Book, Sabatai Tzvi: the mystical messiah 1[LS]

There are some masterful workings of the human mind that alter ordinary understanding so unpredictably and on such a prodigious scale that the culture itself is shaken and nothing can be seen otherwise than in the strange light of this new knowledge. Obviously it is not possible to review such work, as it is not possible to review a mountain range: an increase in essential understanding takes on the power of a natural force. Gershom Scholem's work has such force, and Sabatai Tzvi, its cornerstone, presses upon the grasping consciousness with the vigor not simply of his invulnerable erudition, almost a rising tide, but of his singular teaching on the nature of man.