Broken Instruments and Ravenous Beasts
By: Benjamin Lev Zoller
Broken Instruments and Ravenous Beasts: Aaron Zeitlin’s Critique of Jacob Frank in Volume 20 of Ha-Tekufah (1923)
Born in 1726, during Jacob Frank’s 65 years he was regarded as one of the most notorious Jews in Europe. A heretic and cult-leader, Frank inspired ritualistic orgies, as well as led the largest apostasy in Jewish history in 1759. While he, as well as his direct influence, died in 1791 (and the two decades which followed), the legacy he left on the Jewish and European world continues to live on today.1 One of the reasons for Frank’s relevance today includes the fact that he is often labeled as a Sabbatian figure. While Frank himself was indeed anti-Sabbatean – he, of course, believed himself, and not Sabbatai Sevi (1626-76) to be the messiah – their legacies as “failed messiahs” often link the two of them.
One example of Frank’s legacy in “mainstream” twentieth-century culture appeared in the twentieth volume of Ha-Tekufah.2 Published in mid-1923, author Aaron Zeitlin’s article entitled “Sfichei-Shabtaut” (“The Aftergrowth of Sabbateanism”) presents a new understanding of Frank in the foremost Hebrew language journal of the time. In his article, Zeitlin binds Frank not only to Sevi, but also to fellow “failed messiah” Wolf Benjamin Eibeschütz (1740-1806) as well as cultural character Peer Gynt from Henrik Ibsen’s famous play (1867). While they, of course, had their differences, Zeitlin acknowledges their common aesthetic sense of grandeur, often expressed specifically in their wild hallucinations and dreams. While Zeitlin outlines the narratives of all four anti-heroes, emphasizing Frank and Eibeschütz, I will be specifically exploring the first half of the article, in which he develops an understanding of Frank. Primarily, Zeitlin’s view of Frank is painted from selected
passages recorded in The Collection of the Words of the Lord, a transcription of Frank’s teachings into Polish (published as Zbior Słow Panskich and referred to hereinafter as ZSP3).
It should be noted that while Zeitlin writes the article with an organized introduction, the article seems to be lacking a clear conclusion. Therefore when analyzing the introduction I will be understanding it also as a means of portraying his implicit critique on Frank and the other “failed messiahs.”
Zeitlin opens the article by quoting the tannaitic sage Rabbi Akiva who said in Mishnah Yadayim (3:5): “All the sacred texts are holy, and Song of Songs is the holy of holies.” But, Zeitlin asks, how can this be? Is Song of Songs not the sensual love poem which speaks about two lovers? Thus, Song of Songs should be the “profane of the profane”! Yet, he answers, this song of eternal man yearning for eternal woman is precisely a song of faith, divinity and mystery. For sex is not profane, but the most holy act. Indeed, Zeitlin explains, the Zohar, the foundational Kabbalistic text, is a book about sex, for sex is the gateway to the secret of creation. All the while, the Zohar is also a book about the struggle between man and the evil inclination. Therefore, while man may find the paths to the upper realms (ma’ala) by engaging in sex, man may also stumble due to the evil inclination.
The issue of the day, Zeitlin proposes, is that though sex opens the door to the mysteries of existence, humanity, at large, has stumbled. And, rather than arriving at heaven, they have found themselves stranded in the wilderness as sacrifices whose souls are being torn asunder by a tiger.
This beautifully-skinned tiger belongs to none other than the sitra achra, or the Kabbalistic “dark side”. And, it is none other than this tiger which has also attacked
the poet Jacob Frank and his followers. For Frank, Zeitlin describes, was one of the “ma’apilim ha-noflim,” or the “fallen hill-climbers” who mistakenly attempted to ascend to the land of Israel without permission after the sin of the spies.4 Yet, Frank simply continued to climb higher and higher, “clinging to the klippot (husks) with the same subliminity as others cling to the sacred.”
Here Zeitlin implies that Frank’s motives were indeed righteous. Frank did seek to find holiness through sex, yet he, like the ma’apilim, climbed too high, too fast. All the while, he held tight onto the profane, viewing even the most defiled as the most holy. Stumbling, Frank was attacked by the beautiful tiger of the sitra achra. However, this tiger did not destroy Frank, rather Frank became the alluring tiger wishing to tear apart everything in his path.
