Until the appearance of Zionism, it is difficult to find more conclusive evidence for a deep, abiding historical connection between the Jewish people and the land of Israel than the messianic aliyot of the sixth millennium. Over a period lasting more than six centuries, the traditional longing of the Jews for their homeland found concrete expression in repeated efforts to realize the dream of return. From the practical viewpoint, these messianic waves of immigration, which began early in the thirteenth century, represented a quantum leap in scope and energy above the efforts of individuals and groups who had gone to Palestine previously. First, they were more communal in nature, numbering hundreds and at times even thousands. Second, the aliyot drew on Jewish communities from different countries, rather than the more localized efforts that had characterized earlier pilgrimages. Third, they comprised Jews of all classes: Alongside the common folk, they included communal leaders and Tora scholars of the first magnitude. One can only imagine the effect that the relocation of such central figures in the Jewish world to the land of Israel had on the diaspora communities they left behind. Even if the majority of Jews did not dare to make the journey, there can be no doubt that the departure of so many of their luminaries to the Holy Land, and in a context of messianic hope, left a profound impression.

Fourth, the messianic aliyot of the sixth millennium were characterized by a spiritual and ethical vigor the likes of which had not been seen before. The new immigrants were called upon to repent, to develop their character, and to act according to a strict moral code. In some of these movements, the demand for character improvement attended the mystical activity of kabalists or other individuals who took it upon themselves to catalyze the messianic redemption. Among the concrete projects for hastening the redemption, one finds attempts to find the ten lost tribes, to renew the ancient rabbinic ordination (semicha) and the institution of the Sanhedrin, to summarize the halacha so that a uniform code would be accepted by all of Israel, to uncover the “secrets of Tora” and hidden kabalistic writings, and even to renew the sacrificial service of the Temple in Jerusalem.

The activism of the messianic immigrant movements also demonstrates that long before the advent of modern Zionism, Jews did not limit themselves to spiritual yearning and symbolic remembrance of the land of Israel. Inspired by messianic anticipation, many Jews regarded a return to the Promised Land as a practical goal. True, the overwhelming majority of Jews did not go to Palestine. Considering the numerous hardships entailed by such a journey, the uncertainty of arriving in peace, finding a livelihood, and dwelling securely in the land, this is hardly surprising. Nonetheless, during the sixth millennium, the land of Israel was no longer an abstract, inaccessible ideal; no longer only a subject of dreams, whose name was mentioned mainly in prayers. It was a real place, absorbing waves of Jewish immigrants from many countries, sustaining a full-fledged Jewish community that preserved its unique identity throughout the generations.

Of course, there were major, substantive differences between the messianic aliyot and the Zionist awakening which followed. The nationalist ideology which revived the Jewish people in the late-nineteenth and twentieth centuries was indeed modern in many ways, not the least of which was its rejection of the traditionalist worldview that had characterized the messianic movements. Nevertheless, the deep longing for their ancestral homeland and the profound faith in the possibility of national redemption, which ultimately drove the waves of Jewish immigration to Palestine in the sixth millennium, were also at the heart of the Zionist return. The widespread belief in the Jewish right to the land of Israel, the Zionist vision of the spiritual and physical redemption of the land, and the immense efforts of so many Jews to turn the dream into reality, could never have taken root without these prior beliefs. In this sense at least, one may see the period of messianic immigration to the land of Israel and the Zionist revolution as milestones on the same historical path, different chapters in an ongoing national story.

 

1. Benzion Dinur, “The Messianic Fermentation and Immigration to the Land of Israel from the Crusades until the Black Death, and Their Ideological Roots,” in Benzion Dinur, Historical Writings (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1975), vol. ii, p. 238. [Hebrew]

2. Jacob Barnai, Historiography and Nationalism: Trends in the Research of Palestine and Its Jewish Population, 634-1881 (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1995), p. 39. [Hebrew]

3. Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin, The Nationalist Portrayal of the Exile, Zionist Historiography, and Medieval Jewry, doctoral dissertation, Tel Aviv University, 1996, p. 331. [Hebrew]

4. Elhanan Reiner, Pilgrims and Pilgrimage to the Land of Israel, 1099-1517, doctoral dissertation, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1988. [Hebrew]

5. Raz-Krakotzkin, Nationalist Portrayal, pp. 333-334.

6. See David N. Myers, Reinventing the Jewish Past: European Jewish Intellectuals and the Zionist Return to History (New York: Oxford, 1995); Uri Ram, “Zionist Historiography and the Invention of Modern Jewish Nationhood: The Case of Benzion Dinur,” History and Memory 7:1 (1995), pp. 91-124. For a critique of Dinur that does not tend towards a critique of Zionism as a whole, see Jacob Katz, Jewish Nationalism: Essays and Studies (Jerusalem: Zionist Library, 1979), pp. 230-238. [Hebrew]

7. Psalms 90:4.

8. “It was taught in the school of Eliyahu: The world will exist for six thousand years: Two thousand years of chaos; two thousand years of Tora; two thousand years of the age of the Messiah.” Sanhedrin 97a.

