1648
Begins with 22 year old Shabbetai Zevi delivering a speech in his town of Smyrna (Izmir, Turkey). He declares that when Moshiach comes, heaven will be a wedding that never ends as Hashem marries the Jewish people. He leads a group of Smyrna Jews in song. Maybe 'Od Neshama' or 'Lavala Blanca Nina.' Meanwhile passes around a special mystical pipe (obviously opium). Everyone begins to dance and sing.
There is a discussion among two friends of his rich, blind father, Mordechai Zevi, about Zevi's profits from the war between Turks and the Venitian state, and about whether his son Shabbetai is a holy man or a madman, and the coming of the year 1666 when the Messiah is supposed to finally come. They discuss his recent divorce from his wife, the most beautiful Jewess in Smyrna, whom he drove crazy with his obsessive cleanliness and refusal to sleep with her. One of them takes that as a sign of his moral purity and 'cleanness', the other takes it as a sign that he's 'what the Ashkenazim call 'meshuggeh.' One says 'he may yet be the Messiah.' The other says 'he'll certainly convince himself he is.'
The first friend goes to a shul where people are discussing the holy work of Shabbetai Zevi, and the friend suggests that their Shabbetai may be the Messiah. He wins over many of them, perhaps still high on opium, who then sing their way to Shabbetai's house. At first, Shabbetai is aghast, and angrily silences them from such blasphemies. But they manage to convince him because he was born on Tisha b'Av. They remind him of his Talmudic prowess, having exceeded every Rabbi in Smyrna by the time he was fifteen. They remind him of how he was spotted three hersah out (15 km) in the Meditteranean Sea, and then swam back to shore. They remind him of his mania for cleanliness and perhaps that is indicative of the state of his spirit. Surely he is destined for greater things. Shabbetai has a dissociative panic attack, which spurs in him an horrific vision of the scale of the Chmielnicki massacres - which they all know are impending on some scale but not that it would be on the scale it was, all of which they are given conformation the next day. This convinces him and his followers that he is in fact Moshiach.
1661: Cairo
Shabbetai and his followers, having been exiled from years and subsequently exiled from Salonica (Thessaloniki, Greece). Having remarried, he sends his new wife out to the market, then whips himself to flaying until his body is completely bloody and scarred, and cries out in moaning. His neighbor barges in, a local Coptic Abouna (priest), who claims he had to interfere because he has never heard him whip himself and cry aloud so much. Shabbetai tells the Abouna to hold him in the manner of a pieta. He confesses has secretly lost his faith and thought of following embracing Christianity, he does not know why he whipped himself so hard except that he wanted to punish himself out of guilt and also wanted to experience what Jesus might have experienced on the cross. But the Abouna, being a true priest, tells him not to convert because so many followers are dependent on him, spiritually and financially, and might kill themselves out of grief for their loss of their leader, leaving their children orphans, or perhaps they'd kill their children - 'isn't killing children something your people are known for?'
He recounts his strange history to the Abouna. How he was eventually thrown out of Smyrna because no matter how much he tried he could not stop himself from shouting "Jehovah" all the time, including shul and during the high holidays. He was excommunicated from the city and even his former followers would not speak to him. How he was out of Constantinople because he celebrated sukkot, pesach and shavuot in the same week. "Why distribute holiness throughout the year when you can reach a state of greater holiness by celebrating them all together? You heard what happened in Ukraine. If Moshiach doesn't come soon, something worse could happen and all the Ashkenazi Jews could disappear overnight from Central Europe as though they were never there. We can't wait for Moshiach any longer, we need him now!" He explains the belief in Tikkun Olam, not in the modern sense but in the mystical kabbalistic sense that there is a rift in the universe that must be bridged, and until it is the world will continue to everywhere be a place where flourishes violence and filth. He inveighs against the resistance of Jews to progress, to their resistance to science and philosophy (he tells about Spinoza's cherem in Amsterdam), their resistance to the liberation of women, the pointlessness of its hundreds of laws, the senseless suffering and stubbornness in the face of a world that persecutes us for clinging to outmoded norms. He begins to doubt that this god of ours even means well by his people, and chose us above all nations merely to suffer for his pleasure.