Zeitlin finds many of these ideas in passages of ZSP. ZSP, Zeitlin explains, is the jumbled evil dreams of the cruel Frank. In his wickedness, Frank “instructed to defile the holy on one leg, and from there to sanctify the profane.” Frank’s dreams, claims Zeitlin, were to bring about the zivug acharon, the final pairing of the eternal man and eternal woman alluded to in Song of Songs. Yet, in doing so, Frank mixed the sacred and the profane, which he thought to be the forbidden lovers. Thus, Frank erased even one of the most prominent commandments of “thou shalt not commit adultery.”5 Not stopping at the commandments of Israel, Frank went so far as to destroy the universal commandments of the Noahide Covenant.
“It is as if,” Zeitlin writes, “he actually shattered the tablets of Moses and instructed to come to a new Sinai, even though he did not know where it would be found, for he did not know the name of God to Whom he prayed.” It is at this juncture where Zeitlin expresses his primary concern with Frank: Frank believed that in order to bring about redemption he had to, like the tiger, destroy. Nothing was too sacred nor too profane. Rather, all was food for his ravenous stomach to devour, and nothing was too tough for his sharp incisors. It didn’t matter that Frank did not know the name of God to Whom he prayed, for indeed he was shaping himself into a god.
As such, one of Frank’s most valued teachings is that in order to improve things one must first destroy them and only afterwards can one return and reconnect the pieces. This idea is found a number of times in ZSP, some of which Zeitlin quotes.
There was a certain rich man in Bucharest. He was given a certain herb so that he became crazy. He played the violin extraordinarily. Having purchased a new violin, he broke it into pieces and glued it together so that its voice/sound might be heard from far away.
ZSP §389
As is common in ZSP, Frank tells a brief story involving a stereotypical figure, in this case a rich man, who has certain special qualities, such as being a violinist. Then, something changes: he eats a certain herb and goes crazy. In his craze, the man destroys his new violin in order to glue it back together so that its “voice/sound” may echo far into the distance.
Harris Lenowitz, an English translator of ZSP, focuses on the choice of the Polish word “głos” which he translates as “voice/sound.” The reason, he explains,6 is that with the use of this word, Frank alludes to when Jacob stole his father Isaac’s blessing from his twin brother Esau (the Edomite). When Isaac is trying to identify his son, he says, “The voice is the voice of Jacob and the hands are Esau’s hands.”7 In various passages in the Zohar, this very “voice” is referenced as one which recruits other voices from below to bring about change in the upper sefirot. Yet, for Frank this seems to imply certain devious intentions. Also named Jacob, he too wishes to deceive for personal gain. And, like Jacob, his indistinguishable voice will spread his mission. Choosing a violin in ZSP, he shows that he has found other instruments for sharing his teachings, those which will disguise his voice to a certain degree. All the while, it will still be his voice singing, even more loudly, through the glued-together pieces of the broken violin.
Immediately following the passage about the broken violin, Zeitlin shares another passage about broken vessels.
When a glass vessel is broken and they give it to the glassworks in order to make a new vessel of the bits, the new one comes out far purer and more beautiful than at first. But when one of clay shatters it cannot be repaired. ZSP §610
While in the case of the violin a crazy person destroyed the instrument in order to make its sound louder, here Frank matter-of-factly claims that a broken glass reblown is more beautiful and perfect than the vessel which came before it. Similar to Zeitlin’s earlier claim, here Frank clearly expresses his intention of shattering in order to remold. Yet, even Frank himself acknowledges that not everything can be restored. Indeed, a broken clay vessel will forever be broken. Recognizing this fact, Frank seems to realize that not everything he destroys can be remolded.
Noticing this, Zeitlin comments, “And therefore he destroyed and destroyed, but he did not take into account his deeds, and he knew now bounds within his soul or outside of his soul. He destroyed his world and that of others – and he set his fist against the wall of mystery.” Frank, deluded, simply continued to destroy. For,
explains Zeitlin, Frank viewed himself as a brother of God. And, as the brother of the Creator of the world, Frank had permission to do whatever he wished with the creations, even if that meant devouring them with his predatory instinct.
