Today I began to read, for the third or fourth time, Gershom Scholem's "The Messianic Idea in Judaism". It is probably not a book most people would find to be a page turner, but I find it quite interesting in the same way I find a lot of theology fascinating. Not only does the history and theology appeal to me, but often the ideas discussed inspire me to think in different ways about a variety of topics. (See "Jacob Frank and Hillary Clinton ")  And this time was no different, just reading through the titles reminded me of some of the more idiosyncratic theories put forth by some of the more outre kabalist sects, and, in so doing, made me think of a rather interesting way to approach the topics closest to my heart, including those which I recently seem to have some difficulty explaining to my readers' satisfaction.

In an earlier post, I spoke of Sabbatai Zvi (or Zevi) and his much later disciple Jacob Frank, however, for those who missed that post ("Jacob Frank and Hillary Clinton "), I will once again explain the basics. Sabbatai Zvi was a young rabbi living in the Ottoman Empire in the 17th century. At some point, he began to believe he was the messiah. Messianism in Judaism being somewhat different than Christian messianic beliefs, this did not mean he was in any way divine, and certainly not that he was G-d incarnate. (Such a belief would have been thought heresy by orthodox Jews¹.) The messiah was, instead, what messiah had traditionally meant², the rightful king of kenesset Israel³, that is the king of all the Jews. There was certainly a mystical element to messiahood, as the messiah was anointed by G-d, and was expected, at least in the 17th century, to restore Jewish rule to Israel, if not more⁴, but it was a far cry from what messiahood had come to mean in Christianity⁵.

Still, when Sabbatai Zvi began to announce his role as the messiah, a claim promoted quite vigorously by his associate Nathan of Gaza, it created a tremendous stir among the Jews of Israel, as well as the neighboring Ottoman regions, and so, as Zvi began his walk to Istanbul to meet with the Sultan, he attracted quite a following⁶. Despite some skepticism, he attracted enough supporters that the Sultan became concerned, at least concerned enough to call for Sabbatai Zvi's arrest and imprisonment. In the course of this imprisonment, Zvi was presented with the choice of conversion or death, and chose, unlike many other religious leaders, to convert. Following his conversion, he remained imprisoned in what is today Greece, but was allowed to meet regularly with Nathan of Gaza, who acted as his secretary, and correspond with those who had been his followers⁷.

As you would expect, most of Zvi's followers lost faith as the news of his apostasy spread. What is surprising is the number who did not. Thanks to some clever theological justification, and apparently quite persuasive speeches, a number of followers remained loyal, convinced the apostasy was part of a mystical mission, whereby the Lurianic doctrine was fulfilled, with the messiah entering among the "shells" to gather up the divine sparks, prior to his final redemption of the faithful. It was an unusual belief, to be sure, but proved oddly tenacious, with supporters existing to this day, at least among the remnants of the Donmeh in Turkey and, possibly, among a few remaining supporters in eastern Europe

In the generations immediately following the apostasy, after Zvi and Nathan had died and the movement lost its obvious leaders, various sects arose. Among those sects, many began to believe that the highest good one could do was a ritual apostasy, converting to Islam or Christianity (depending upon the locale), while retaining a secret Jewish faith. Few did so, though in a handful of cases entire communities, such as the Donmeh, converted en mass, but the belief persisted⁸.

Jacob frank was one such believer, the leader of a later Sabbatian community. However, Frank, and later his children, adopted a more extreme view. Adding tot he Sabbatian belief in symbolic conversion, they also adopted a common belief that the messiah would arrive only when the world was wholly good or wholly evil. As the former seemed impossible, they began to preach the importance of sin as a path to redemption. Only by embracing evil could they hurry the advent of the messiah⁹ and the redemption of the divine sparks, reclaiming them from among the evil "shells" of this world. And thus, the Frankist began to practice quite extreme deeds, though there is disagreement as to the full extent of their practices. Still, whatever their true behavior, they managed to keep alive for several generations the concept of sin as a path to redemption¹⁰.