9. The destruction of the Temple took place around the year 68 C.E., which was close to the end of the fourth millennium of Creation, in the year 3828.

10. See Joseph Dan, Apocalypse Then and Now (Tel Aviv: Yedi’ot Aharonot, 2000), pp. 49-68. [Hebrew]

11. The Jewish year begins in the fall; therefore every Jewish year overlaps two years of the Christian calendar, and vice versa. For simplicity’s sake, however, Christian years in this article are identified with the Jewish year with which they overlap for nine out of twelve months, that is, from January through September.

12. Isaiah 60:22.

13. Reference is made in the book of Daniel to three enigmatic dates for the end of days, which are not conditional upon repentance. Even Daniel himself, according to his own words, did not understand what they were. The three periods are expressed in obscure language: “Time, times, and half a time,” “1,090 days,” and “1,335 days.” Daniel 12:1-13. The assumption throughout is that the end of days will come at a fixed time, without room for human influence.

14. Sanhedrin 97a. We will not enter here into the details of the debate cited in the Talmud, but it is worth noting that according to the rabbis, when the patriarch Jacob wished to reveal to his sons the time of the end of days, this referred to the end that would come about “in its time.”

15. Sanhedrin 97a. This approach also appears in Zohar, Bereshit 117.

16. Sanhedrin 97a.

17. Genesis Rabbati, a midrashic collection compiled at the beginning of the sixth century, states: “The entire subjugation is during the fifth millennium, and during its course, morning will come for Israel, when they shall be redeemed.” Hanoch Albeck, ed., Genesis Rabbati (Jerusalem: Mekitzei Nirdamim, 1940), p. 16. [Hebrew] R. Judah Barceloni likewise states that “we are to be speedily redeemed at the end of the fifth millennium; thus has it been conveyed at all times to Israel.” See his commentary in J.Z. Halberstamm, ed., Sefer Yetzira (Berlin, 1895), p. 239. [Hebrew] Among the earlier practitioners of messianic calculations, some placed the time of the redemption well before the sixth millennium; they argued that since the destruction of the land and of the Temple occurred in the year 3828 [68 cc.e.], the current era would end one thousand years later, in 4828 [1068 C.E.], at which time the age of redemption would commence. But generally speaking, practitioners of messianic calculation identified the sixth millennium as the time of the redemption.

18. The source of these prohibitions is found in the Song of Songs, where the formula “I adjure you, O maidens of Jerusalem…” is repeated with minor variations. Cf. Ketubot 111a.

19. Psalms 102:14-15.

20. Judah Halevi, The Kuzari: An Argument for the Faith of Israel, trans. Hartwig Hirschfeld (New York: Schocken, 1964), 5:27, p. 295.

21. The book of Daniel posits the dates for the end of days in relation to some unidentified starting point. In every generation there were attempts to decipher the apocalyptic dates with reference to various events in Jewish history, such as the Exodus, the entrance into the land of Israel, the building of the First and Second Temples, and the Babylonian exile.

22. Maimonides, Epistles of Maimonides, ed. Yitzhak Shilat (Jerusalem: Ma’aliyot, 1987), vol. i, p. 153. [Hebrew] The Epistle to Yemen was composed about 1172.

23. Arie Morgenstern, Mysticism and Messianism (Jerusalem: Ma’or, 1999), p. 305. [Hebrew]

24. Avraham Ya’ari, Travels in the Land of Israel (Tel Aviv: Gazit, 1946), p. 67. [Hebrew]

25. Aaron Ze’ev Aescoly, Jewish Messianic Movements (Jerusalem: Bialik, 1988), p. 188. [Hebrew]

26. Yisrael Yuval, “Between Political Messianism and Utopian Messianism in the Middle Ages,” in S.N. Eisenstadt and M. Lissak, eds., Zionism and the Return to History (Jerusalem: Yad Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, 1999), p. 84 n. 10. [Hebrew]

27. Yuval, “Political Messianism,” pp. 85-86. A short passage from this manuscript is quoted in another anonymous travel journal of around the same time, Totza’ot Eretz Yisrael. See Ya’ari, Travels, p. 98.

