The Sabbatean Prophets

The Jewish Tradition 51
balah brought about the advancement of mystics to leadership roles in the
community. 36 Traditionally, rabbis would stand out because of their achievements
in Jewish law, exegesis, or homiletics. But the authority of the kabbalist
did not rest on his deep knowledge of the Talmud, Midrashim, and law
codes. The wisdom of Kabbalah had more to do with a kind of spiritual talent,
imagination, and, often, prophecy. Hence the popularization of Kabbalah
introduced a new kind of authority. Many of the kabbalists were
young—Luria, the most famous example, died at the age of thirty eight.
Most were not renowned for their expertise in traditional Jewish sources.
Their power in the community rested on reputation, spread though hagiography
and general word of mouth, for wonder-working, healing, prognostication,
imaginative exegesis of kabbalistic texts, and pure charisma. The rise
of these kabbalist leaders signals a serious change in the authority structure
of Jewish communities. While earlier kabbalists had been secretive about
their doctrines, the explosion of interest in Kabbalah after the Spanish expulsion
gave birth to a new attitude, which often put kabbalists and their
works in direct competition with traditional rabbinic elites and literatures. 37
The impact of Kabbalah on Sabbateanism did not depend on a widespread
knowledge of Lurianic doctrines. It was sufficient that large numbers of
Jews accepted the reality of kabbalistic authority within Judaism and respected
its representatives, a situation which definitely obtained in 1665–66.
Under the circumstances it is not surprising that Nathan of Gaza, already
possessed of a broad reputation as a prophet and doctor of the soul at the age
of twenty-two, wielded enough power to pull up the curtain on Shabbatai
Zvi without becoming a laughingstock. It similarly helps explain how Shabbatai
himself, not yet forty years old when the public movement began,
could be taken seriously as a messianic figure with no special credentials as a
talmudist, legal expert, exegete, or sage. Shabbatai, like Nathan, had a reputation
for spirituality, asceticism, prophecy, and mastery of kabbalistic writings.
Such figures could hardly have been the stuff of an enormous Jewish
messianic movement two centuries earlier, before the kabbalistic elite made
its inroads in the structure of rabbinic authority.
Another feature of Kabbalah that helped set the stage for Sabbateanism
and weakened traditional rabbinic authority was the mystics’ penchant for
pseudepigraphy—the falsification of a book’s pedigree. While other Jewish
works, especially the Midrash literature, often bore incorrect attributions,
they were not usually as temporally distant from the real author or as
mythical as those of the kabbalists. The Sefer Yetzirah (Book of Creation, an