The Abouna recounts once again about the trials of Yeshua (Jesus) at the stations of the cross and how these are not unlike Shabbetai's afflictions, and how Jesus could have departed from his mission and not served on behalf of a god who bore him merely so he could die for his father's glory, but who are we to doubt the ways of God when Jesus trusted in God's greater wisdom? Satan offered him dominion over all the earth, but Jesus refused, "the Lord your God only shall you worship, and him alone shall you serve." While the Abouna clearly meant that Jesus's lesson is there for all of mankind to benefit, Shabbetai interprets the Abouna's lesson it as meaning his tribulations on the way to becoming Messiah. As Shabbetai sings another of his songs, the Abouna wipes, washes, and cleans the bloody floor for him.
1662:
The arrival of his third wife, Sarah, who announces herself at a service. Orphaned in the Chmielnicki massacre of 1648-49. Supposedly brought up in Amsterdam. Tells of her orphaning in the Chmielnicki massacre, escaping the grave. Then entering the service of a Polish nobleman whose son and heir constantly abuses her. She then escapes and goes to a convent for protection where she converts to Christianity, but she has a vision of her deceased father, who magically transports her to the Jewish cemetary of Amsterdam, the most fertile branch of Jewish life. But he tells her that she is to be the bride of Moshiach, and from the ports of Amsterdam she must sail the seas of the world to find her bashert (destined one). She, like every Jew across the earth, hears tell of Shabbetai Zevi, and now upon arrival in Cairo learns that he was again recently divorced, so she will only leave the men's section of synagogue when they are pronounced married. Shabbetai needs no convincing.
The wedding night. He confesses his problems he has been married twice before, and she surprises him by saying she understands the problems between men and wife because she two had been married twice before. Rather than shame, Shabbetai responds with joy because there is a passage in Hoshea stating that Moshiach will marry a woman of ill repute. On their wedding night, she becomes the first wife to extract from him that he can experience pleasure only by beating himself, and so she obbliges to beat him.
After a year of happy marriage, he has a vision of god in Cairo which convinces him he can fly. He climbs to the top of a sphinx, jumps and breaks his arm and a leg. Crosses the Sinai Desert to see Nathan of Gaza, an apothecary, about his meshuggas, (his obviously bipolar personality disorder). As he lies down on a bed as though at an old-school psychiatrist's office, Shabbetai again recounts his whole history. But this time with the added component:
Shabbetai, when six years old, was kidnapped by Ottoman jannisaries (soldiers) who set fire to his crotch. His penis and balls are so disfigured that he has no sexual organ of which to speak, and even going to the bathroom is always a cause of terrible pain. He can therefore only achieve gratification through 'the filth of self-mortification', and therefore must spend hours every day swimming in the sea to reclaim his purity. Furthermore, 'as a man who loves all people' he cannot help but be completely indiscriminate in attractions upon which he cannot act, and as he has always believed that the old laws of the Torah are antiquated, he removes all injunctions 'as I have identified them as the source of the world's rifts and disrepair, but I can never consummate the removal of any such taboos myself.' He knows that many people have come to him not out of any great belief in him but because of his removal of their limitations, "We have taken all fast days and made them into feast days. We have families who eat pork every shabbos. I have married brothers to sisters, I have married men to three women, I have married men to men and next month shall marry woman to woman, I have blessed temporary adulterous and pre-marital unions. The shabbos after every wedding I require every bride to come to my study and tell me of her first encounter with her husband. I have deliberately touched the intimate areas of thousands of my flock, it is even part of our priestly benediction - but only over the clothes because were I to truly touch them, I would become unclean and must clean myself again in the sea. The truth is, most of the time, I know that all this is an abomination before the Lord, and I can never render myself clean. I am the Lord's excrement, his most passionate blasphemer who has jeopardized the standing of thousands in the next world. And yet there is no turning back. I cannot repent, nor can I convince thousands they're wrong without destroying their lives as I've destroyed my own."