28. Regarding the expectations of redemption, see Maimonides’ calculation for the renewal of prophecy in 1212, mentioned above. On the reaction to the Crusades, see Yuval, “Political Messianism,” p. 87.

29. Parallel to the messianic activism that found expression in the “aliya of the three hundred rabbis,” the opposite tendency, a lowering of the profile of messianic expectations, could also be found among the Jews of Central Europe. Unlike the Jews of France, the latter were worried about the possibility of a Christian backlash to any Jewish messianic ferment, and tended to be resistant towards any activity aimed at bringing the redemption closer. The spiritual leaders of this community focused their efforts on mass repentance, and refrained from expressing their messianic hopes. Concerns about persecution were exacerbated by the Mongol invasion that was menacing Europe at the time. Christians identified the Mongols with the ten tribes, and subjected the Jews to reprisals as “partners” of the invaders. R. Moses of Coucy, author of Sefer Mitzvot Gadol, conducted a campaign for repentance in 1236, four years before the decisive Hebrew date of 5000. According to him, Jews were to refrain from any efforts of a political nature to hasten the coming of the Messiah. The only activity capable of bringing the redemption in his view was mass repentance. Yuval, “Political Messianism,” p. 87.

30. Estori Hafarhi, Kaftor Vaferah (Berlin: Julii Sittenfeld, 1852), p. 15. See Reiner, Pilgrims and Pilgrimage, p. 79; and cf. Yisrael Ta-Shema, “Land of Israel Studies,” Shalem 1 (1974), pp. 82-84 [Hebrew]; Arie Morgenstern, Redemption through Return: The Vilna Gaon’s Disciples in the Land of Israel (Jerusalem: Ma’or, 1997), pp. 182-185. [Hebrew]

31. Avraham Grossman, “A Letter of Vision and Rebuke from Fourteenth-Century Ashkenaz,” Katedra 4 (1977), pp. 190-195.

32. And indeed, a series of messianic calculations from around the year 1440 deals with the different stages of the anticipated redemption: The beginning of the ingathering of exiles, the discovery of the ten lost tribes, the return of prophecy, the restoration of the Sanhedrin, the appearance of the Messiah, and the building of the Temple. The calculations closest to the year 1440 are based on astrological calculations of the “system of the stars,” and are directed towards the years 1444 (5204 in the Hebrew calendar) and 1464 (5224), and towards the year equal to the numerical value of the Hebrew word for “the end” (haketz), which came out to 5190 on the Hebrew calendar, or 1430 C.E. Earlier calculations from this period were based on similar methods of notarikon and gematria. One of them, drawing on the verse in Habakkuk 2:3, “for still the vision awaits its time,” was understood as referring to the year 1391 (5151). See Joseph Hacker, “The Aliyot and Attitudes Towards the Land of Israel Among Spanish Jews, 1391-1492,” Katedra 36 (1985), p. 22 n. 83.

33. About 1400, Mulhausen stated: “And many among the multitude agree that the coming of the Messiah and the building of the Temple will be no later than the year 170 of the sixth millennium [1410].” See Yom-Tov Lipmann Mulhausen, Sefer Hanitzahon (Jerusalem: Dinur, 1984), par. 335, p. 187.

34. Aescoly, Jewish Messianic Movements, p. 223.

35. I.F. Baer, A History of the Jews in Christian Spain (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1965), p. 320. [Hebrew] Based upon Crescas’ Or Hashem, part iii, 8:2.

36. Avraham Gross, “The Ten Tribes and the Kingdom of Prester John: Rumors and Investigations Before and After the Expulsion from Spain,” Pe’amim 48 (1991), pp. 5-38.

37. The primary source is the Darmstadt manuscript. See Yisrael Yuval, Two Nations in Your Womb: Perceptions of Jews and Christians (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 2000),p. 276 n. 27. [Hebrew] By contrast, the manuscript copied in 1429 was the Rome manuscript, cited by Reiner, Pilgrims and Pilgrimage, p. 115 n. 232. My thanks to Yisrael Yuval, who allowed me to compare the manuscript in his possession with the Rome manuscript and to discover that the section beginning “And now many people have awakened…” appears only in the latter.

38. Reiner, Pilgrims and Pilgrimage,pp. 114-115 n. 232.

39. Baer, History of the Jews, pp. 318-319.

40. Binyamin Ze’ev Kedar, “Notes on the History of the Jews of Palestine in the Middle Ages,” Tarbitz 42 (1973), pp. 413-416. Kedar ignores the connection between the messianic expectations expressed here and the aliyot originating in various countries. As a result, he does not see in messianism a motivation for aliya, and can only wonder why the latter took place at all, just when the situation of the Jews in Spain was improving, while the situation in Palestine had worsened.

