But instead of the long-awaited redemption, 1648 [5408], the very year cited by the Zohar as heralding the resurrection of the dead, brought with it one of the worst tragedies in the history of the Jewish people. In the course of an uprising against the Polish government, Cossacks under the leadership of Bogdan Chmielnicki killed tens of thousands of Jews. They sowed ruin and desolation, destroying about three hundred Jewish communities. One of the great rabbinic figures of that time, R. Shabtai Hacohen (also known as the “Shach,” after his major halachic commentary, Siftei Kohen), expressed the widespread bitterness among the Jews: “In the year 5408, which I had thought would reflect the verse ‘Thus shall Aaron come into the holy place,’ to the innermost sanctum, instead my harp was turned to mourning and my joy to anguish.”⁹⁵ The chronicler R. Joseph Sambari similarly writes: “And in the year 5408… the Eternal’s anger flared up against his people… for they thought that it would be a year of redemption, in ‘this’ year, as is written in the Zohar… ‘In the year of “the sons of Heth”’; and now it is turned into thistles.”⁹⁶ (The numerical values for “thus,” “this,” “Heth,” and “thistles” in the foregoing all add up to 5,408 or 408.)⁹⁷

But despite the disillusionment brought about by tragedy where there had been hope for redemption, the Jewish longing for the Messiah did not take long to resurface. A new messianic fervor came to the fore less than twenty years later, focused on the renowned false messiah Shabtai Tzvi. Despite his peculiar behavior, which was later explained by some scholars as manifestations of mental illness,⁹⁸ his messianic claims fell on eager ears. After an extended tour through various Jewish communities and a brief stay in Palestine, his proclamation in 1665 that he was the Messiah met with substantial support among rabbis and kabalists, which increased in subsequent months as the messianic fever spread. His pronouncements caused great excitement among the masses, who were instilled with a renewed belief in imminent redemption. His followers began to take up ascetic practices and to engage in mystical acts of repentance (tikunei teshuva); some of them sold their property, packed their belongings, and made ready to move to Palestine. Certain communities even attempted, with the help of their wealthy members, to rent ships that would carry them en masseto the Holy Land. In 1666, the new movement came to a sudden end, when Shabtai Tzvi converted to Islam under threat from the sultan.

Unlike other messianic movements among the Jews, Sabbateanism did not see aliya as a precondition for redemption, since the Messiah himself had ostensibly been revealed already. Moreover, Sabbatean messianism distanced itself from political, earthly activism, focusing instead on spiritual-mystical activity directed heavenward.⁹⁹ Nevertheless, it did not take long before a new messianic movement arose, bringing many hundreds of Jews to Palestine in a new mass aliya. At the center of this movement was the itinerant preacher R. Judah Hasid and his circle, who went to Palestine from Europe in 1700 with the aim of bringing about the redemption.¹⁰⁰ It is known that a number of Shabtai Tzvi’s followers, believing that their messiah would have a second coming in the year 1706, took part in themovement surrounding R. Judah.¹⁰¹ Several scholars have even attributed Sabbatean tendencies to the movement as a whole.¹⁰² However, there is no indication that R. Judah himself, or the majority of those who came with him, were Sabbateans.¹⁰³ Either way, at some point after 1706 passed without Shabtai Tzvi’s having revealed himself a second time, hopes for imminent redemption subsided.

 

In the aftermath of the Sabbatean apostasy, messianic expectations be­gan to focus on the next likely date for the redemption: The year 1740, or 5500 on the Jewish calendar.¹⁰⁴ Indeed, the crisis occasioned by the appearance and downfall of a false messiah did not detract from the force of the next awakening. Though they were approaching the five hundredth year of the sixth millennium without the footsteps of the Messiah being heard, the spirits of those Jews who longed for redemption remained unbroken. Now their hopes were pinned on a theory of messianic history that had emerged in the early eighteenth century, according to which the sixth millennium was to be divided into halves. The first five hundred years, from 1240 to 1740, was the period of “night,” symbolizing the darkness of exile; the second half-millennium, beginning with 1740, would be the period of “day,” during which the redemption would occur.¹⁰⁵

One of the most influential advocates of this view was the Italian kabalist R. Immanuel Hai Ricchi, better known as the author of Mishnat Hasidim, who in the eighteenth century was considered the most authoritative interpreter of Luria’s kabalistic works. Rather than pointing to one specific year as the time for redemption, Ricchi spread his estimate over forty years, from 1740 (5500) until the middle of 1781 (5541), a prediction which became widely accepted among Eastern European Jewry.¹⁰⁶ The acceptance of this understanding of the coming of the messianic period may have had something to do with the events in Eastern Europe during the second half of the eighteenth century. In 1768, Jews in the Ukraine suffered persecutions; in the years 1768-1774, Russia fought and won a war with the Ottoman Empire; and in 1772 Poland was partitioned. In the eyes of many Jews, these events had eschatological significance and were interpreted as signs of the Messiah’s approach onto the stage of world history.

