Early Life and Education
Sabbatai Zevi was born in Smyrna on (supposedly) Tisha B'Av or the 9th of Av, 1626, the holy day of mourning. Zevi's family were Romaniotes from Patras in present-day Greece; his father, Mordecai, was a poultry dealer in the Morea. During the war between Turkey and Venice, Smyrna became the center of Levantine trade. Mordecai became the Smyrnan agent of an English trading house and managed to achieve some wealth in this role.
In accordance with the prevailing Jewish custom of the time, Sabbatai's father had him study the Talmud. He attended a yeshiva under the rabbi of Smyrna, Joseph Escapa. Studies in halakha (Jewish law) did not appeal to him, but apparently he did attain proficiency in the Talmud. On the other hand, he was fascinated by mysticism and the Kabbalah, as influenced by Rabbi Isaac Luria. He found the practical kabbalah, with its asceticism, through which its devotees claimed to be able to communicate with God and the angels, to predict the future and to perform all sorts of miracles, especially appealing.
In his youth he was inclined to solitude. According to custom he married early, but he avoided intercourse with his wife ; she applied for a divorce, which he granted. The same thing happened with a second wife. When he was about twenty years of age, he began to develop unusual behaviors. He would alternately sink into deep depression and isolation, or become filled with frenzied restlessness and ecstasy. He felt compelled to eat nonkosher food, speak the forbidden name of God, and commit other "holy sins."
Read more about this topic: Sabbatai Zevi
Famous quotes containing the words early life, early, life and/or education:
“... business training in early life should not be regarded solely as insurance against destitution in the case of an emergency. For from business experience women can gain, too, knowledge of the world and of human beings, which should be of immeasurable value to their marriage careers. Self-discipline, co-operation, adaptability, efficiency, economic management,if she learns these in her business life she is liable for many less heartbreaks and disappointments in her married life.”
—Hortense Odlum (1892?)
“Names on a list, whose faces I do not recall
But they are gone to early death, who late in school
Distinguished the belt feed lever from the belt holding pawl.”
—Richard Eberhart (b. 1904)
“Thou gavst me life, but mortal; for that one
Favour Ill make full satisfaction:
For my life mortal, rise from out thy hearse,
And take a life immortal from my verse.”
—Robert Herrick (15911674)
“... education fails in so far as it does not stir in students a sharp awareness of their obligations to society and furnish at least a few guideposts pointing toward the implementation of these obligations.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877?)