Migdal Oz, the Tower of Power

At an early point in its history, the Sabbatian movement was centered at a place called Migdal Oz, the tower where the Messiah dwelled, where his followers would make pilgrimages from all over the world, asking Sabbatai for blessings, believing him to be the highest priest and magician of of all time.

“Migdal” means “tower,” and “Oz” means “power” in Hebrew. This secret Sabbatian center can quite literally be called the “Power Tower.” Another (intentional) coincidence of language is that the words “Migdal” and “Oz” both have numerical values of 77. The word “Oz is also associated with the number 7, in that Ayin = 70 and zayin = 7. Saturn is the 7th heaven in Jewish mystical tradition, a concept often referred to by Sabbatian writers and prophets. It is interesting to note that this Messianic headquarters is symbolized with the number 77, considering that the headquarters of Chabad Lubavitch, the largest Messianic and Kabbalistic organization in the world today, is known as “770.”

The story of The Wizard of Oz resembles the story of thousands of Sabbatians at one point in time, traveling from far and wide to receive blessings from their Messiah, the man behind the curtain.

The Big Brother

Jacob Frank spoke of the “Big Brother behind the screen” as the spiritual leader of the Sabbatians, whom he had direct contact with, enacting his will on the worldy side of this veil, and leading his followers to the eventual realization of reality “behind the curtain” in which they would encounter their own true form without the dross of the world veiling its essence.

“At the place of their destination, the meeting with ‘the big brother,’ Frank promised them that they would know themselves, because ‘there they would see their own images’” – Scholem, On The Mystical Shape of the Godhead, page 272

Jay Michaelson writes of the Frankist diety that “El Shaddai may be more powerful than a sorcerer or a wizard, but he is not different in kind from them.” Within Frankist philosophy the god was “demoted to the rank of a mortal but powerful sorcerer.” This powerful Wizard existed behind a curtain. The Frankists were his agents on their side of the curtain, while the big brother guided them toward the truth beyond the curtain where they would eventually come to “know themselves.”

Of the traditional “names of God” that Kabbalah holds sacred, the Sabbatians were particularly attached to “Shaddai,” the name of God as first revealed to Abraham in the Torah. When each letter of this name is spelled in full, it has a numerical value of 814, which is identical to the numerical value of “Sabbatai Sevi.” Jacob Frank even claimed that “Shaddai,” (שדי) comes from “Shed,” (שֵׁד) the Hebrew word for demon!

These parallels with The Wizard of Oz are purely anecdotal, my intention for this article is to explore the layered meaning of the word “Oz” itself.

Oz

The word OZ (עֹז) is composed of the hebrew letters Ayin, (עֹ) which translates to “O” (or sometimes “A”) and Zayin, (ז) which translates to “Z.” In Gematria, Ayin = 70 and Zayin = 7. The connection between these two letters is embedded in the fabric of the Kabbalah. Beyond the connection between the number 7 and the number 70, and the fact that the two letters rhyme with each other, Ayin corresponds to Zayin in the At-Bash cipher. (A cipher where the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet is swapped with the last letter, the second letter swapped with the second to last letter, etc.)

The language of Hebrew is polysemous, meaning that words have multiple related meanings. Besides “Strength” or “Power,” Oz also means “he-goat.” While I am not aware of Sabbatians ever having mentioned the “goat” association with the name “Migdal Oz,” they seemed to identify it with the meaning of “Tower of Power,” however, they were most certainly aware of its double meaning and association with the goat, as these were the most advanced Kabbalists in the world.

Oz le-Elohim

This word would appear in the title of a Sabbatian manifesto known as Oz le-Elohim, or ‘Power to the Lord.’ This writing was one of the first to elucidate the Sabbatian mystery of the godhead, the knowledge that “the infinite cannot be the source and creator of the world,” but rather a created being with limitations, a beginning and end. Their god “engages in movement, agitation, and even passions such as envy, anger, boredom, and all other sentiments that a soul might have,” the human traits of this deity even include “body parts,” often described with explicitly sexual language. (Anonymous Author, A Review of Hayon’s Oz le-Elohim, 1728)

The idea that the world is ruled by a lesser god or demiurge, rather than the infinite most high, is a familiar concept within Gnosticism, but it was extremely heretical in the context of Judaism. Sabbatian philosophers, such as Hayon and Cardozo, considered it foolish to worship the infinite, as the Muslims and the Philosophers do, for the infinite is entirely beyond worldly concerns and essentially doesn’t care. This is “the Ancient One to whom prayer must not be directed,” (Eibeshutz, And I Came This Day Unto The Fountain) while the Sabbatian diety, viewed more as a “powerful wizard,” was not so far removed, bestowing blessings, as a great source of magical power, or Oz.