Recently discovered historical sources from the period indicate that the messianic expectations that preceded the year 1740 sparked a mass immigration to Palestine lasting many years. These immigrants, whose numbers reached several thousand within a decade, arrived in Palestine from all over the diaspora, and particularly from within the Ottoman Empire and Italy. They settled mostly in Tiberias and Jerusalem, two cities that the talmudic tradition had singled out for a central role in the redemption.

The year 1740 indeed brought good news to the Jewish settlement in Tiberias. At that time, the Ottoman authorities invited the renowned kabalist R. Haim Abulafia, the rabbi of Izmir, to come to Palestine and rebuild Tiberias, which had lain desolate for some time. The Ottoman authorities wanted the city rebuilt for economic reasons, but the Jews considered Abulafia’s mission a sign of the approaching fulfillment of their messianic hopes. Abulafia personally encouraged these hopes, according to the rare testimony of an Arab of Tiberias, who reports that Abulafia “told the Jews who lived there that the Messiah would soon come.”¹⁰⁷

At the same time, the Jews of Jerusalem also enjoyed a resurgence. The Jewish immigrants significantly boosted their numbers, prompting complaints from their neighbors: “[The Muslims] stood like a wall when they saw that [the Jews] were a great host, and that they added dwelling places in the courtyards of Jerusalem, and they took counsel together, saying, ‘Behold the people of the children of Israel are too numerous to count, and there are ten thousand Jewish men.’”¹⁰⁸ Sources indicate that the stream of immigrants arriving in the city during this period increased the demand for housing and drove up food prices dramatically. The impressive growth of the community was also reflected in its spiritual and educational needs: Within a short time, eight new yeshivot were founded; synagogues were repaired and expanded, and new ones were built.¹⁰⁹

Among the immigrants during this period were several spiritual leaders of the first rank. Particularly notable were R. Moses Haim Luzzatto, re­nowned author of Mesilat Yesharim; the kabalist R. Haim ben Atar, author of Or Hahayim, one of the central mystical texts in Jewish tradition;¹¹⁰ R. Elazar Rokeah,chief rabbi of Brody and Amsterdam; R. Gershon of Kutow; as well as R. Gedaliah Hayun and R. Shalom Sharabi (known as Rashash), who served as heads of the Kabala-oriented Beth-El Yeshiva in Jerusalem. A Hasidic tradition, which until recently could not be documented, refers to attempts by the founder of Hasidism, R. Israel Ba’al Shem Tov, to move to Palestine at this time. According to this tradition, the Ba’al Shem Tov sought to meet with R. Haim ben Atar in the land of Israel, so that together they might bring about the redemption through a joint mystical effort. Evidence recently uncovered by Adam Teller confirms this tradition: It seems that during a visit he paid in 1733 to a wealthy Jewish family in Slutsk, the Ba’al Shem Tov asked for financial support for his intended move to the Holy Land.¹¹¹

And indeed, a number of the Ba’al Shem Tov’s closest friends and disciples in fact undertook the move between the years 1740-1781. The largest group of these Hasidic immigrants, numbering about three hundred and led by R. Menahem Mendel of Vitebsk (a disciple of R. Dov Baer of Mezrich, the “Magid of Mezrich”), arrived in Palestine in 1777, four years before the end of the messianic period outlined by R. Immanuel Hai Ricchi. Opinions are divided regarding the motivation for the aliya of the disciples of the Ba’al Shem Tov—which included a significant number of simple Jews who attached themselves to the group during the course of their travels. Some scholars have suggested that perhaps it was the hostility of the Mitnagdim in Lithuania which compelled them to flee; others have claimed that the Hasidim wanted to achieve sanctification and mystical elevation, or to set up a new center for the Hasidic movement in Israel.¹¹² However, from a contemporary source which I recently discovered in an archive in St. Petersburg, we may be able to conclude that this great Hasidic aliya was endowed with a messianic purpose. This source quotes a Karaite who had spoken with the immigrants shortly before their arrival:

This testimony helps to confirm Benzion Dinur’s speculation that the movement of the Ba’al Shem Tov’s disciples was of a messianic nature; it reveals that at the beginning of Hasidism, a significant portion of its leadership wished to bring the redemption closer by moving to the land of Israel.