Frankism
Frankism was a Sabbatean religious movement originating in Rabbinic Judaism of the 18th and 19th centuries. Created in Podolia, it was named after its founder, Jacob Frank. Frank completely rejected Jewish norms, preaching to his followers that they were obligated to transgress moral boundaries, embracing antinomianism. The Frankists engaged in incest, orgies and sex rituals, such as the infamous 1756 incident in Lanškroun where they were allegedly caught dancing around a half-naked woman symbolizing the Shekhinah.
At its height, Frankism claimed perhaps 50,000 followers, primarily Jews living in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, as well as in other regions of Central and Eastern Europe. Later, Frankists were encouraged to convert en masse to Catholicism.
Description
Frankists believed in Sabbatai Zevi, one of the most famous of all self-proclaimed messiahs in Jewish history. He believed in transgressing Jewish commandments to elevate the "divine sparks" constrained by them. He performed actions that violated traditional Jewish prohibitions, such as eating foods forbidden by kashrut, the Jewish dietary laws, and celebrating prescribed fast days as feast days. He eventually opted to convert to Islam rather than face execution for claiming to be the messiah in Judaism. After Zevi's death, several branches of Sabbateanism evolved that disagreed over which aspects of Judaism should be preserved and discarded.Jacob Frank claimed to be a reincarnation of Sabbatai Zevi and followed and extended his practice of transgression. Father-daughter incest was commonly practised by his followers, and orgies featured prominently in ritual. Frank claimed that "all laws and teachings will fall", and following antinomianism, asserted that the most important obligation of humanity was the transgression of every boundary.
Organization
Jacob Frank stood at the head of Frankism. He regarded his followers as soldiers, and all were members of a company to build an army to secure Frank's rule over a Frankist country. There were four company locations: in Ivanie, Częstochowa, Brno, and Offenbach am Main. Members were required to wear plate armor, shields, and helmets and train hard.His teachings were not intended for the ears of all Frankists, but only for his personally selected, small circle of so-called "Brothers and Sisters", of whom he demanded blind obedience. Frank tried to maintain absolute control over at least this circle, taking advantage of their tendency to believe in shedim and magic. Within the circle of "Brothers and Sisters", Frank spoke directly only to the "Brothers"; according to his teachings, nothing could be done with women alone, since women had brought death into the world.
Doctrine
"Words of the Lord"
The most important Frankist text is the Księga Słów Pańskich. This is written in Polish in elementary, almost folk language and consists of short sayings, interpretations and parables, visions and dreams; longer speculations about the elements of the doctrine; various episodes from Frank's life, the Frankist "company" and contemporary rulers; and fairy-tale stories up to 1100 words long. To support them, there are mainly quotations from the Torah and the Zohar as well as popular stories from the surrounding culture, which were quoted verbatim or paraphrased or adapted to his own doctrine. The text begins and ends with a vision: § 1 is Frank's vision of his calling; § 2192 is Frank's final testament to his "company". The Words of the Lord belongs to Jewish literature, but its contents reject Jewish tradition and teachings. Biblical figures such as Jacob, Esau and Esther are the foundations of Frank's teaching.Frank's "Brothers" compiled the work between 1755 and 1791 as a Zbiór of materials developed in numerous meetings. The original Polish title Księga is therefore somewhat misleading and is only used once in the collection, in § 2192. It was written down starting around 1773 and distributed exclusively in the handwritten form to his widely scattered followers. The last known complete manuscript was destroyed, along with numerous other Frankist sources, during the destruction of Warsaw in World War II. Until recently, all researchers of Frankism have relied on the source material of the extensive biography by the historian, the most important study of Frankism from the pre-war period.
