The Sabbatean Prophets

148 The Sabbatean Prophets
ical ideas was evident throughout his career. 71 An autobiographical passage
tells us something of the religious struggles Cardoso underwent earlier in
life. He had doubts already in Spain, and was later deeply shaken by an
event he witnessed after his reversion to Judaism in Italy.
At that time, a certain monk in the city of Venice preached a sermon in
which he challenged all the scholars of the yeshiva to tell him the true nature
of the God of Israel. He propounded the problem of the Shekhinah. Is
She a created being he asked. (For such was the opinion of Sa’adia Gaon in
his Book of Beliefs in the section treating of the divine unity, of ibn Migash
and of Maimonides in his Guide of the Perplexed, and of many other scholars,
all of one accord.) He opened all these books and read aloud from them before
us and before the Christians.
But he went on: Nahmanides rejects this view, in his commentary on the
Torah portion Vayiggash, affirming that the Shekhinah is not a created being
but rather a Creator. Countless arguments have been offered, by countless
scholars, proving that this was the real teaching of Moses.
Well then! It must be that we do not truly know God. ...[The monk]
went on to sharpen this dilemma, with arguments solidly grounded in the
teachings of our ancient sages. And there was no one, among all the rabbis
of Venice, who could answer him.
My head swirled. I found myself once again caught in a web of doubts. To
escape them, to find for myself some kind of spiritual equilibrium, I set out
for Egypt. There I spent five years. I wanted medicine to heal this wound of
mine, and I sought it from Rabbi Hayyim Kohen, from Rabbi Iskandrani,
and from Rabbi Samuel Vital, the son of Rabbi Hayyim Vital. There, too, I
found the aged pietist Rabbi Benjamin ha-Levi.
To put the matter in a nutshell: nothing they could tell me gave me any relief
whatever. 72
Clearly, Cardoso too was suffering from a crisis of faith before the advent of
Shabbatai Zvi. The source of the problem was apparently Cardoso’s discomfort
with the Jewish willingness to entertain various ideas about metaphysical
matters, as long as they do not affect practice. For a long time he sought a
solution using textual and philosophical tools, but it was his own prophecy
that ultimately gave him some succor. Cardoso, then, like Nathan of Gaza,
did not enter the Sabbatean moment as a traditional, faithful, rabbinic Jew.
Both men had sought out the Kabbalah, with its many ambiguities about