Still Running Off at the Keyboard

ASIATIC BRETHREN - Beliefs

Source: Gershom Scholem, THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN JUDAISM, Schocken Books

Since the Asiatic Brethren lodge was founded by followers of Zevi and Frank, the beliefs of the Sabbatean movement are important to the understanding of this lodge and other subsequent German lodges that admitted Jews. Scholem describes them.

Toward the middle of the eighteenth century...a reaction took place, so that we find a distinct anti-Palestinian bias setting in throughout the movement...Among the Frankists an astonishing and clear-cut ideology of Jewish territorialism (as distinct from Palestine-centered tendencies) developed at about this time, apparently as a result of Frank's own personal ambitions. In a word, on the very eve of its absorption of new political ideas Sabbatian nihilism completely reversed its previously positive evaluation of the role of the Land of Israel, so that when shortly afterward it began to speak the language of a revived political Messianism and to prophesy the rebirth of the Jewish nation as one outcome of an impending world revolution, there was no longer any real interest on its part in the idea of the Land of Israel as a national center. As stated by the Frankist writer in Prague...Israel's exile is not a consequence of its sins at all, but is rather part of a plan designed to bring about the destruction of the kelipot all over the world, so that "even if several thousands or tens-of-thousands of Jews are enabled to return to the Land of Israel, nothing has been completed." According to the same author this new doctrine of the exile is "a secret mystical principle which was hidden from all the sages until it was [recently] revealed in Poland." (p. 122-123)

...the "radicals" eventually came to believe that the Messiah had not been a mere superior human being, but an incarnation of God Himself in human form. This new interpretation of "the mystery of the Godhead" was accepted by all the "radical" groups down to the last of the Frankists and was considered by them to be the most profound mystic truth in their entire body of doctrine. (p. 123 - This messiah spoken of is Zevi and his reincarnation in Frank.)

...the five distinguishing beliefs of "radical" Sabbatianism are:

1. The belief in the necessary apostasy of the Messiah and in the sacramental nature of the descent into the realm of the kelipot.

2. The belief that the "believer" must not appear to be as he really is.

3. The belief that the Torah of atzilut must be observed through the violation of the Torah of Beriah.

4. The belief that the First Cause and the God of Israel are not the same, the former being the God of rational philosophy, the latter the God of religion.

5. The belief in three hypostases of the Godhead, all of which have been or will be incarnated in human form. (p. 125-126)

If the full truth be told, however, even after one has taken into account Frank's unscrupulous opportunism, his calculated deceits, and his personal ambitions, none of which really concerns us here, he remains a figure of tremendous if satanic power. (p. 127)

[Quoting Frank:]"It is one thing to worship God--and quite another to follow the path that I have taken."

According to Frank, the "cosmos" (tevel), or "earthly world" (tevel ha-gashmi) as it was called by the sectarians in Solonika, is not the creation of the Good or Living God, for if it were it would be eternal and man would be immortal, whereas as we see from the presence of death in the world this is not at all the case. To be sure, there are "worlds" which belong to "the Good God" too, but these are hidden from all but the "believers." In them are divine powers, one of whom is "the King of Kings," who is also known as "the Big Brother" and "He who stands before the Lord." The evil power that created the cosmos and introduced death into the world, on the other hand, is connected with the feminine, and is most probably composed of three "gods" or "Rulers of the World," one of whom is the Angel of Death....

Moses pointed out the true way, but it was found to be too difficult whereupon he resorted to "another religion" and presented men with "the Law of Moses," whose commandments are injurious and useless. "The Law of the Lord," on the other hand--the spiritual Torah of the Sabbatians--"is perfect"...only no man has yet been able to attain it. Finally, the Good God sent Sabbatai Zevi into the world, but he too was powerless to achieve anything, because he was unable to find the true way. "But my desire is to lead you towards Life." Nevertheless, the way to Life is not easy, for it is the way of nihilism and it means to free oneself of all laws, conventions, and religions, to adopt every conceivable attitude and to reject it, and to follow one's leader step for step into the abyss. Baptism is a necessity, as Frank said prior to his conversion, "because Christianity has paved the way for us." Thirty years afterwards this same "Christian" observed: "This much I tell you: Christ, as you know, said that he had come to redeem the world from the hands of the devil, but I have come to redeem it from all the laws and customs that have ever existed. It is my task to annihilate all this so that the Good God can reveal Himself."

The annihilation of every religion and positive system of belief--this was the "true way" the "believers" were expected to follow. Concerning the redemptive powers of havoc and destruction Frank's imagination knew no limits....all who would be warriors must be without religion...I did not come into this world to lift you up but rather to cast you down to the bottom of the abyss....The descent into the abyss requires not only the rejection of all religions and conventions, but also the commission of "strange acts," and this in turn demands the voluntary abasement of one's own sense of self, so that libertinism and the achievement of that state of utter shamelessness which leads to a tikkun of the soul are one and the same thing....To accomplish this, that is, to overcome the opposing powers, which are the gods of other religions, it is imperative that one be "perfectly silent," and even deceitful. This is the mystic principle of "the burden of silence"...i.e., of maintaining the great reserve that is becoming to the "believer" (a new version of the original Sabbatian injunction against appearing as one really is!). Indeed, this is the principle of the "true way" itself....

From the abyss, if only the "burden of silence" is borne, "holy knowledge" will emerge. The task, then, is "to acquire knowledge," "and the passageway to knowledge is to combine with the nations" but not, of course, to intermingle with them. He who reaches the destination will lead a life of anarchic liberty as a free man. "The place that we are going to tolerates no laws... (p. 129-131)

She it is who is the real Messiah (who cannot, contrary to traditional opinion, be a man) and to her "all the king's weapons are surrendered," for she is also the much sought-after "Divine Wisdom" or Sophia who is destined to take "Death's" place as one of the three "Rulers of the World." (p. 132)

Scholem calls Frankism a "gospel of libertinism" and equates it to the teachings of nihilistic Gnostics from the second century such as Carpocrates. In fact he writes:

...all of this was actually taught and believed by Polish Jews living on the eve of the French Revolution, among whom neither the "master" nor his "disciples" had the slightest inkling that they were engaged in resuscitating an ancient tradition! Not only the general train of thought, but even some of the symbols and terms are the same! (p. 132-133)

That last quote offers an opportunity to speculate that perhaps Carpocrates and the Frankists got their doctrine from the same source.He writes further:

On the one hand, with the characteristic self-centeredness of a spiritualist sect, they saw in it a sign of special divine intervention in their favor, since in the general upheaval the inner renewal and their clandestine activities based on it would be more likely to go unnoticed. This opinion was expressed by Frank himself and was commonly repeated by his followers in Prague. At the same time that the Revolution served as a screen for the world of inwardness, however, it was also recognized as having a practical value in itself, namely, the undermining of all spiritual and secular authorities, the power of the priesthood most of all. The "believers" in the ghettos of Austria, whose admiration for certain doctrines of the Christian Church (such as Incarnation) went hand in hand with a deep hatred of its priests and institutions, were particularly alive to this last possibility. Here the fashionable anti-clericalism of the times found a ready reception. (p. 137)

And it was at just this point in time that Napoleon arrived in Germany with his army and released Frank from his 13 year imprisonment at Czestochowa.

But of all of Scholem's comments, the following is probably the most important...speaking of the 5 tenets of the Sabbatean faith:

These theses amply demonstrate, in my opinion, that in the onward course of the Sabbatian movement the world of traditional Judaism was shattered beyond repair. (p. 126)