This episode is sponsored by Nishmat, the Jeanie Schottenstein Center for Advanced Torah Study for Women, whose Online Beit Midrash returns on Sept. 8. Women of all backgrounds can learn Talmud, Tanach, Halacha, and more from the comfort of home. For a full class schedule and registration, go here.

In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast, we talk to historian and professor Pawel Maciejko about the false messiah Sabbatai Zevi, Sabbateanism, and the roots of Jewish secularism.

Gershom Scholem, the scholar of Kabbalah and Jewish mysticism, saw a connection between the 17th-century messianic movement of Sabbateanism and the later movement of Jewish secularism. Was he right? In this episode we discuss:

What was the impact of Sabbateanism after its messianic fervor died down?
How can studying Jewish history deepen one’s connection with Judaism?
What is Frankism, and why is it a fascination of present-day antisemitic conspiracy theorists?

Tune in to hear a conversation about what the rupture from the Sabbatean movement can teach us about the wide range of Jewish identities we see today.

Interview begins at 17:05.

Pawel Maciejko is an associate professor of history and Leonard and Helen R. Stulman Chair in Classical Jewish Religion, Thought, and Culture at Johns Hopkins University. Between 2005 and 2016 he taught at the Department of Jewish Thought at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His first book, The Mixed Multitude: Jacob Frank and the Frankist Movement, 1755–1816, was awarded the Salo Baron Prize by the American Academy of Jewish Research and the Jordan Schnitzer Book Award by the Association for Jewish Studies.

References:

Not in the Heavens: The Tradition of Jewish Secular Thought by David Biale

Makers of Jewish Modernity: Thinkers, Artists, Leaders, and the World They Made edited by Jacques Picard, Jacques Revel, Michael P. Steinberg, and Idith Zertal

“The Holiness of Sin” by Gershom Scholem

Mishnah Chagigah 2

Ezekiel 1

Accounting for the Commandments in Medieval Judaism by Elliot R. Wolfson

Sabbatian Heresy: Writings on Mysticism, Messianism, and the Origins of Jewish Modernity edited by Pawel Maciejko

The Mixed Multitude: Jacob Frank and the Frankist Movement, 1755-1816 by Pawel Maciejko

“The Messianic Feminism of Shabbatai Zevi and Sarah Ashkenazi” by Jericho Vincent

On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World by Danya Ruttenberg

“A Portrait of the Kabbalist as a Young Man: Count Joseph Carl Emmanuel Waldstein and His Retinue” by Pawel Maciejko

“Gershom Scholem’s dialectic of Jewish history: the case of Sabbatianism” by Pawel Maciejko

Seforimchatter’s Sabbatai Zevi Series

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Pawel Maciejko: Sabbateanism and the Roots of Secular Judaism [Denominations: Bonus]

18Forty Podcast