I wrote about Frank and his followers previously because they reminded me of those in the 2008 election who argued the Republicans needed to lose so as to be driven to a more conservative position once more. It was a political position that reminded me greatly of the doctrine of "redemption through sin". Only by giving the Democrats victory could we be free of the moderate Republicans.

This time, I am taking a slightly different approach. I am not offering up Frank as an analogy for any present behavior, instead I am suggesting that I might use him as a model for my own writing. Or, rather, I am thinking that a sort of"forced conversion" may be in order, but, as with Zvi, for only the highest purposes.

Allow me to explain.

For some time I have felt I keep writing the same articles over and over. Granted, I discover new and more interesting ways to make the same arguments, and from time to time I have a new insight, or even completely revise an older belief to one which is more accurate. But, for the most part I am treading the same ground, or, at most, expanding upon it slightly. And most of the time it is because, try as I might, I feel as if I am failing to convince with my arguments.

As I have revisited the same arguments so many times, looked at them from as many different perspectives as I can, it strikes me that continuing to do so is not likely to yield many positive results. I refuse to repeat that aphorism about insanity, wrongly ascribed to Einstein among others¹¹, but in this case it seems particularly apt. What I have been doing is so similar to what I have done already that it seems futile to persist in it, and delusional to imagine the results will e any better should I do so.

And that is where my new idea comes in. In criticizing protectionism, I wrote two parodies¹², in which I accepted the premises of protectionism, took them to absurd extremes to show the nonsensical nature of protectionist beliefs. And, reading them again, they were some of the most effective piece I wrote. From which I got an idea.

No, I do not intend to write parodies. Nor even to play the devil's advocate (despite the title of this essay). Instead, I intend to fully go over to the other side, to put myself in the shoes of a true believer in whatever the topic may be, and to offer up the best arguments I can, to offer a complete justification, a thorough analysis, everything, attempt to persuade readers of these ideas I have rejected.

The two differences being, first, that I will still e, at heart, an opponent, well aware that I am in no way sympathetic to the cause I am advocating, and, most importantly, that unlike a true proponent I will be logical, consistent and totally honest. That is, when as idea results in a logical inconsistency, I will point it out¹³, or when a rational proves embarrassing tot he supporters, I will not hide it. And thus, by making the best case I can, but remaining brutally honest, I hope to show the weakness of various positions, mostly liberal, but some nominally conservative as well.

And that is why I put forth this lengthy description, as I feel a series of essays needs a rationale, and readers need to know it. And thus I offer up this rather convoluted explanation. Right now I have no idea what my first topic will be. I feel I should start with some well established liberal idea which conservatives dislike, so as to start with a strong essay, but I have not yet found the best topic. It should not be long before I decide upon something, though, so please keep watching.

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1. The reasons for the belief in incarnation of G-d being heretical are many, but the most basic is the belief that a divine entity existing in two persons would violate the most basic belief of Judaism, the shema. "Shema Yisroel, adonai elohenu, adonai echad." -- "Hear, O Israel, the lord they G-d, the lord is one". Christian theologians if the early church struggled with similar issues, and found responses to such objections which satisfied them, but Judaism did not accept such rationales, and so continued to believe incarnation to be one of the few beliefs which were inherently heretical.

2. Messiah means nothing more than "anointed" (as does "Christ"), referring to the practice of anointing a rightful king. In both Judaism and Christianity the terms have obviously taken on a much greater significance, but in this case, the Jewish definition, and connotations, are closer to the original neutral meaning than the Christian.

3. Kenesset Israel meaning the nation of Israel, encompassing all of the Jews, as opposed to eretz Israel, meaning the nation of Israel as a geographical entity.

4. Not just kabalists, but even mainstream orthodoxy had begun to adopt a somewhat apocalyptic vision of messiahood, akin to the vision many Christians had for the second coming. The messiah was expected by many to eradicate evil in one form or another and inaugurate a better world, though various theories differed on how it would be better and to what degree. (Please note, not all of Judaism shared this belief. It was more common among Sephardi than Ashkenazi Jews, and tended, for obvious reasons, to predominate in regions where Jews suffered the most under hostile rulers. The one exception being among the Chasidim who, in general, had eliminated messianic beliefs, or at least the apocalyptic messianic beliefs common in many other sects.)