41. Benzion Dinur, “The Emigration from Spain to the Land of Israel After the Decree of 1391,” Tzion 32 (1967), p. 162.

42. Dinur, “Emigration,” p. 163.

43. According to one testimony of the time, “And now, of late, people have come, great sages and elders together with their disciples… and have continued to settle and to increase the study of Tora far more.” Quoted in Hacker, “Aliyot and Attitudes,” p. 28 n. 107.

44. Joseph Hacker, “R. Elijah of Massa Lombarda in Jerusalem,” Tzion 50 (1985), pp. 253-256.

45. Moshe Schulwas quotes historical sources indicating that the inhabitants of Malta captured Jews who were on their way to Palestine. See Moshe Schulwas, “On the Immigration of German Jews to Palestine in the Fifteenth Century,” Tzion 3 (1938), pp. 86-87.

46. Elhanan Reiner, “‘For Do Not Jerusalem and Zion Stand Apart?’: The Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem in the Post-Crusade Period (Thirteenth to Fifteenth Centuries),” in Yossi Ben-Artzi, Israel Bartal, and Elhanan Reiner, eds., A View of His Homeland: Studies in Geography and History in Honor of Yehoshua Ben-Aryeh (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2000), pp. 314-315. [Hebrew]The discovery that the Jewish settlement in the center of the Old City dates only from the beginning of the fifteenth century is consistent with Reiner’s conclusion that the Nahmanides Synagogue was near Mount Zion, where the Jewish neighborhood was located after the Crusader period, and not as the folk tradition has it, near the Court of the Ashkenazim. See Reiner, “The Jewish Quarter,” pp. 277-279.

47. Reiner, “The Jewish Quarter,” p. 306 n. 106. Around 1452, the Jews of Jerusalem were compelled to give money to the rulers of the city, and the community was forced to sell much of its land. Three hundred Tora scrolls, ancient books, and precious ritual objects that had been brought to the country by the immigrants around the year 1440 were also sold. These findings suggest an aliya of wealthy people during this period. See Avraham Ya’ari, ed., Letters from the Land of Israel (Ramat Gan: Masada, 1971), pp. 129-130. [Hebrew]

48. Hacker, “Aliyot and Attitudes,” p. 12.

49. Hacker, “Aliyot and Attitudes,” p. 32.

50. Michael Ish Shalom, In the Shadow of Foreign Rule: The History of the Jews in the Land of Israel (Tel Aviv: Karni, 1975), p. 312. [Hebrew]

51. Isaiah 43:6.

52. Abravanel’s commentaryon Isaiah 43:6.

53. Aescoly, Jewish Messianic Movements, p. 331. R. Abraham ben Eliezer Halevi wrote several works of a messianic character and engaged in messianic calculations concerning the Jewish year 5300. According to Moshe Idel, there is no connection between his messianic calculations and the expulsion from Spain, as his interest in the problem of the end of days had already begun in his youth, that is, before the expulsion. Moshe Idel, introduction to Aescoly, Jewish Messianic Movements, pp. 24-26. Messianic calculations thus were not prompted by historical events alone; these events only heightened the mystics’ faith in an imminent redemption.

54. Idel, introduction, pp. 24-34.

55. Moshe Idel, “Solomon Molcho as Magician,” Sefunot 18 (1985), p. 215.

56. Moshe Idel, introduction to Aaron Ze’ev Aescoly, The Story of David Hareuveni (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1993), p. 33. [Hebrew]

57. According to R. Abraham Halevi, “The things said in the midrash of the Zohar about the great troubles and destruction that will herald the time of the Messiah are very frightening…. Only repentance annuls everything. And in regard to the instructions about the year of visitation, which is the year 5284 [1524], it is fitting that every man take to heart the great wonder that was done in Jerusalem…. For when, gentlemen, the sages gathered together and set vigils… to plead for mercy for themselves and their brethren in the exile… when they said, ‘And a redeemer shall come to Zion’—at that moment fire descended from heaven upon the abomination in Jerusalem, and made it into a great ruin, and this was a sign and symbol of the redemption.” See Aescoly, Jewish Messianic Movements, p. 329.

58. Ya’ari, Letters, p. 165.

59. Ya’ari, Letters, p. 165. To emphasize that God acts in order to hasten the redemption, the authors open with a literary allusion to a passage in the book of Esther that they consider an instance of divine intervention for the sake of the Jews: “On that night the sleep of the king was disturbed” (Esther 6:1; according to rabbinic interpretation, the “king” referred to is God).

