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Sects, Jewish (Modern)

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Sects, Jewish (Modern)

In the 17th century existed the sect of the Sabbathaites, so called after Sabbathai-Zebi (q.v.), whose apostasy to Islamism, and death in 1676, did not diminish the number of his followers, but rather increased it; and as there is no calculating the obstinacy of human credulity, his followers gave out that he had been transported to heaven, like Enoch and Elijah. Notwithstanding the constant and active opposition of the Jewish priesthood, the sect spread in all quarters, and numbered among its members men like Mose Chayim Luzzatto (q.v.). "Sabbathaism," says Milman, "still exists as a sect of Judaism, though, probably, among most of its believers, rather supported by that corporate spirit which holds the followers of a political or religious faction together than by any distinct and definite articles of belief."

But, in the middle of the last century, an extraordinary adventurer named Jacob Frank (q.v.) organized a sect out of the wrecks of the Sabbathaic party, of which we will speak now, although in the order of time an earlier sect, that of the Chasidim, ought to be mentioned. The sect which Frank organized assumed the name of Soharites or Cabalists, also of Frankists. As to the creed of this sect, it leaned towards Christianity rather than Islamism. It rejected the Talmud, but insisted on a hidden sense in the Scriptures. It admitted the Trinity and the incarnation of the Deity, but preserved an artful ambiguity as to the person in whom the Deity was incarnate, whether Jesus Christ or Sabbathai-Zebi. With the death of Frank the whole movement seems to have abated. Of greater significance is the sect of the Hassidim, or Chasidim (q.v.), or New Saints, or Pietists. The founder of this sect was Rabbi Israel ben-Eliezer Baal-Shem, also called Besht, בעשט , from the initials of בעל שם טיב As the tenets of these. Saints, who still exist. in Poland, Galicia, etc., are given in the article CHASIDIM, we can only refer to it. (B.P.)