Dreamers of the Ghetto Part 19

XVI

Amsterdam and Hamburg--the two wealthiest communities--receiving constant prophetic messages from Nathan of Gaza, became eager partic.i.p.ators in the coming Kingdom. In the Dutch capital, the houses of prayer grew riotous with music and dancing, the dwelling-houses gloomy with penitential rigors. The streets were full of men and women prophesying spasmodically, the printing presses panted, turning out new prayer-books with penances and formulae for the faithful. And in these _Tikkunim_, starred with mystic emblems of the Messiah's dominance, the portrait of Sabbata appeared side by side with that of King David. At Hamburg the Jews were borne heavenwards on a wave of exultation; they snapped their fingers at the Christian tormentor, refused any longer to come to the compulsory Christian services. Their own services became pious orgies. Stately Spanish Jews, grave blue-blooded Portuguese, hitherto smacking of the Castilian hidalgo, n.o.ble seigniors like Manuel Texeira, the friend of a Queen of Sweden, erudite physicians like Bendito de Castro, president of the congregation, shed their occidental veneer and might have been seen in the synagogue skipping like harts upon the mountains, dancing wild dances with the Holy Scroll clasped to their bosoms.

"_Hi diddi hulda hi ti ti!_" they carolled in merry meaninglessness.

"Nay, but this is second childhood," quoth the venerable Jacob Sasportas, chief Rabbi of the English Jews, as he sat in the presidential pew, an honored visitor at Hamburg. "Surely thy flock is demented."

De Castro's brow grew black.

"Have a care, or my sheep may turn dog. An they overhear thee, it were safer for thee even to go back to thy London."

Sasportas shook his head with a humorous twinkle.

"Yea, if Sabbata will accompany me. An he be Messiah let him face the Plague, let him come and prophesy in London and outdo Solomon Eagle; let him heal the sick and disburden the death-carts."

"He should but lay his hands on the sick and they were cured!"

retorted De Castro. "But his mission is not in the isles of the West; he establisheth the throne in Zion."

"Well for thee not in Hamburg, else would thy revenues dwindle, O wise physician. But the Plague is wellnigh spent now; if he come now he may take the credit of the cure."

"Rabbi as thou art, thou art an Epicurean; thou sittest in the seat of the scorner."

"'Twas thou didst invite me thereto," murmured Sasportas, smiling.

"The Plague is but a sign of the Messianic times, and the Fire that hath burnt thy dwelling-place is but the castigation for thine incredulity."

"Yea, there be those who think our royal Charles the Messiah, and pet.i.tion him to declare himself," said Sasportas, with his genial twinkle. "Hath he not also his Melisseldas?"

"Hush, thou blasphemer!" cried De Castro, looking anxiously at the howling mult.i.tude. "But thou wilt live to eat thy words."

"Be it so," said Sasportas, with a shrug of resignation. "I eat nothing unclean."

But it was vain for the Rabbi of the little western isle to contend by quip or reason against the popular frenzy. England, indeed, was a hotbed of Christian enthusiasts awaiting the Jewish Millennium, the downfall of the Pope and Anti-Christ, and Jews and Christians caught mutual fire.

From the far North of Scotland came a wonderful report of a s.h.i.+p with silken sails and ropes, worked by sailors who spoke with one another in the solemn syllables of the sacred tongue, and flying a flag with the inscription, "The Twelve Tribes of Israel!" And a strange rumor told of the march of mult.i.tudes from unknown parts into the remote deserts of Arabia. Fronted with sceptics, believers offered wagers at ten to one that within two years Sabbata would be anointed King of Jerusalem; bills of exchange were drawn in Threadneedle Street upon the issue.