60. Dov Rabin, “The History of the Jews in Grodno,” in Encyclopedia of the Jewish Diaspora (Jerusalem: Encyclopedia of the Jewish Diaspora, 1977), vol. ix, p. 43. [Hebrew]

61. Ignacy Schipper, Polish-Lithuanian Jews in Palestine (Wieden: Moriah, 1917), p. 10. [Polish]

62. Tuvia Preschel, “R. Jacob Pollack’s Aliya to Jerusalem,” in Shaul Israeli, Norman Lamm, and Yitzhak Raphael, eds., Jubilee Volume in Honor of Our Teacher Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik (Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook, 1984), vol. ii, pp. 1124-1129. [Hebrew]

63. Thus, according to the Zohar: “In 66 the King Messiah will be revealed in the land of the Galilee.” Zohar, Vayera 478.

64. Many of the immigrants from Spain who came to Safed had been weavers and dyers. They saw Safed, located near water sources in the Galilee, as a suitable place to continue in their professions, as it was relatively close to their contacts in the Salonikan clothing trade and was safer than other places in Palestine, including Jerusalem. The Ottoman army protected the city from attacks by the surrounding Bedouin tribes, and in 1549 the authorities added to the city’s security by building a wall around it.

65. Ya’ari, Letters, p. 184.

66. Apart from R. Jacob Berab’s principal reasons for renewing the semicha, restoring the Sanhedrin was meant to solve a practical halachic problem that fell within the jurisdiction of the Sanhedrin alone. The inhabitants of Safed included a number of forced converts from Spain and Portugal, who wished to atone for their past as Conversos. This atonement could be accomplished only by administering the punishment of lashes, which the Sanhedrin alone could dispense.

67. R. Isaiah Horowitz, Shnei Luhot Habrit (Haifa: Mechon Yad Rama, 1992), vol. 2, pp. 250-251. [Hebrew] The verse cited is Song of Songs 2:12.

68. R.J. Zwi Werblowsky, “R. Solomon Halevi Alkabetz’s Tikun Tefilot,” Sefunot 6 (1962), pp. 152-155.

69. They based their calculations mainly on a verse in the book of Daniel that alludes to the time of the end of days: “Fortunate is he who waits and reaches 1,335 days” (Daniel 12:11); and on the talmudic statement attributing messianic significance to the notarikon of Jacob’s blessing to his sons: “The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until Shiloh comes, and the homage of the peoples be his” (Genesis 49:10). According to the messianic calculations, these two sources point towards the 335th year of the sixth millennium—the numerical value of “Shiloh.” On messianic expectations for the year 1575 (5335), see David Tamar, “The Messianic Expectations in Italy for the Year 1575,” Sefunot 2 (1958), pp. 61-85.

70. According to the tradition, the order of redemption will parallel in reverse the order of exile. Hence, since on the eve of the destruction of the Temple the Sanhedrin was removed from its place there, and subsequently reconvened at various locations until it reached its final seat in Tiberias, the redemption is destined to begin in Tiberias. From there, it will progressively expand until it reaches Jerusalem and the Temple is rebuilt: “And we have a tradition that it shall first return in Tiberias, and from there they shall be relocated to the Temple.” Maimonides, Mishneh Tora, Laws of Sanhedrin 14:12.

71. Tamar, “Messianic Expectations,” pp. 63-65.

72. Mordechai Pachter, From Safed’s Hidden Treasures (Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar, 1994), pp. 103-105. [Hebrew] Cf. Uriel Hed, “Turkish Documents from Ottoman Archives Concerning Safed Jews in the Sixteenth Century,” Mehkerei Eretz Yisrael 2 (1955), pp. 169, 174-175.

73. Later sources repeat this prediction. Thus, for example, the kabalist R. Naftali Bachrach, author of Emek Hamelech, stated that in 1647 Ishmael’s rights over the land of Israel, which he had enjoyed for observing the commandment of circumcision, would come to an end. From this point on, the rights of the Jewish people would be acknowledged, and would be realized by the Messiah at the end of days: “And even today we await God, and he shall pour his spirit upon us from above… and the land of Israel will be taken from the Ishmaelites, as it is written, ‘I will multiply him exceedingly… and I will make him a great nation,’ which [referring to the word asimenu, ‘I will make him’] is numerically equivalent to 407. That is, until that time of ‘I will make him,’ he [Ishmael] will be a great nation. And he shall be paid for the merit of the commandment of circumcision… and in the year 5408 [1648], the Messiah will take the kingship from him…. And this is the secret of ‘This [zot] is my resting place forever’ [Psalms 132:14].” See Naftali Bachrach, Emek Hamelech (Amsterdam: Immanuel Benvenisti, 1648), p. 33b; and regarding the year 5408, see ibid., pp. 68a, 79c.