5. Zvi had studied kabala, and Natan of Gaza had studied even more deeply, and kabalistic ideas were "in the air in the near east at that time, thanks to popular enthusiasm for the recent work of Isaac Luria and his disciples, so the kabalistic vision of the messiah as one who would rescue the divine sparks from among the qlipoth (shells) and restore the order of the universe was, if not commonly known, relatively well known among the educated, and so this interpretation of Zvi's messianic role, including its somewhat apocalyptic character, was not unusual to find in the beliefs of his supporters.

6. Support was not universal, many felt Zvi's claims were preposterous, and some charged him with heresy. But popular enthusiasm made such doubts mostly ineffective.

7. Clearly, the Sultan believed, quite sensibly, that a religious leader who converted to Islam would lose all of his support. When it happened that some supporters persisted in their faith, it is likely the Sultan allowed him to remain in contact with them in hopes that he would persuade them to convert as well. A belief in which he was not completely disappointed.

8. The theory had obvious appeal to those families in Spain who had been forced to convert to avoid persecution. Seen by many Jews as suspect for denying their faith, this belief gave them not just theological justification, but even elevated conversion to a noble act. As many such Jews had ties to Italian and Ottoman communities where such beliefs were more common, many, if not completely adopting Sabbatian beliefs, were at least sympathetic.

9. Rabbinical Judaism in general adopted as an article of faith the belief that one should not act to hasten the coming of the messiah, which seems quite prescient given how that very concept was used generations later by the followers of Frank.

10. An interesting parallel is found among some Russian Orthodox mystical sects, which argued one could not experience true salvation until one received forgiveness, and forgiveness required actively sinning, and this they began the practice of intentional transgressions, so as to be eligible for divine forgiveness. They were a small group, probably no more numerous than the Frankists, but it is interesting that the same idea of redemption through sin arose independently among two such different faiths, and based upon completely different rationales.

11. I am sure everyone knows the quote, which begins by claiming to be  definition of insanity. I have seen it most often ascribed to Einstein, though I think a few ascribe it to Freud. On line sources are just as inconsistent and unreliable, so I have given up on ever finding a true source, all I know is that every attribution I have found fails to give anything like a citation, not even a date, not even a year, or place. So, for reasons I described in "Mystery Quotes","Wikipedia Absurdities", "They're Here! Mystery Quotes Revisited" and "A Mystery Quote, Several Dubious Quotes, More Boring Quotes, and One Very Bad Conclusion", I refuse to accept these attributions.

12. These are "I Have Seen The Light" and "STOP BIG PORCELAIN NOW!".

13. I have done almost the same when writing articles for issues in which I believe. In many cases, when writing on a given topic, I noticed my own beliefs were resulting in inconsistencies, and so, rather than hide those arguments, or blur the distinctions a bit, I have stopped writing,  and refrained from expressing any positions on those issues until I could think it through to my own satisfaction. (A prototype of using this method to refute a position, though granted a bit of a simplistic one, can be found in my essay on reparations for slavery, "Some Logical Problems With Reparations".)

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POSTSCRIPT

If anyone knows this history and finds an error, please tell me. I am writing late at night working entirely from memory (as my books on Zvi and messianism are in the same room where my son is sleeping, and I don't want to wake him), so I am sure I have made some errors. Even if there is an error, I think the basic point is valid, so any details I got wrong should not change the substance of this post.

POSTSCRIPT II

This is probably a LOT more explanation than I need, as I could just say "play the devil's advocate" and people would get what I was doing, but I think I needed it as I intend to do a little more than just adopt the other side's position for the sake of argument. I intend, to the degree it is possible, to actually think the way my opposite numbers might think, to apply their reasoning and express their expectations. I admit, they would probably not publish the conclusions which cut against their position, the way I will, but up to the point where I actually disclose the failings of a given theory, I intend, to the degree possible, to become one of those whom I criticize, and to present the arguments just as they would. Which is why I bothered with such a long and involved explanation.