At the end of the confession, Nathan takes a pinch of a white powder through his nose. "What you say of yourself is surely not true. You are no more the Lord's excrement than the followers who see you as their teacher and leader in all things. I don't know if it counts as a prophecy since we've exchanged letters, but I've had visions every day that you would come here." Shabbetai: Really? Nathan: This, right here, is a substance that brings me closer to the Holy One, Blessed Be His Name. And like you, I find myself unable to keep my faith without it, but with it, I know Hashem believes in me as fervently as I believe in him." Shabbetai: Do you believe that I'm a decent person? Nathan: I believe that the greater the man, (they say together) "the greater his evil inclination." Shabbetai: Sukkah: 52a. Nathan: You of all people are said to know such quotes at the drop of a pin. Shabbetai: I'm no better than any talmid khakham. That's a lie my followers made up. Nathan: But surely... Shabbetai: In all these years I've never once written a book, can't organize my thoughts. Nathan: But surely you have ideas. Shabbetai: My ideas are notions, deep disgust, look something is so deeply rotten in the State of Israel. Nathan: Is that a quote from somewhere? Shabbetai: I think Rabbi Eliezer... But my Abouna friend, a true priest who had no desire to convert me, told me a quote last year that remained with me all this time: "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world but lose his own soul?" Nathan: Do you really believe your soul is lost? Shabbetai: I do very often, and I've come to you because you're said to cure people from notions like that. Nathan: I will tell you what I tell all my suffering patients. (pause) There is no known cure for your disease. Melancholia is a state given by God to those whom He wishes to experience it. But to everything there is a season, and a time and purpose for everything under Heaven. If the Kadosh Baruch Hu causes you to suffer, he causes you to suffer for a reason, and you owe it to yourself and all the people who depend on you to discover what that reason is. So I can only offer you two medications, one is the ancient Greek treatment for melancholia - plant called 'hypericum perforatum' which frankly does not work in cases as extreme as yours, the other is a biological euphoric which you've obviously seen me take myself. This is Erythoxylon Coca, a plant from South America commonly called 'cocaine.' It is incredibly powerful and incredibly addictive. You must ground it into a powder yourself, because if your servants do it for you, they will become addicted themselves and steal it. It can be used in mild doses as I'm sure you've noticed me doing as we speak, but in truly difficult moments you will require a much heavier dose, after which your most trusted confidante will have to keep it from you for over a week or else you will become so addicted that you could use up the entire supply in a lethal dose. Shabbetai: This sounds like exactly the sort of thing which people should keep away from me. Nathan: It can be used in moderation, but you will require the superhuman effort of will which your followers claim is yours by natural temperament. Would you like me to show you how it's done? Shabbetai: I don't know. Nathan: Do you have any trust left in Hashem at all? Shabbetai: Em.... Nathan (takes another pinch from his snuffbox): Hashem gave you such maladies as a gift, he knows that you experience such suffering and visions for a purpose beyond any that know yet for yourself. Shabbetai: I don't know... Nathan: He does! And thousands of people claim that you have seen further into the realms of God than anyone else on earth. Can they all be wrong? Shabbetai: I don't know! Nathan: Look at the world right now! Everybody talks about the Chmielnicki's massacres in 1648, but all the while we stopped thinking about it and they were still happening for nine more years! Your father came to Turkey from Poland, why? Was the treatment so great? No! He was what they call a Yiddisher Kop, he was Klug and he understood that Poland was about to send Jews to the next