Satan in Goray

cried with wrathful mockery: "What is wrong with you, Reb Mordecai Joseph? Why do you cry like a woman in labor?"
    "Are you still alive!" and Reb Mordecai Joseph sprang to face him. "Devil!"
    "Bind him! He is mad!"
    "O, thou that sinnest against the God of Israel! Thou adulterer!" Reb Mordecai Joseph roared. "Sabbatai Pig kneels before idols--and this man lies with a married woman!"
    "Jews, he is blaspheming!" Reb Gedaliya leaped at Reb Mordecai Joseph and there was the sound of a slap. "He is cursing the Messiah of the Lord of Hosts!"
    Reb Mordecai Joseph plunged forward, but he was seized and pulled back. Blood began to flow from his hairy, red nose.
    "Woe!" he wailed. "Adultery and bloodshed!"
    "Jews, he's lying!" Reb Gedaliya turned to the con-gregation. "This dog barks lies and deceit. Not Sabbatai Zevi, but Sabbatai Levi's shadow was converted. There is an explicit passage in the Zohar! The Messiah has ascended to Heaven! He will soon descend and redeem us. Here are letters to prove it! From all the holy men!"
    And he drew from his bosom a package of letters and circulars.
    Reb Mordecai broke free from the hands of those who were restraining him, threw his crutch into the air, and rushed at Reb Gedaliya with arms outstretched like a beast of prey. But then he fell to earth and lay there hugging the ground and weeping. "Jews, help! The Evil One triumphs! Woe...!"
    Jews everywhere divided into two factions: that of Sabbatai Zevi, and their opponents. Controversy flamed; at every fair the two sects excommunicated each other with the threefold ritual of ram's horn blast, purification board, and black candles. Rabbis were driven from their communities in their stock¬inged feet, or made to ride in ox-drawn wagons; men of dignity were flogged publicly and humiliated. Numerous legates journeyed about, carrying letters, both authentic and spurious. Traveling prophets and preachers delivered individual versions of the gospel. Zealots on both sides were guilty of injustices. In Lublin there were fights in the prayer houses, and Polish soldiers had to separate the participants. In Ludomir the slaughterers thrashed a schoolteacher who forbade people to eat on the Tenth of Tebet. In Hrubishev, only a few persons continued to believe in Sabbatai Zevi, and they were avoided, like lepers, their doors painted with pitch, to signify that none was to cross their thresholds. Moreover, the towns-people banned the sale of food to the Faithful, until they should return to the true faith. The few believ-ers who did repent were treated harshly--they were required to dress in tatters, to cover their heads with ashes, and, lying on the floor of the prayer house anteroom, to pound their breasts while loudly con¬fessing their sins. Everyone who entered or left the study house had to step over them. Some of the wor¬shipers spat in their faces as well.
    Certain men of stature in Poland attempted to play the role of peacemaker, but they too became entangled in controversy soon enough and con-cluded by inciting it even further. The great among the Jews dreaded a widespread desertion of the Jew-ish faith, as in the days of Anan and the Karaites. It was reported that whole families were being baptized, in every Jewish settlement. Some of the Faithful in such great communities as Jerusalem, Altona, and Vilna committed suicide.
    The Faithful themselves were divided into two groups. One group asserted that the Messiah would not ap¬pear until the generation had become completely virtuous. Those persons fasted in penitence, and shunned intercourse with their wives. They mentioned the name of Sabbatai Zevi no less than one hundred times each day, and incised the letters S and Z on their mezuzot and windows, on the head-boards of their beds, and even on their flesh. They were convinced that Sabbatai Zevi, though a living man, had passed into the World of Emanation, and that the apostate who resided in Stamboul and had taken an Ishmaelitish wife was the demon Ashmodai The other group argued that before the Messiah could be revealed he had to enter the Nether Sphere, in order to draw from it the sparks of holiness; there was an explicit text to this effect in the appendix to the Zohar--to wit: Toy Milgav Ubish (outwardly evil, inwardly virtuous). Furthermore, the prophet Isaiah had foretold this: "And he shall be reckoned with the sinners." According to those who supported this interpretation, the generation before redemption had to become completely