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| At the death bed of Jacob Frank 1791 |
note. As a time of growing dislocations &
deconstructions, the eighteenth-century saw changes of mind that reached into
isolated corners of Europe , far removed from
the strongholds of both the Enlightenment & the “natural supernaturalism”
& radical mysticisms that were among
the marks of an emerging Romanticism.
The messianic Frankist movement as it affected eastern European Jews
involved, like its literary & western counterparts, a shift in language
& its attendant symbols that resembled the shifts emerging as well in the
dominant cultures.
Of the work presented below, Harris Lenowitz writes as
translator: “These are some of the sayings of Yankiev Leivich, Yakov ben Lev,
who called himself Yakov Frank and whom some called Wise Jacob. Jacob Frank [1726-1791] was a creature of Podolia , Turkey
In the “words” written down by his followers, the
mini-narratives show a range of transformative experiences that came to him,
like vatic prose poems, in the form of dreams & visions or by observations,
simple or not, of the people & events to which his way of life had brought
him. (J.R./H.L.)
[Several
of the nearly 3000 sayings and visions follow – from Lenowitz’s complete
translation, waiting to be published, but available in its entirety at http://archive.org/stream/TheCollectionOfTheWordsOfTheLordJacobFrank/TheCollectionOfTheWordsOfTheLordJacobFrank_djvu.txt]
1. I had a vision
in Salonika , as though the following words
were said to somebody, Go lead Jacob the wise into the rooms and when you and
he come to the first room, I admonish you that all the doors and gates be
opened to him. When I entered the first room, a rose was given to me as a sign
by which I could go on to the next and so on consequenter from one room to
the next. And so I flew in the air accompanied by two maidens [the like of]
whose beauty the world has never seen. In these rooms I saw for the most part
women and young ladies. In some, however, there were assembled only groups of
students and teachers, and wherever just the first word was spoken to me, I immediately
grasped the whole matter from it and the full meaning. There was an innumerable
number of these rooms and in the last one of them I saw the First [= Shabtai
Zvi] who also sat as a teacher with his students, dressed in frenk [= Turkish] clothing.
This one immediately asked me, Are you Jacob the wise? I have heard that you
are strong and brave-hearted. To this point have I come, but I have not the
strength of proceeding from here further; if you want [to], strengthen yourself
and may God help you, for very many ancestors took that burden upon themselves,
went on this road, but fell. With that, he showed me through the window of this
chamber an abyss which was like a black sea, hidden in extraordinary darkness,
and on the other side of this abyss I saw a mountain whose height seemed to touch
the clouds. At that I shouted, Be what may, I will go with God's help, and so I
began to fly on a slant through the air into the depth until I reached its very
bottom, where, having felt the ground, I stopped. Walking in the dark, I came
upon the edge of the mountain and seeing that because of the steep smoothness
of the mountain I had difficulty getting up on it, I was forced to clamber up
with my hands and nails and using all my strength until I reached the top. As
soon as I stopped there, an extraordinary scent reached me; and there were many
True-Believers there. Seized by great joy, I did not [yet] want to go up onto
the mountain with my whole body, saying to myself, I will rest awhile here, for
sweat poured from my head like a river in flood on account of the tortures
which I had borne to climb this mountain; but when I am well rested then I will
come up on the mountain towards all the good which is found there. And that is
what I did, I let my feet hang and sat with my body and hands at rest on the
mountain. Then I went up on the mountain.
2. Being sick once
in Dziurdziów, I had a dream like this. I saw an extraordinarily beautiful
woman, who had a well of the water of life and another well of clear water, and
this [woman] said to me, Put your legs in the water and you will become healthy
right away. I did so and became well. At the place where this woman was found,
there was a broad beautiful field, in which she, taking me by the hand, said,
Come, I will show you my daughter who is still a maiden, and I went with her
into the depth of that field which gave off an extraordinary scent, from [many]
different flowers. The Maiden, whose beauty nothing in this world could
describe, came to meet us there, and she was dressed in a Polish rubran [a
tight-fitting, twisted blouse of heavy, usually red, silk] and her uncovered
breasts were visible. Having noticed this I suddenly saw from one end of the
world to the other. Her mother informed me that if I was desirous to take her
for a wife, she would permit it, but I answered that I had a wife and children.
44. My
grandmother, my mother's mother was a very learned astrologer. When I was born, all the
witches assembled around our home and surrounded it, even their queen was there
at their head. There was a dog in our house— a cross between a wolf and a [canine]
bitch. This one did not sleep at all, but barked all the time, for if he had
fallen asleep even for a moment, then they would have seen to it that he would
have never awakened, but he kept watch vigilantly. Then on the 8th day at the
circumcision, they surrounded our home as before and wanted to do something
evil, but were unable to because that dog kept guard again, and the old
grandmother with her craft fought against the evil also, saying, Watch him
carefully, bring him up properly, for a new thing will come to the world
through him.
