Shabbetai Zvi, The Rebbe, and the Kuzari

Shabbetai Zvi was a charismatic false messiah, who proclaimed his Messiah status in 1665/6. He was backed by a leading Kabbalist, Nathan of Gaza. Zvi was accepted by a very large part of world Jewry as the Messiah, and a “baal teshuva” movement took place in order to welcome and hasten the redemption. Zvi was manic depressive, and started strange acts, and religious absurdities, eg permitting forbidden fats. This shouldn't be seen as too much of a departure from Talmudic Judaism, which itself permits the forbidden “alya” fat tail of the Sheep, despite it being explicitly forbidden in the Torah. Zvi simply took this to its logical conclusion, and permitted all forbidden fats.

Professor Gershom Scholem has written the definitive history on the Zvi movement, and has published a facsimile copy of the “100 Rabbis” declaration of Zvi's messianic status. Many of these were recognized orthodox rabbis. It is also interesting that Rabbi Akiva of the Mishna backed another false messiah, Bar Kochba. Bar Kochba was a warrior, but his doomed rebellion ended the Jewish settlement of Israel. Akiva was himself of non-Jewish lineage, and his innovations in Judaism were largely from his alien background (as were many of the Mishnaic rabbis).

More recently, the Rebbe or leader of the Lubavitch-Chabad Hassidic movement started a messianic campaign, which pushed his followers into declaring him as the King messiah. This has already been discussed in a previous post http://tanakhemet.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/hes-not-messiah-hes-very-naughty-boy.html.

The Kuzari himself was not a false messiah, but the so-called Kuzari “argument” http://tanakhemet.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/the-kuzari-fallacy.html unwittingly supports these movements. The main proprietor of the Kuzari fallacy is a hassidic rabbi called Gottlieb, who once was a university lecturer. As we have seen, he writes:

“A false story of a national revelation that creates a national religion will not be believed….Suppose a nation believes that its ancestors experienced a national revelation. Since such a story cannot be invented we have good reason to accept the story as true. For, if it were not true, it would not be believed!”

Of course, a “nation” is not measurably defined, and as in the post above, we have seen that the nascent “nation” of Israel worshipped a golden calf, which according to this Kuzari principle, would make the golden calf true. But it also means that the false prophets, and false messiahs, including Shabbetai Zvi would also be “true” messiahs. For if he was not true, he would not be believed! And historical records show that a large portion of the then Jewish nation believed in him. Thus, according to ultra-orthodox propaganda, i.e. those who espouse the Kuzari principle, Shabbetai Zvi was the Messiah. The Kuzari fallacy is based on the ridiculous notion that whilst an individual can err, a large mass of people cannot err. This argument is also used to prove that the Rabbis of the Talmud are correct, or that the Ultra orthodox rabbis are correct. We are fortunate to have the Torah, which warns us against such falsehoods.

Exodus Chapter 23

2 Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil; neither shalt thou bear witness in a cause to turn aside after a multitude to pervert justice

see http://tanakhemet.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/the-torah-tells-us-not-to-follow.html

Thus, not only does the Torah disprove the Talmud, it also disproves the Kuzari fallacies.