The Sabbatean Prophets

Notes to Pages 140–147 207
44. Based on BT Makkot 23r.
45. Job 39:5. This is the continuation of the passage from Job that Sasportas began
quoting above.
46. Job 39:5, continuing his “commentary” on the same passage.
47. BT Tamid 26v.
48. Psalms 119:118. The whole passage is from Zizat Novel Zvi, 96.
49. Tishby, “Introduction,” 29.
50. Maimonides, Guide, 362.
51. See Ada Rapoport-Albert, “On the Position of Women in Sabbatianism,” 147–
61.
52. Scholem, Major Trends, 306.
53. Deuteronomy 32:4.
54. Jeremiah 2:12.
55. Sasportas, Zizat Novel Zvi, 43.
56. Tishby notes that this is not in our version of the letter Sasportas received, but
we have other evidence showing Bloch’s involvement. Nathan also declared
the annulment of the strict fast of the Ninth of Av, which was deemed unnecessary
in light of the coming redemption.
57. Sasportas is speaking ironically of a talmudic dictate (e.g. BT Berakhot 16r,
Betzah 2v, etc.) that in a case of legal doubt it is preferable to uphold the more
permissive opinion. Here, of course, there is no legal doubt.
58. Sasportas, Zizat Novel Zvi, 192.
59. Ibid., 64.
60. See the works of Kaplan cited above, and Shalom Rosenberg, “Emunat
Hakhamim,” in Jewish Thought in the Seventeenth Century, ed. I. Twersky and B.
Septimus, 285–341.
61. Scholem argues this point in “Redemption Through Sin,” in Scholem, The Messianic
Idea in Judaism (New York: Schocken, 1971), 78–141.
62. On the skeptical crisis of the period see Popkin, The History of Skepticism; Popkin,
The Third Force in Seventeenth-Century Thought.
63. Popkin, The History of Skepticism, ch. 11; Popkin, Isaac La Peyrère.
64. See J. E. Force and R. H. Popkin, Isaac Newton’s Theology; Newton and Religion,
ed. J. E. Force and R. H. Popkin.
65. An excellent discussion of this phenomenon can be found in Nuttall, The Holy
Spirit.
66. See Knox, Enthusiasm, for a discussion of the term and its significance.
67. On this issue see Barbara J. Shapiro, Probability and Certainty in Seventeenth-Century
England: A Study of the Relationships between Natural Science, Religion, History,
Law, and Literature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983).
68. See Liebes, Studies in Jewish Myth, ch. 4, esp. 111; Liebes, On Sabbateanism and Its
Kabbalah: Collected Essays [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1995), chs. 1–2;
Elqayam, Mystery of Faith, 63 and passim.
69. Elqayam, “The Mystery of Faith,” 2–3.
70. Ibid., 102–104 and passim.