And, indeed, Sabbata was already King of the Jews. From all the lands of the Exile crowds of the devout came to do him homage and tender allegiance--Turkish Jews with red fez or saffron-yellow turban; Jerusalem Jews in striped cotton gowns and soft felt hats; Polish Jews with foxskin caps and long caftans; sallow German Jews, gigantic Russian Jews, high-bred Spanish Jews; and with them often their wives and daughters--Jerusalem Jewesses with blue s.h.i.+rts and head-veils, Egyptian Jewesses with sweeping robes and black head-shawls, Jewesses from Ashdod and Gaza, with white visors fringed with gold coins, Polish Jewesses with glossy wigs, Syrian Jewesses with eyelashes black as though lined with kohl, fat Jewesses from Tunis, with clinging breeches interwoven with gold and silver.

Daily he held his court, receiving deputations, advices, messengers.

Young men and maidens offered him their lives to do with as he would; the rich laid their fortunes at his feet, and fought for the honor of belonging to his body-guard. That abstract deity of the Old Testament--awful in His love and His hate, without form, without humanity--had been replaced by a Man, visible, tangible, lovable; and all the yearning of their souls, all that suppressed longing for a visual object of wors.h.i.+p which had found vent and satisfaction in the wors.h.i.+p of the Bible or the Talmud in its every letter and syllable, now went out towards their bodily Redeemer. From the Ancient of Days a new divine being had been given off--the Holy King, the Messiah, the Primal Man, Androgynous, Perfect, who would harmonize the jarring chords, restore the spiritual unity of the Universe. Before the love in his eyes sin and sorrow would vanish as evil vapors; the frozen streams of grace would flow again.

"I, the Lord your G.o.d, Sabbata Zevi!"

Thus did Secretary Samuel Primo sign the Messianic decrees and ordinances.

XVII

The month of Ab approached--the Messiah's birthday, the day of the Black Fast, commemorating the fall of the Temples. But Melisselda protested against its celebration by gloom and penance, and the word went out to all the hosts of captivity--

"The only and just-begotten Son of G.o.d, Sabbata Zevi, Messiah and Redeemer of the people of Israel, to all the sons of Israel, Peace!

Since ye have been worthy to behold the great day, and the fulfilment of G.o.d's word to the prophets, let your lament and sorrow be changed into joy, and your fasts into festivals; for ye shall weep no more.

Rejoice with drums, organs, and music, making of every day a New Moon, and change the day which was formerly dedicated to sadness and sorrow into a day of jubilee, because I have appeared; and fear ye naught, for ye shall have dominion not only over the nations, but over the creatures also in the depths of the sea."

Thereat arose a new and stranger commotion throughout all the Ghettos, Jewries, and Mellahs. The more part received the divine message in uproarious jubilation. The Messiah was come, indeed! Those terrible twenty-four hours of absolute fasting and pa.s.sionate prayer--henceforward to be hours of feasting and merriment! O just and joyous edict! The Jewish Kingdom was on the eve of restoration--how then longer bewail its decay!

But the staunchest pietists were staggered, and these the most fervent of the followers of Sabbata. What! The penances and prayers of sixteen hundred years to be swept away! The Yoke of the Torah to be abolished! Surely true religion rather demanded fresh burdens. What could more fitly mark the Redemption of the World than new and more exacting laws, if, indeed, such remained to be invented? True, G.o.d himself was now incarnate on earth--of that they had no doubt. But how could He wish to do away with the laws deduced from the Holy Book and acc.u.mulated by the zealous labors of so many generations of faithful Rabbis; how could He set aside the venerated prescriptions of the _Shulchan Aruch_ of the pious Benjamin Caro (his memory for a blessing), and all that network of ceremonial and custom for the zealous maintenance of which their ancestors had so often laid down their lives? How could He so blaspheme?

And so--in blind pa.s.sion, unreasoning, obstinate--they clung to their threatened inst.i.tutions; in every Jewry they formed little parties for the defence of Judaism.

What they had prayed for so pa.s.sionately for centuries had come to pa.s.s. The hopes that they had caught from the _Zohar_, that they had nourished and repeated day and night, the promise that sorrow should be changed into joy and the Law become null and void--here was the fulfilment. The Messiah was actually incarnate--the Kingdom of the Jews was at hand. But in their hearts was a vague fear of the dazzling present, and a blind clinging to the unhappy past.