74. The numerical value of the word “Heth” is 408.

75. The word for “this” is hazot, of which the numerical value is 5,408.

76. Zohar, Toldot 139. The passage is found in the earliest manuscript of the Zohar, from the fourteenth century. See Gershom Scholem, Sabbatai Sevi: The Mystical Messiah 1626-1676 (Princeton: Princeton, 1973), p. 88. The verses quoted in the above passage are Genesis 23:3 and Leviticus 25:13.

77. Horowitz, Shnei Luhot Habrit, 65, vol. 2, pp. 478-479.

78. Horowitz, Shnei Luhot Habrit, 261, vol. 1, p. 86. It is surprising that scholars of Horowitzhave not at all noticed this source and do not attribute messianic significance to his aliya.

79. Horowitz, Shnei Luhot Habrit, 291, vol. 1, p. 97. It follows from this that Horowitz wrote these words when he was already living in Jerusalem.

80. Ya’ari, Letters, p. 216. We do not have exact figures for the Sephardi population of Jerusalem, but in his letter Horowitz mentions that in Jerusalem there were more than five hundred “important Sephardi householders, and every day their number grows, thank God.” If Horowitz is referring only to wealthy family heads, then one is speaking here of at least 2,000 members of the Sephardi elite, apart from the numerous poor people from this community who lived in Jerusalem. Regarding the Ashkenazi population, no figures exist. Ya’ari, Letters, p. 220.

81. Horowitz sent this letter to his wife’s relative, R. Shmuel ben Meshullam Feibusch, chief rabbi of the Krakow community. An important discussion of this letter was related at a lecture by the historian Avraham David at Bar-Ilan University on December 31, 2000; the lecture is soon to be published. My thanks to David for allowing me to use his article prior to publication. In this paper, David does not deal with the connection between messianic expectations for the year 5408 and Horowitz’s aliya.

82. Avraham David, “R. Isaiah Horowitz’s Letter from Jerusalem After the Year 5538,” unpublished. [Hebrew]

83. David, “Horowitz’s Letter.”

84. See David, “Horowitz’s Letter.” This section of the full letter was published in its day by Joseph Solomon Delmedigo of Candia in the introduction to his book Novlot Hochma (1631).

85. See R. Haim Vital, Etz Hayim (Jerusalem, 1973), introduction to Sha’ar Hahakdamot.

86. According to Jacob Elbaum and Elliot Wolfson, the main reason for Horowitz’s aliya was his wish to study the teachings of Lurianic Kabala more deeply, without the limitations that were placed on its study outside of the land of Israel. See Jacob Elbaum, “The Land of Israel in Isaiah Horowitz’s Shnei Luhot Habrit,” in Aviezer Ravitzky, ed., The Land of Israel in Modern Jewish Thought (Jerusalem: Yad Yitzhak Ben-Tzvi, 1998), p. 94; cf. Elliot R. Wolfson, “The Influence of Luria on the Shelah,” Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 10, 1992, p. 430. However, it seems that this activity too was directed towards a messianic purpose: The realization of the redemption in the year 5400, which Horowitz wished to ensure by uncovering Luria’s writings.

87. The amount of money extracted from the Jews by the local rulers during the period of Ottoman rule was unparalleled in any other place of Jewish settlement during that period. R. Samuel de Ozida wrote: “What we have in our day is that of all the places under the rule of the king… there is no country in which there are so many taxes and levies on the Jews as in the land of Israel, and particularly Jerusalem. And if money were not being sent from all over the diaspora to pay off the taxes and levies, the Jews would be unable to live there because of the abundance of taxes.” R. Samuel de Ozida, Lehem Dim’a (Venice: Daniel Zenitti, 1600), commentary on Lamentations 1:1.

