Jacob Frank - The Anti-Talmudists

The Anti-Talmudists

As a result of these disclosures the congress of rabbis in Brody proclaimed a universal Cherem (excommunication) against all "impenitent heretics", and made it obligatory upon every pious Jew to seek them out and expose them. The Sabbateans informed Dembowski, the Catholic Bishop of Kamenetz-Podolsk, that they rejected the Talmud and recognized only the sacred book of Kabbalah, the Zohar, which did not contradict the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. They stated that they regarded the Messiah-Deliverer as one of the embodiments of the three divinities.

The bishop took the "Anti-Talmudists", or "Zoharists", under his protection and in 1757 arranged a religious disputation between them and the rabbis. The Anti-Talmudists presented their theses, to which the rabbis gave a very lukewarm and unwilling reply lest they offend the Church dignitaries who were present. The bishop decided that the Talmudists had been vanquished, and ordered them to pay a fine to their opponents. He also ordered the burning of all copies of the Talmud in the bishopric of Podolia.

After the death of the bishop, the Sabbateans were subjected to severe persecution by the rabbis, although they succeeded in obtaining an edict from Augustus III of Poland guaranteeing them safety.