Description
Book SynopsisThe Heresy of Jacob Frank is the first monograph length study on the religious philosophy of Jacob Frank (1726-1791), who, in the wake of false messiah Sabbetai Zevi, led the largest mass apostasy in Jewish history. Based on close readings of Frank''s late teachings, recorded in 1784 and 1790, this book challenges scholarly presentations of Frank that depict him as a sex-crazed degenerate, and presents Frank as an original and prescient figure at the crossroads of tradition and modernity, reason and magic, Kabbalah and Western Esotericism.Frank''s worldview combines a skeptical rejection of religious law as ineffectual and repressive with a supernatural, esoteric myth of immortal beings, material magic, and worldly power. With close readings of the theological and narrative passages of Frank''s teachings, Michaelson shows how the Frankist sect evolved from its Sabbatean roots and the infamous 1757-59 disputations before the Catholic Church, into a Western Esoteric society based on alch
Trade ReviewIn the mainstream of Jewish collective memory, Jacob Frank was portrayed as an egomaniacal and depraved ignoramus, a false messiah, and a cynical serial convert-to Islam, then Christianity...Jay Michaelson makes a complementary theoretical argument in The Heresy of Jacob Frank, which received last year's National Jewish Book Award for scholarship...Michaelson, well known as a popular writer on religion and spirituality and an activist for gay rights both in Jewish life and the broader world, has been studying Jacob Frank for almost two decades...In a recent essay, he described being "seduced" by the "allure" of Frank's vigorous confrontation with traditional Jewish law and norms in The Words of the Lord, the late miscellany of Frank's oral teachings and anecdotes. * Benjamin Weiner, Jewish Review of Books *
Michaelson reconstructs Frank's teachings with critical methodology, tracing how Frank both followed and resisted the disciplines of reason, magic, Kabbalah, and esotericism. * Yale Law Report *
Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Boundary Crosser Chapter 1.