The "V" doctrine
In Frankism, Frank is the third messianic incarnation of Tiferet after Sabbatai Zevi and , and also the reborn forefather Jacob. Nonetheless, he is only a "helper". The actual guide in Frankism is the Virgin, the incarnation of the Shekhinah and the female Messiah. Frankists are supposed to follow her bravely, like soldiers, through all horrors. The path by which Frank sought to lead his followers to "life" was symbolized by the letter "V", which also represents Jacob's ladder. The seeker must first climb into the abyss to reach the deepest level of humiliation and then climb back up to "life". According to Frankist doctrine, the patriarchs and Moses had already tried to follow the path but had failed, as had Zevi.Frank proclaims that the Frankists' descent down the "V" ladder into the deepest humiliation is reflected in society's hatred and exclusion of them, which result from Frankism's consistent implementation of the idea that all laws and teachings of the world are only laws of the "Three Evil World Rulers", and therefore do not need to be observed. In the best case, such laws and teachings need only be kept in pretense; religions and teachings of the world can be worn like an empty shell and then discarded at whim because the "true Torah" is yet to be revealed. The Mosaic Law with its Ten Commandments should be despised, as it is part of the "old Torah". The contempt for all teaching of the world culminates in a statement by Frank to his close circle of "Brothers and Sisters" that amounts to a command for total assimilation: one should adapt to the respective religion or language depending on the country. Frank also advises masked assimilation in the following passage:
Frank was not interested in the acculturation of the Jews; rather, he wanted them to integrate into society in order to ultimately overthrow it. If the enemies of the Jews in the 18th century had been familiar with Frank's secret sectarian canon, it would have made the already hotly contested Jewish emancipation considerably more difficult.
The Virgin
The center of Frankism was a new concept of the Shekhinah. However, the term was forbidden in Frankism because Jacob Frank referred to her as "the Virgin". The Shekhinah is a Kabbalistic term. Klaus Samuel Davidowicz, a Jewish studies scholar at the University of Vienna who has written extensively on Frank and Frankism, assumes it was initially an old name for God that referred to the indwelling or presence of God in a specific place. According to Frank's teachings, all of the important forefathers—Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses—strove towards the Virgin, who manifested herself in different persons, such as Rachel, and all had failed. Moses' liberation from Egypt could not have been complete either, since the foundation of salvation is the Virgin. But now, according to Frank, the real Virgin had arrived, a female Messiah visible to all people: his daughter Eve Frank. In a teaching, Frank identifies himself with the traditional Messiah ben Joseph, who will have a significant impact but perish in the fight against the enemies of the end times. Just as he precedes the Messiah ben David, Frank prepares the way for the Virgin, his daughter.Frankism characterizes the Virgin using elements of the Esther stories and is strongly influenced by the veneration of Mary in the Catholic Church surrounding the Black Madonna of Częstochowa. He claimed that the Black Madonna would lead his followers to the Frankist Virgin and therefore presented baptism as a necessary step. Following the Bahir and the Zohar, in which the Shekhinah is described as being like a princess in a tower, Frank refers to an actual tower of the Jasna Góra Monastery where he was exiled. He had miniature portraits of his daughter Eve made corresponding to Catholic images of Mary, mother of Jesus; these are now in the National Library of Israel. However, Eve, as Shekhinah, was an element that had not yet appeared during Frank's lifetime. The Virgin was hidden from Frank, and his task was to free her. The Black Madonna points to the true Virgin, who will be revealed preceding the final redemption. Frank regarded himself as the Virgin's guide, who, before her manifestation, is in a "mysterious place" and was given only to him since the beginning of the world, so that he, as her father, would be her guardian. The soul of the Shekhinah was still with Frank; his "Brothers" were unworthy to see her themselves. They were supposed to support Frank in finding the Virgin. Depending on the company's behaviour, the Virgin would behave positively or negatively towards them, a well-known idea from the Kabbalistic descriptions of the Shekhinah. During her father’s lifetime, Eve Frank held a special position within the "company": as soon as she was old enough, she stood at her father's side as a confidant and adjutant. Frank repeatedly accused his followers of having fallen back into Judaism, thus preventing the liberation of the Virgin. The only way to the Virgin is to adapt to the Polish environment.
The liberation of the Shekhinah—the transfer of the Shekhinah's soul from Jacob to Eve Frank—is also described in some longer fairy-tale-like narratives in the Words of the Lord, which are reminiscent of Middle Eastern models in the 1001 Nights. They use traditional Kabbalistic terminology, with the motif of concealment and disguise as a gardener being important in Frankism; the garden stands for a symbolic setting of the world of the ten sefirot. The strengthening of the third Sephirah, Chokmah, the male principle, also leads to the liberation of the lower Shekhinah. In Frank's perception of the Virgin, it is clear how deeply his ideas are rooted in Kabbalah and other Jewish writings, despite Christian influences. The author of the Words of the Lord who created such colorful parables and allegories required an excellent knowledge of Kabbalistic literature.