Sabbatai Zevi’s conversion parallels the Muslim’s loss of the divine spark
Evidence
It is Gershom Scholem who has explained in the most laborious and detailed manner the significance of the “divine spark,” the “forces of holiness, sparks of divine light,” “sparks of the holy which are scattered among all people” and “must be brought home.” With these divine sparks, Scholem accounted for the “tragic dialectic” whereby it became “contingent upon the Messiah himself … to fulfill a mystical mission: to liberate and ‘elevate’ the sparks of holiness and the holy souls.” What Scholem refers to as a “Jewish variation of the ancient conception of the descensus ad inferos’ is the catastrophic event whereby the Jew becomes Muslim, whereby “the Messiah must live with ‘the Turk,’ for as the exile draws to a dose the Messiah himself must be exiled.” — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 773 (
#expands, via linked claim)
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: Theological readings erase Islam’s significance in Sabbatai Zevi’s conversion; Scholars read Sabbatai Zevi’s conversion through Christianity, erasing Islam’s significance — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab: A History of the…, 777; Scholarly treatments of Sabbatai Zevi erase the Muslim context entirely — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab: A History of the…, 1263 (+4 more)
Broader Connections
- Scholem’s messianism makes the Messiah descend into exile and Islam to redeem divine sparks
#corroborates(0.93) - Kabbalistic divine-spark doctrine makes the Messiah descend into Islam
#expands(0.92) — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 773 - Theological readings erase Islam’s significance in Sabbatai Zevi’s conversion
#complicates(0.78) - Scholars read Sabbatai Zevi’s conversion through Christianity, erasing Islam’s significance
#complicates(0.77) — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 777 - Scholarly treatments of Sabbatai Zevi erase the Muslim context entirely
#complicates(0.76) — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 1263