The Sabbatean Prophets

192 Notes to Pages 59–62
duced and discussed by Chaim Wirszubski in Zion 3 [1938], 215–20 and 227–
35; reproduced in Wirszubski, Between the Lines {Hebrew} [Jerusalem: Magnes,
1990], 121–26 and 133–41); another version in Moscow Guenzburg MS. 517;
and a longer version in Ben-Zvi Amarillo MS. 2262 fol. 1–37 (reproduced and
discussed in Scholem, “Iggeret Natan Ha-Azati al Shabbatai Zvi ve-Hamarato,”
KoveÝ al Yad 6 [16; 1966]: 421–56, reproduced in idem, Texts and Studies, 233–
73, and partially in Scholem Shabbatai Zvi, Heb., vol. 1, 166–67.
6. Aaron Freimann, Injane Sabbatai Zewi (Berlin: Mekize Nirdamim, 1912; repr.
Jerusalem, 1968), 95–96; excerpts corrected and reproduced in Scholem,
Shabbatai Zvi, Heb., vol. 1, 167–69 and Sabbatai àevi, 205–06 The version here is
my translation from Freimann, with some corrections based on Scholem’s Hebrew
quotations.
7. This refers to the chariot seen by Ezekiel (Ch. 1), the focus of much early Jewish
mystical thought. This critical word is missing in Freimann’s version.
8. Baruch of Arezzo, Zikhron Li-vne Yisra’el in Freimann, Injane, 47. Baruch was a
believer. A large section of this work in English translation, along with an introduction,
can be found in Matt Goldish, “The Early Messianic Career of
Shabbatai Zvi,” in Judaism in Practice, from the Middle Ages through the Early Modern
Period, ed. L. Fine (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 470–82.
Sections are reproduced here with the kind permission of Princeton University
Press.
9. This date does not accord with what we know of the timing. Elul 5425 would
be in early fall, whereas both this first Sabbatean prophecy and the second, discussed
below, occurred in the spring of that year.
10. The examples of this are rife in the Lurianic literature, but see, e.g., Benayahu,
Toledoth ha-ARI, 164–65, 181–83, 230.
11. Scholem, Sabbatai àevi, 210.
12. For Abulafia’s instructions on mystical experience, see Louis Jacobs, Jewish
Mystical Testimonies (New York: Schocken, 1976), 57–72; Scholem, Major Trends,
135–38. For al-Botini’s instructions, see David R. Blumenthal, Understanding
Jewish Mysticism: A Source Reader, vol. 2 (New York: Ktav, 1982), 70–79. On the
technique of seclusion, particularly with reference to the Abulafia school, see
Moshe Idel, “Hitbodedut as Concentration in Ecstatic Kabbalah,” in Idel, Studies
in Ecstatic Kabbalah (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988), ch. 7.
On the relationship between merkabah (chariot) and harkabah (combination),
see Idel, Language, Torah and Hermeneutics in Abraham Abulafia (Albany: State
University of New York Press, 1989), 50; Idel, Mystical Experience in Abraham
Abulafia (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988), 21, and chaps. 1
and 3 in general. The point concerning Vital’s preference of focus on Mishnah
is made in Paul B. Fenton, “Solitary Meditation in Jewish and Islamic Mysticism
in the Light of a Recent Archeological Discovery,” Medieval Encounters 1
(1995): 290–91.
13. See R. Hayyim Vital, Sha’are Kedushah (Jerusalem, 1981), 75v-77r, and in general
in part III, Sha’ar 6–7 for Vital’s explication of the mystical ascent toward