In the Jewry of Smyrna the Messiah walked on the afternoon of the abolished fast, and a vast concourse seethed around him, dancing and singing, with flute and timbrel, harp and drum. Melisselda's voice led the psalm of praise. Suddenly a whisper ran through the mob that there were unbelievers in the city, that some were actually fasting and praying in the synagogue. And at once there was a wild rush. They found the doors shut, but the voice of wailing was heard from inside.

"Beat in the doors!" cried Isaac Silvera. "What do they within, profaning the festal day?"

The crowd battered in the doors, they tore up the stones of the street and darted inside.

The floor was strewn with wors.h.i.+ppers, rocking to and fro.

The venerable Aaron de la Papa, shorn of his ancient Rabbinical prestige, but still a commanding figure, rose from the floor, his white shroud falling weirdly about him, his face deadly pale from the long fast.

"Halt!" he cried. "How dare you profane the House of G.o.d?"

"Blasphemers!" retorted Silvera. "Ye who pray for what G.o.d in His infinite mercy has granted, do ye mock and deride Him?"

But Solomon Algazi, a h.o.a.ry-headed zealot, cried out, "My fathers have fasted before me, and shall I not fast?"

For answer a great stone hurtled through the air, just grazing his head.

"Give over!" shouted Elias Zevi, one of Sabbata's brothers. "Be done with sadness, or thou shalt be stoned to death. Hath not the Lord ended our long persecution, our weary martyrdom? Cease thy prayer, or thy blood be on thine own head." Algazi and De la Papa were driven from the city; the _Kofrim_, as the heretics were dubbed, were obnoxious to excommunication. The thunder of the believers silenced the still small voice of doubt.

And from the Jewries of the world, from Morocco to Sardinia, from London to Lithuania, from the Brazils to the Indies, one great cry in one tongue rose up:--"_Leshanah Haba Berushalayim--Leshanah Haba Beni Chorin._ Next year in Jerusalem--next year, sons of freedom!"

XVIII

It was the eve of 1666. In a few days the first sun of the great year would rise upon the world. The Jews were winding up their affairs, Israel was strung to fever pitch. The course of the exchanges, advices, markets, all was ignored, and letters recounting miracles replaced commercial correspondence.

Elijah the Prophet, in his ancient mantle, had been seen everywhere simultaneously, drinking the wine-cups left out for him, and sometimes filling them with oil. He was seen at Smyrna on the wall of a festal chamber, and welcomed with compliments, orations, and thanksgivings.

At Constantinople a Jew met him in the street, and was reproached for neglecting to wear the fringed garment and for shaving. At once fringed garments were reintroduced throughout the Empire, and heads, though always shaven after the manner of Turks and the East, now became overgrown incommodiously with hair--even the _Piyos_, or earlock, hung again down the side of the face, and its absence served to mark off the _Kofrim_.

Sabbata Zevi, happy in the love of Melisselda, rapt in heavenly joy, now confidently expecting the miracle that would crown the miracle of his career, prepared to set out for Constantinople to take the Crown from the Sultan's head to the sound of music. He held a last solemn levee at Smyrna, and there, surrounded by his faithful followers, with Melisselda radiantly enthroned at his side, he proceeded to parcel out the world among his twenty-six lieutenants.

Of these all he made kings and princes. His brothers came first. Elias Zevi he named King of Kings, and Joseph Zevi King of the Kings of Judah.

"Into thee, O Isaac Silvera," said he, "has the soul of David, King of Israel, migrated. Therefore shalt thou be called King David and shalt have dominion over Persia. Thou, O Chayim Inegna, art Jeroboam, and shalt rule over Araby. Thou, O Daniel Pinto, art Hilkiah, and thy kingdom shall be Italia. To thee, O Mata.s.sia Aschenesi, who reincarnatest Asa, shall be given Barbary, and thou, Mokiah Gaspar, in whom lives the soul of Zedekiah, shalt reign over England." And so the part.i.tion went on, Elias Azar being appointed Vice-King or Vizier of Elias Zevi, and Joseph Inernuch Vizier of Joseph Zevi.