שום ספר מזאת החכמה שלא חקרתיו28 1562, p. 15b). himself as the Messiah in Cisneros in the year 1393, soon after the terrible persecutions in Spain (1391). These sufferings were widely interpreted as the birth-throes of the Messiah. Abraham of Granada writes in his Berit Menuḥa: "And this is an indication of the approach of Redemption. When it is near, the sufferings of the exile will increase, and many of the faithful ones will stumble when they see the terrible confusion of the exile and the great sufferings, and many will leave the faith in order to escape the sword of the destroyer . . . but blessed is the man who will cling to his faith and walk in the right path. Perhaps he will be saved from the tribulations which are called the pangs of the Messiah."29 From letters said to have been sent to friends by Ḥasdai Crescas (1340-1410) this great philosopher is thought to have believed in the Messiaship of Botarel as well as in the miracles which he was reported to have performed. Reports had it that Botarel once demonstrated his physical immunity to the flames of a burning furnace into which he had been cast, in order to convince the king of Spain that he was in very truth a prophet.30 It is very doubtful, however, whether Crescas actually lent himself to such preposterous beliefs. Not even the terrible sufferings of 1391, which Crescas witnessed, and the martyrdom of his own son, could have affected his mind to such an extent as to prompt him to subscribe to the vagaries of this thaumaturge. It is hardly likely that a man of such clear and independent thought, who in his systematic theology even refused to give the Messianic belief the position of a basic doctrine in Judaism, and who bitterly opposed all Messianic calculations, would lend himself to such miraclemongering and Messianic phantasies. It may well be that the use of Crescas's name is entirely spurious. 29, ed. Amsterdam, 1648, p.16c. 30 Jellinek, B.H., VI, pp. 141-143. CHAPTER VI THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY A. THE BACKGROUND The sixteenth century is an outstanding century of Messianic interest, speculation and adventure. It follows the catastrophic expulsions from Spain (1492) and Portugal (1498), and the extensive expulsions of Jews from Germanic provinces in the last decade of the fifteenth century. In Italy, too, the conditions of the Jews changed for the worse as the sixteenth century advanced. The first ghetto was established in Venice; Jewish economic activities were restricted; and a rigorous censorship of Hebrew books was instituted. The exiles from the Pyrenean peninsula scattered themselves along the Mediterranean littoral and settled in Italy, Northern Africa, Turkey and Palestine. They spread Kabbalistic teachings wherever they went and inoculated the Jewish communities with their own perfervid Messianic expectations. In Italy the Abarbanel family established a center of mystic thought. Abraham Zacuto, his brother-in-law, Abraham Halevi and Moses Alashkar, established another such center in Northern Africa. Joseph Taitazak, Jacob Tam ibn Yaḥya and Judah Benveniste established still another in Turkey. The Spanish immigrants fairly dominated the intellectual life of the communities in which they settled. In Palestine Solomon Alkabez, Moses Cordovero, Isaac Luria, Ḥayyim Vital, Joseph Caro, Joseph Saragossi and their disciples gave a new and more intensive bent to practical Kabbala. Safed became the capital of the Jewish mystic world. Kabbala was no longer the handmaid of Rabbinic Judaism, modest and deferential. It became |