“For the sake of some wonderful madness, which would screech like an owl in the night in his soul, he wished to break Israel,” Zeitlin writes. “Destroy the ends in order to reconnect them.” Yet, to destroy Israel was not enough for Frank, he also wished to shatter Edom. Edom, as mentioned above, is Esau, but also his descendents, the Edomites, whom the rabbis later associated with Rome and Christianity. “He wished to destroy Edom by bringing Israel into it, and destroy Israel by bringing it into Edom,” Zeitlin says. Commenting on Frank’s mass apostasy in 1759, Zeitlin claims it was for these very reasons that Frank wished to bring Judaism to Christianity: not to make the Jews Christian, but to destroy all preexisting religious structures from within in order to pave the way for his dream of redemption. Through this mixing of different groups and ideas, Frank “aspired to arrive at a different form of wholeness and a different form of heroism, even if he himself did not understand its nature.”
Zeitlin continues clarifying that Frank had an insatiable thirst for sex, blood and sin, which he craved as though it were the highest form of sacredness. This indeed is what Frank referred to as daas Edom (the religion of Edom). Within his dream of this new religion, he envisioned himself commanding an army. Even here, however, Frank manipulates the idea of a sword which kills to become one with life. Thus, even the commandment “thou shalt not murder”8 became irrelevant for Frank. As Zeitlin espouses, “permitting adultery is only one stage.” This dream of Frank stemmed from his notion of daas Edom. He wished to shatter all, even if that meant
cruelly annihilating humanity in order to reach the secrets of life. Zeitlin quotes one such dream from ZSP:
There is a snake in the world, and through this snake one will find life. And that, that is what God told Moses: Make a bronze snake and hang it on a pole. He who is shown the snake and looks upon it, will immediately live… You ask what does a snake have to do with paradise? This [person] does not know anything.
ZSP §1270
Frank, Zeitlin shows, also views himself to be the redeemer of the snake. The snake, Frank explains, indeed belongs in Eden. Yes, the snake may bite, but more importantly, the snake can give life. And Frank’s goal, in essence, is to redeem the snake.
Indeed the very snake, traditionally known as leading to the sin of mankind, is redeemed in the eyes of Frank. The snake’s intentions, Frank claims, is not to harm humanity, but to bring life. Similar to snake in Genesis, Zeitlin elucidates, Frank decieves and defiles Eve (which is also the name of his daughter, whom Frank taught was the personified schina, and whom he possibly had relations with), locking humanity out of the garden. But, Zeitlin writes, Frank does not wish to reenter Eden, instead he desires to destroy it with brute force.
For Frank understands that the god who created the world and expelled the snake is not a good god, or even a living god. Rather, that god wished to distance humanity from eternity, as seen by the fact that he locked man, who had eaten from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, out of Eden.9 And it is Frank’s role, along with the snake and sinning Eve, to provide humanity with eternal life. This will come about through daas Edom.
All of this, Zeitlin suggests, comes about from Frank’s wild dreams and hallucinations of concubines, royalty, honor and treasure combined with his thoughts of the “snake from Eden.” Still, Zeitlin writes, even his insatiable thirst for sex and murder had within it moments of light. Such examples are hidden throughout ZSP.
There are palaces in a certain place where the Maiden is to be found. Near the palaces are treasures without end; around the treasures stands a wall, and around the wall lies a huge snake with its tail in its mouth. No one can pass there. But sometimes the snake releases its tail to bask in the sun. He who knows that time can enter at that moment into those rooms. And there is a golden table and on it stands a bird, bound by a golden thread. He who enters hears a voice speaking, or sees the Maiden himself, who says to him, First, take that bird in your hand and do not let it sleep 3 days and 3 nights, thereafter your wish will be granted. He who stands up under her order, then to him is given great treasure, but he who cannot endure it, he must die there. ZSP §627
Zeitlin brings this passage not to show Frank’s wicked nature, but, on the contrary, his understanding of sacredness. Frank too recognizes that the snake can prevent humanity from reaching treasure, and the bird can sing a peaceful song (alongside the screeching owl). Most importantly, however, is that man also bears certain burdens of responsibility. One can not expect to be handed a reward, one must also work in order to earn it. And, in failing to accomplish the task, man may be punished with death.