88. Presumably, the rapid growth of the Jewish population in Jerusalem after 1620 upset the Muslims. Eventually they restricted the number of Jewish inhabitants in the city, and to this end even ordered the expulsion from Jerusalem of Jews who were already living there. “What the rulers demanded of the inhabitants of Jerusalem was that whoever had come to live there during the past three years should leave. And they again [later] said that whoever had come during the past ten years [should leave].” Eliezer Rivlin, ed., The Ruins of Jerusalem (Jerusalem: Salomon, 1928), p. 45. [Hebrew] According to the author of The Ruins of Jerusalem, the Muslims’ fear of the return of the Jews to Jerusalem was one of the main reasons for the persecution and expulsion of the Jews of the city: “When a man rose against us who gathered together empty and impudent people… and they took counsel together to cut off the name of Israel from the holy city…. When they saw the ingathering of the exiles of our brethren from East and West, from North and South, going up to Jerusalem…” Rivlin, Ruins, p. 49.

89. Among other things, they denounced the Jews for violating the prohibition against building synagogues. In return for not razing the synagogues, the Muslims demanded ever higher “penalties” to be paid by the Jewish community. Rivlin, Ruins, p. 51.

90. Rivlin, Ruins, p. 14.

91. See Michael Ish Shalom, Christian Travels in the Holy Land (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1979), pp. 333, 341. [Hebrew]

92. Minna Rozen, ed., The Ruins of Jerusalem (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 1981), p. 87. [Hebrew] The quotations are a combination of verses of consolation from Jeremiah 32:15 and Zechariah 8:5.

93. Rozen, Ruins, pp. 81-82.

94. Rozen, Ruins, pp. 82-83.

95. Simon Bernfeld, The Book of Tears (Berlin: Eshkol, 1925), vol. iii, p. 140. [Hebrew] The verse cited is Leviticus 16:3.

96. Avraham Neubauer, Seder Hahachamim Vekorot Hayamim (Oxford: Clarendon, 1888), p. 149. On the expectations for the year 5400, see also Joseph Hacker, “Despair of the Redemption and Messianic Hopes in the Writings of R. Solomon Halevi of Salonika,” Tarbitz 39 (1970), pp. 195-213.

97. The word for “thus” is zot; for “thorns,” dardar. Both have a numerical value of 408, as does “Heth.” The word for “this,” hazot, can be readily understood as having a value of 5,408.

98. Scholem, Sabbatai Sevi, pp. 103-198.

99. Yehuda Liebes, “Sabbatean Messianism,” Pe’amim 40 (1989), pp. 4-20.

100. Benzion Dinur attributed great importance to this aliya, because in his opinion it marked the beginning of the period of “realistic” aliyot, which constituted the basis for the new Jewish presence in the land of Israel. See Dinur, Historical Writings, vol. i, pp. 19-68.

101. Meir Benayahu, “The ‘Holy Brotherhood’ of R. Judah Hasid and Their Settlement in Jerusalem,” Sefunot 3-4 (1959-1960), pp. 131-182.

102. In the wake of Shabtai Tzvi’s conversion to Islam, some of his followers developed the idea that his apostasy was meant to elevate the “holy sparks” within Islam, as only the descent of the Messiah himself to the “shells” would be able to lift up the “sparks.” After the Messiah had fulfilled this purpose he would be revealed again, forty years after his conversion; that is, in the year 1706.

103. The disciples of R. Elijah of Vilna, the “Vilna Gaon,” who came up to Jerusalem a century later, refer in their writing in a very positive way to R. Judah Hasid, using extraordinary terms of honor. The disciples of the Gaon were aware of the fact that some of the immigrants during this period were Sabbateans. See “The Appointments of Emissaries from the Ashkenazic Community in Jerusalem for the Building of the Hurvah from 1837,” in Pinhas Ben-Tzvi Grayevski, ed., From the Archives of Jerusalem (Jerusalem: Tzion, 1930), vol. 2. [Hebrew]

104. It may be that R. Judah’s circle of immigrants to Palestine had seen 5500 as the date of redemption from the outset, and not only retrospectively. Even such a confirmed Sabbatean as Gedaliah Hayun stated that: “You shall surely know that our rabbis said, ‘All the day he laments’—that the Exile was the entire fifth millennium. And when we come to the sixth millennium, the first five hundred years are called night… and the latter five hundred years are called day… and the redemption is the morning.” See Zalman Shazar, The Messianic Hope for the Year 5500 (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1970), p. 29 [Hebrew]; Shazar cites Nehemiah Hayun, Divrei Nehemia 9a. I will discuss this issue at greater length elsewhere, on the basis of new documents that I have uncovered in the archive of the community of Livorno, in Italy.

105. R. Haim ben Atar, Or Hahayim, commentary on Leviticus 6:2.

106. Immanuel Hai Ricchi writes concerning this: “According to the words of R. Shimon bar Yohai [the putative author of the Zohar], in 5541 and two-thirds, the mountain of the house of the Eternal will have been established.” See Immanuel Hai Ricchi, Yosher Levav (Amsterdam, 1742), p. 37b. The composition of the manuscript itself was completed in Aram-Zovah, in modern Syria, in 1737.