world. And now Poland is fighting Russia and all the Jews up there who weren't being killed then are about to be killed now. Shabbetai: I don't know.... Nathan (takes another pinch of snuff): Sometimes you have to take what God is giving you. Hashem gives hint after hint about what you need and want, all you have to do is reach out and take Hashem's gifts! Shabbetai: I don't want his gifts anymore! Nathan: Hashem does not care what you want and He can make you suffer until you accept His plan for you. Shabbetai: Cursed be my name. Nathan: No! Blessed be thy name! You have seen the blessings every day for how many years? HOW MANY OF THE NINE CELESTIAL REALMS HAVE YOU VISITED? Shabbetai: Six... Nathan: But not the ones with any physical manifestation! Shabbetai: No, not those. Nathan: THEN THIS WILL BRING YOU THERE! I'LL DO IT WITH YOU! (They both take a pinch of snuff, the first bump. NATHAN: GO TO THE REALM OF BINAH! Shabbetai: Waits 6 seconds.... Baruch Hashem, I'm in the Kingdom of Knowledge! I don't see it, but I FEEL IT. I KNOW NOW! The realm of knowledge tells me that Jehovah put us all on earth to be happy and broke divine creation by creating this world! Precisely so that we could heal it! Jehovah JEHOVAH JEEEHOOOVAAAHHH!!! Nathan: DO A SECOND LINE AND YOU'LL GET TO HOKHMAH! Shabbetai: I'm in the Kingdom of Wisdo... Wait a minute... zol gotter pitten... why am I doing all this? Why must I be the Moshiach? Why would I be the Moshiach when everybody before me wasn't? What are the chances this won't end with me and my followers dead like the Jews in Ukraine? How will the survivors live?... I've made a terrible mistake... I shouldn't take any more of this powder and should return home... maybe to Izmir if they would have me.... Nathan: Are you sure you don't want another bump? Shabbetai: Absolutely. Nathan: YOU'RE SO CLOSE TO THE CROWN OF ALL CREATION! YOU'VE COME THIS FAR ONLY TO TURN BACK FROM GOD'S THRONE?! WHAT HAVE YOU STRIVEN ALL THESE YEARS FOR? WHAT HAS HASHEM INFLICTED ALL YOUR TORMENTS FOR? Shabbetai: I CAN'T! I'M NOT WORTHY! I HAVE DESECRATED EVERY COMMANDMENT GOD HAS ISSUED! Nathan: LET THE HOLY ONE JUDGE THAT! BLESSED BE HIS NAME! (holds the snuffbox straight up to his nose, practically shoves it in.) Shabbetai: I'm in Keter. I SEE THE THRONE OF GOD! JEHOVAH! WHY?! God can make us see ANYTHING! I'm in the stars upon a cloud, in a CELESTIAL VERSION OF JERUSALEM! I'm in KING SOLOMON'S TEMPLE! Now I understand! The holy temple was a facsimile of where God sits in judgement! Nathan: THEN GO INTO THE HOLY OF HOLIES! Shabbetai: Alright I'm going in... It's empty... Nathan: WHAT? Shabbetai: There's a menorah in there but it's unlit. Nathan: THEN LIGHT IT! Shabbetai: With what?!? Nathan: Oh no... I don't know... (Nathan begins to cry) Shabbetai: I am unworthy! Judaism is a lie! Nathan: DON'T SAY THAT! Shabbetai: WAIT! HE'S HERE!!! [Shabbetai falls to the ground and weeps] KADOSH BARUCH HU I'M HERE! YOUR SERVANT SHABBETAI! Nathan: WHAT IS HE SAYING TO YOU! Shabbetai: HE'S NOT SAYING ANYTHING! Nathan: NOOOOO!!! Shabbetai: HE'S GESTURING AT THE MENORAH! Nathan: HE IS? Shabbetai: HE'S CREATED A CANDLE AND TELLING ME TO LIGHT GOD'S MENORAH! Nathan: THE KADOSH BARUCH HU IS TELLING YOU TO LIGHT GOD'S MENORAH?!! Shabbetai: I'M LIGHTING LORD! Nathan: YOU ARE THE MESSIAH! Shabbetai: HE'S PLACING A LAUREL WREATH FROM THE TREE OF LIFE ON MY HEAD! (Nathan kneels next to Shabbetai and bows down to him) Nathan: MOSHIACH!!!!
The next morning they go to daven in a Gaza shul and proclaim Shabbetai Zevi the Moshiach. The disbelieving congregation laughs, and Nathan of Gaza admonishes them to not foresake the Messiah designated by God himself in the Holy of Holies in heaven. At the climax of his speech he falls publicly into an OD seizure in which he spits up froth and seems to speak in tongues. Everyone thinks he is either dead or possessed, but then he returns to life as Shabbetai prays over his body. The congregation takes this as proof that Shabbetai Zevi is in fact the Moshiach and that the whole synagogue should follow him back to Cairo. The shul carries Shabbetai off on their shoulders.