“Frank did not receive the treasure,” Zeitlin laments. “He died in his lifetime, died thousands of times. He killed and also was killed.” While Frank at times saw the brightest of lights, he allowed the darkness to prevail. Rather than being patient and
waiting for redemption to come about, he, excitedly, pounced too early, only bringing himself closer to death.
Frank’s struggle, Zeitlin suggests, is that he did not know who he, himself, was. As written in ZSP, “The 25th of March, 1784. I saw a white dog; that dog became a lion” (§2244). At times, Zeitlin explains, Frank is a dog, but at other times he is a lion. Indeed, in another passage which Zeitlin does not quote, Frank says:
In my youth, the children would play among themselves. One acted a dog, another a pig, a third an ox, a fourth a wolf, and I played the lion and tore all sides to pieces. And one played the rooster; he dropped his pants, beat his hands on his rump and crowed like a rooster. We got so used to it, it became an addiction. When we went home, even if there were guests, then the one who had played the rooster would push down his pants in front of everybody and act just like a rooster; the one that played the dog, would howl like a dog, and when he spotted me at szkol he would bark at me like a bad dog. So we did, and I was the lion which rent and beat the children until they fell to the ground and said to me, Jacob what are you doing? I replied, Don't call me by the name of Jacob, because I'm a lion now. I beat and rend.
ZSP §1263
Even in his youth, Frank likened himself to a lion. (Also note the sexuality of the masturbating “rooster”.) While here Frank speaks about this quality in terms of destruction, the lion also represents the king of the jungle who uses his power, as well as his might, to control the other animals around him. Rather than the dog’s bark, the lion bites, rents and beats.
While much of what Frank did was destroy, there were times when he was forming. “But I tell you that in this world everything which is spiritual must be made
into flesh as is ours so that everyone will see; just as a visible thing is seen” (ZSP §548). Frank was indeed a seeker of the physical. Those mysteries that were “spiritual” and invisible to the eye were of little interest to him. Rather, “once in Częstochowa the Lord said, We are chasing a portrait” (ZSP §95). Frank was searching for something tangible: physical sex, a powerful army, a crown. And this, Zeitlin concludes part one of his article, left Frank’s voice and soul to forever cry out into the abyss.
Frank, Zeitlin suggests, wished to cling to the holy, to find divinity between the ever-longing lovers of Song of Songs. Yet, Frank was not interested in patiently waiting for his lover. Rather, he believed the whole world should love without any borders. And, like animals, they should devour anything standing in their way. The tiger of the sitra achra and the snake exiled from Eden – these creatures should not be avoided but embraced. They, unlike the wicked god who expelled humanity from Eden, wish to provide humanity with eternal life.
Additionally, the religions which have led humanity, Judaism and Christianity (Edom), are simply structures which need to be destroyed in order to pave the way for daas Edom – the conglomeration of Judaism and Christianity, which is, in essence, entirely new. Indeed, the glass vessels must be shattered and reformed.
All the while, Zeitlin explains, Frank does not have an end goal. Frank is leading his followers to a Sinai whose location he does not know. And, upon arriving, he wishes to collect their beautiful instruments, destroy them and glue them back together. While the sound may be louder, the original beauty will forever be flawed, leaving a ringing of the profane in the ears of those who stumble searching for the sacred.
Endnotes
1. For example, see Nobel Prize winning Polish novel The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk in 2014.↩
2. Special thanks to Sam Glauber-Zimra for sharing this article with me. The article is accessible here: https://archive.org/details/hatekufah20telauoft/page/36/mode/2up↩.
3. All forthcoming quotes from ZSP are from Harris Lenowitz’s English translation. Accessible here: https://archive.org/details/TheCollectionOfTheWordsOfTheLordJacobFrank↩.
5. Exodus 20:13. ↩ 6. See footnote 277 on §165.↩ 8. Exodus 20:13.↩
9. See Genesis chapter 3.↩
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