107. Morgenstern, Mysticism and Messianism, p. 64 n. 76.

108. Morgenstern, Mysticism and Messianism, p. 39.

109. Jewish officials of Istanbul wrote in a letter early in 5501 (late 1740): “Praise to his great name, several benches have been added and several new yeshivot established in the holy city; such a thing has not been since the day of the exile from the land…. Everyone is ascending to the land of Israel, and the multitude of the people has been the reason for the doubling and redoubling of the expenses. Due to the large numbers of homes in the holy city, whose like has not been since the day of the exile from the land… sustenance has become expensive in the holy city….” Morgenstern: Mysticism and Messianism, p. 40 nn. 8-9.

110. In Jerusalem in 1742, R. Haim ben Atar established Yeshivat Kneset Yisrael, whose students engaged in, among other things, the study of esoteric teachings and mystical practices.

111. Adam Teller, “The Tradition from Slutsk Concerning the Early Days of the Ba’al Shem Tov,” in David Assaf, Joseph Dan, and Immanuel Etkes, eds., Studies in Hasidism (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1999), pp. 15-38. [Hebrew]

112. Morgenstern, Mysticism and Messianism, p. 180. On the messianic motivations for aliya and mystical activity of R. Yehiel Michel “Magid” of Zloczow, on Shavuot 5537 [1777], see Mor Altshuler, R. Meshullam Feibusch Heller and His Place in Early Hasidism, doctoral dissertation, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1994. [Hebrew] Cf. also Arie Morgenstern, “An Attempt to Hasten the Redemption,” Jewish Action 58:1 (1997), pp. 38-44.

113. Morgenstern, Mysticism and Messianism, p. 182.

114. Morgenstern, Mysticism and Messianism, pp. 263-274.

115. Introduction of R. Elijah’s sons to Shulhan Aruch: Orah Hayim (Shklov, 1803); cf. Morgenstern, Mysticism and Messianism, pp. 275-306.

116. Arie Morgenstern, Messianism and the Settlement of the Land of Israel (Jerusalem: Yad Yitzhak Ben-Tzvi, 1985). [Hebrew]

117. Sanhedrin99a. Cf. Morgenstern, Messianism, p. 38.

118. Zohar, Vayera 445-449, and Sulam ad loc.

119. Morgenstern, Messianism, p. 55 n. 92.

120. Morgenstern, Messianism, p. 58 n. 104.

121. Morgenstern, Messianism, p. 75 n. 39, and pp. 66-83.

122. The letter is in the archive of Manfred Lehmann of New York. I am grateful to the family for permission to publish this excerpt.

123. Morgenstern, Messianism, p. 133.

124. Morgenstern, Messianism, pp. 156-159. In kabalistic terminology, “the rising of the divine Presence from the dust” refers to activity of messianic preparation and is symbolic of the redemption.

125. Ya’ari, Letters, pp. 353-354. See also Arie Morgenstern, “Messianic Concepts and Settlement in the Land of Israel,” in Marc Saperstein, ed., Essential Papers on Messianic Movements and Personalities in Jewish History (New York: New York University, 1992), pp. 433-455; and Arie Morgenstern, “Symposium: Messianic Concepts and Settlement in the Land of Israel,” in Richard I. Cohen, ed., Vision and Conflict in the Holy Land (Jerusalem: Yad Yitzhak Ben-Tzvi, 1985), pp. 141-189.

126. Sanhedrin 98a. The verse cited is Ezekiel 36:8.

127. Ya’ari, Letters, p. 341.

128. Morgenstern, Messianism, p. 193 n. 179.

129. Yisrael Klausner, Zionist Writings of Rabbi Kalischer (Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook, 1947), p. 13. [Hebrew] Cf. Morgenstern, Redemption through Return, pp. 182-185.

130. Jacob Katz, “The Historical Image of R. Tzvi Hirsch Kalischer,” Shivat Tzion 2-3 (1951-1952), p. 28; cf. Morgenstern, Redemption through Return, pp. 182-185.

131. Tzvi Karagila, “R. Samuel ben R. Israel Peretz Heller Describes the Sack of Safed, 1834,” Katedra 27 (1983), pp. 112-114.

132. Yehoshua Ben-Aryeh, A City Reflected in Time: Jerusalem in the Nineteenth Century (Jerusalem: Yad Yitzhak Ben-Tzvi, 1977), vol. i, p. 395. [Hebrew]