PrintMay 2, 2010
O, Such Sad Deception
In his book entitled Satan in Goray, Isaac Bashevis Singer recounts the tragedy of a town whose hopes were abysmally dashed when they discovered that the man they deemed the messiah was, in fact, a fraud. The novel begins with gruesome descriptions of massacres, the gory details of which Singer drew almost word for word from records of the infamous 1648 pogroms by Chmelnicki, where tens of thousands of Jews were brutally murdered. It was a precursor to the evils of Hitler.After fifteen years, the traumatized survivors begin to return to their village. A demoralized people, these Jews were only too ready to embrace a messiah. Enter Shabbetai Zvi, born in 1626, a Talmudic scholar who engaged in mysticism. He was given to messianic fantasies and was soon declared to be the messiah by his followers. He began to act the part, and messianic fervor took hold of communities that had not personally experienced bloodshed, as well as those who had experienced the lash. Jews began to repent; they...(Read Full Article)
