[Avodah] The Rabbi, the Rebbe, and the Messiah

[Zev Sero via Avodah]

At 10:07 AM 2/13/2017, Cantor Wolberg wrote:
> On 10/10/17 13:13, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote (re: Message: 1):

>> THere was never any attempt to suppress knowledge of the SZ affair.


>  From http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/shabbetai-zvi
> The apostasy [of Sabbatai Tzvi} shocked the Jewish world. Leaders and
> followers alike refused to believe it. Many continued to anticipate
> a second coming, and faith in false messiahs continued through the
> eighteenth century. In the vast majority of believers, revulsion and
> remorse set in and there was an active endeavor to erase all evidence,
> even mention of the pseudo-Messiah. Pages were removed from communal
> registers, and documents were destroyed. Few copies of the books that
> celebrated Shabbetai Zvi survived, and those that did have become rarities
> much sought after by libraries and collectors.


I dispute this source's characterisation of events.  The evidence he 
presents does not show any attempt to suppress knowledge of the affair, 
but rather a perfectly normal process of destroying heretical books, and 
of removing the name of a rasha from places where it ought not to 
appear, such as in proclamations honouring him.  Lehavdil, when after a 
divorce one removes the ex's photos from the family album, one is not 
trying to suppress all knowledge that the marriage had once existed, 
it's just that the person is no longer a member of the family and those 
photos don't belong there any more.  Or has "yimach shemo" suddenly 
become an exercise in dishonesty?!  Cf the coexistence of the two 
mitzvos, to wipe out the memory of Amalek and at the same time to 
remember what Amalek did.


-- 
Zev Sero                May 2017, with its *nine* days of Chanukah,
zev at sero.name           be a brilliant year for us all