Rosh HaShanah 1663:
It's the second day of Rosh Hashana and Shabbetai is at no synagogue and nowhere to be found. Nathan is dreading that Shabbetai is having a manic episode and may turn up anywhere, dead or alive. Sarah runs to Nathan to tell him that he's having a paranoid episode because they still have no children, and while no follower seems concerned, Shabbetai is deeply afraid, as he did not consumate the marriage with his first two wives. "How can a Moshiach not consumate his own marriage?!" They talk him down by concocting a solution: Shabbetai will address rumors by pronouncing a get (divorce) from Sarah at the musaf of Rosh Hashana. Since Rosh Hashana goes straight into Shabbos, Shabbetai will re-marry Sarah at his Friday night service, 'consumate the marriage' so that on Shabbos morning he can produce a bloody sheet from his marriage bed. But the blood on the bed will in fact be his.
Nathan of Gaza, now taking massive amounts of cocaine regularly, has vision of a book called The Visions of Reb Avraham HaChasid, which he in fact wrote, about visions which correspond to the description of Shabbetai Zevi - which in fact Nathan of Gaza wrote but believed he was inspired by the voice of Reb Avraham HaChasid, who is in fact his deceased grandfather.
1665
Shabbetai Zevi, completely addicted to cocaine, arrives in Jerusalem with Nathan of Gaza and various followers, climbs the Damascus Gate and immediately proclaims himself their King. He begins by going to the Wailing Wall, holding a ceremony in which he makes all his favorites into Kings of various countries and heads of tribes. Announces that the Asarah b'Tevet fast is banned (commemorating destruction of Jerusalem). He makes his speech again about Tikkun Olam and why Moshiach is needed right now.
Elder rabbis of Jerusalem confer. They decide to censure Shabbetai Zevi on account of his rash behavior, but no further punishment than that because this is an extremely learned man, and therefore, who knows, may be Moshiach.
Various ambassadors write to their home countries about this man in Jerusalem who proclaims himself the Messiah, these bulletin/memos are leaked, and the rumors of this Messiah's powers redouble in every country. Many Jews and gentiles believed that there were towns elsewherewhere people no longer die, along with rumors that the lost Ten Tribes of Israel will now emerge after twenty-five hundred years of hiding and declare war on all the great powers of the world. This prompts antisemitic persecution, which prompts Jews non-committal about Shabbetai Zevi to leave their homes and make pilgrimages to Jerusalem to join Shabbetai Zevi, which creates still more paranoia and antisemitic persecution in foreign countries, which prompts still more Jews to leave. (no idea how to dramatize it yet)
Yom Kippur Night before Kol Nidre, 1665:
Shabbetai, now in Jerusalem with at least ten thousand followers possibly many more, has finally received a shipment of the Turkish coffee he so missed in Cairo, and introduces it to his most important followers at the synagogue dinner as they prepare to daven for 24 hours without a break. Their movement, having already banned all the fast days including Yom Kippur, earns whispers of criticism of one synagogue. So Shabbetai and his followers, obviously still coked up in addition to severely caffeinated, shows up at the synagogue with his followers who begin chanting outside. The synagogue locks the door, so Shabbetai gets an axe and chops down the synagogue door. He proclaims himself the new shul rabbi and insults every member of the synagogue. He uses this moment to put the old Torah back ("You're lucky I don't take an axe to your torah."), and tells everyone that the printed bookbound Chumash is the new Torah. He then calls Sarah up to the Torah, and for the next aliyah, all the other women of the synagogue, many of whom have to be dragged and pushed to the Torah screaming against their will. He then sings a Castillian love song and says that this is now part of the weekly Shabbat liturgy. He ends by proclaiming himself with a new name, "Amirah" acronym for 'our master and king may his glory be elevated.'
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Need to figure out climax in Constantinople 1666
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