451. On the 21st
of October, 1784 the Lord saw a dream, I had a golden ring on my hand, and I
dropped that ring onto a mirror, which broke into small pieces, Having turned
that mirror onto the other side, I found shining glass there also, and likewise
a bracelet fell from my hands and broke the other side. He himself gave the
interpretation of that, My help hastens to come.
504. In a dream I
saw Jesus, having priests around him, sitting at a spring of living and clear
water. I noticed that this spring went away from them and came to me.
748. I saw a dream
as if I were in a church, totally naked except for a gray cloak such as the
Jesuits wear, but the chest was bare like the breasts of a woman. The priests were
all prepared for the Resurrection service, but only one priest wore a cloak
like mine. All present thought that they would raise something as was the
custom at the Resurrection service, but nothing was raised except that priest
came to me and sprinkled me with pure water. All the people present laughed,
that I was dressed in such a cloak. I wanted to cover my chest, but in spite of
all my endeavors, it remained bare.
791. In a dream I
saw a very old woman, 1500 years old. Her hair was white as snow; she brought
me 2 silver belts and a Walachian sausage. I bought one from her and stole the other.
793. In a dream I
saw that I went to a great church having a great window, having neither an
altar nor any paintings. The walls were covered with silver. Many Polish lords
sat there, they ate and they drank. They asked me to eat with them, but I said
I was weak and could not eat. Moreover, I had not heard Mass yet. I went to the
sacristy, and the sacristy too was beautiful. I saw that a priest threw off his
chasuble and put on another. He went to pray with his hands raised, but without
the chalice, after having entered a certain room, before which hung a curtain
of silver material. I followed and saw a man lying on the ground. He was about
10 cubits long and rolled in the dirt, but the priest prayed to him. I went to those lords and
said to them, Come, I will show you a tasty comedy, how a man is rolling in the
dirt and a priest praying to him. But I was dressed in a long Polish zupania [the undergarment of the Polish
folk costume] and girdled with a precious Persian belt
whose ends were very precious; and I wrapped myself around several times with
that belt, but still its end trailed on the ground. The Lord himself
interpreted: Some new road is prepared for me.
804. The Lord saw
a dream the 14th of June 1784: Two women came to me, and one man 6 cubits tall.
They were very beautiful, and they said to me, We have heard in the place where
we live that your people have abandoned you and that you do not want to send them
on any mission. We have been dead several thousand years and we have worked a lot,
and still we have no peace. We ask you, Send us. We will go on your mission
wholeheartedly. I answered them, I have
already said that I will make revelation to no man, nor bring any near, nor
will I send any on a mission. They asked me, But the signal has already gone
out that a great deal of blood will flow in the world, and we want to go and rescue
many; only you bless us for the way. I am a prostak, I replied, and cannot make
a blessing. They
asked me, But you bless your people? I replied, I can say no more than this
word: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and this verse: The angel who delivered me1062
& & ... They said to me, We have a book here in which stand blessings.
Bless us with that book; we only ask you that you bless us out loud. They gave
me the book which was written in large Hebrew letters without dots. They bent
their heads and I, after raising my hands above their heads, blessed them.
There were beautiful words there, but I do not remember more than two words
that were at the end: Du Jankiew, That is Jacob.
852. Her Highness
[his daughter Eva] saw a dream on the 5th of July 1784: I saw a little child in
my room; one black man came in with horns on his head. I asked him, What do you
want here? He answered, I have come to take that child from your house. I will
not give you that child, I said. He said, If you will not give him to me
willingly, then I will take him by violence. I asked him who he might be? He
replied, First I will take the child, then I will tell you who I am. He took
the child by violence under one arm and under the other he caught up that
French girl who was with me. I asked him again, Who are you? He answered, I am
the worst devil of all the devils. The French girl started to scream loudly and
to ask that I rescue her from him, but he did not listen to her and left with
her. Immediately a great fire began
to burn in my room, which I tried to put out, but I couldn't. The Lord came
along to put it out, at which a great outcry arose that in the Lord's room it
was burning terribly.
868. It would be
better for you if you had been taught the wisdom of sorcery; you would have
known a great deal.
[Originally
written for inclusion but never published in Rothenberg & Robinson, Poems for the Millennium, volume 3, with biographical passages
adapted from H.L. in A Big Jewish Book
(a.k.a. Exiled in the Word). Jacob Frank, the eighteenth-century Jewish
messiah, was one of a long chain of Messiahs from the time of Jesus and
before. See also H. Lenowitz, The Jewish Messiahs:
From the Galilee to Crown Heights, Oxford University Press, 1998. The entire posting will be included as is in
Rothenberg & Bloomberg-Rissman, Barbaric Vast & Wild:
An Assemblage of Outside & Subterranean Poetry from Origins to Present.]
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