Liber Oz

The Sabbatians preached the inauguration of a New Aeon and the abolition of the old moral law. This reverberated within the world of secret societies for centuries, from which milieu another self proclaimed messianic figure would emerge, Aleister Crowley, preaching his own variation of the New Aeon and the end of the religious morality of the old world. His philosophy is summarized in its most concise form in a one page Manifesto titled Liber Oz, which functions as a sort of ‘declaration of the rights of man’ for the New Aeon. Most of this document is a list of “man has the right to” statements that seem to give him freedom in all areas of life, while paradoxically ending this list with the ominous statement that “the slaves shall serve.”

Crowley identified the number 418 as the formula of the New Aeon. Kabbalistically, this is a permutation of 814, the number that the Sabbatians associated with their declaration of the new aeon centuries earlier. While this is purely coincidental, it is worth noting as a fun fact.

Pan

“Note that the numerical value of the word Pan is 131, as is that of Samael, the Hebrew destroying angel.” – Aleister Crowley

The gematria of Samael (סַמָּאֵל), the name of Satan in Kabbalistic tradition, is identical with that of the word Pan (פָּאן), both equaling 131. Pan, whose name means “all,” is an ancient Greek deity who’s depicted as a Satyr, having the legs and horns of a goat, and is associated with strong phallic lust. This shows that the concept of “Oz” that we are discussing is cross-cultural and prevelant in the ancient world.

Herodotus wrote about his travels to the Egyptian city of Mendes, where the worship of Pan was centered. He relays the story of a woman having intercourse with a goat as a religious rite in the temple of Pan, the goat of Mendes. This is remarkably similar to accounts of the Witches Sabbath, taking place much later in medieval Europe, where witches would adore the horned god by copulating with a he-goat. Just how such an odd ritual could persist through millennia warrants more investigation. It is also worth noting that this “Witches Sabbath” is is named after Sabbatai, the Sabbath day being named after Saturn. Astrologically speaking, Capricorn, the sign of the goat, is ruled by Saturn.

The Mendesians consider all goats sacred, the male even more than the female… In the Egyptian language ‘Mendes’ is the name both for the he-goat and for Pan. In my lifetime a strange thing occurred in this district: a he-goat had intercourse openly with a woman. This came to be publicly known. – Herodotus

Interestingly enough “Pan” is the Polish word for “Lord” that Jacob Frank identified himself with. “Pan” is a standard title for Polish Nobility, the Frankists adopted it when they entered Polands noble class upon their conversion. The collected sayings of Jacob Frank that his followers recorded and compiled is called “The Words of The Lord” (Pan). The Frankist Maiden, incarnated in the leaders daughter, Eva Frank, was known as “Panna,” the feminine form of “Pan.”

Aza & Azael

The he-goat, “Oz” or “Az,” is the root of the names of Aza & Azael, two fallen angels central to the lore of the Zohar, who sometimes appear combined as “Azazel.” They were in heaven judging man for his sexual sins, claiming that they would never behave in such a way. They were told that if they were sent to earth and given the bodily temptations that man endures, that they would surely do the same. They were sent to earth to prove this, and indeed they were far more lustful than any of the humans they once condemned. These are the Nephilim, of whom it is said in Genesis, “the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives, whomsoever they chose.” They expressed their lust on earth, impregnated women and gave birth to bloodlines of demi-gods, known as the descendants of Cain. This story once again connects the word “Oz” to phallic lust and power.

The Scapegoat

In the following clip, Rabbi Harav Ginsburgh, describes the connection between the fallen angels, and Yom Kippur, when a scapegoat is offered to Azazel, in order to atone for the sins of Israel, especially the sexual sin which is associated with these fallen angels. He mentions that the word “Oz” is representative of Satan. Ha-Satan (הַשָּׂטָן) has a numerical value of 364, which the Zohar explains as representing the 364 days of the year besides Yom Kippur, when Satan is unchained, casting judgement upon the world, until Yom Kippur when he is bribed with the scapegoat.

Gaza

Gaza (עזה), pronounced A’za is the feminine form of “Oz.” As we have seen, this word appears in Sabbatian theology throughout its history. Nathan of Gaza, the first leader of the Sabbatian movement, pointed out that “az” is the root of the word “Gaza,” encoding a hidden layer in name of his homeland, a great center of eschatological activity in the end of days,

To top it all off, the numerical value of Gaza when each letter is spelled out, comes to 131, the Gematria of Pan and Samael!

The October 7th attacks took place at a kibbutz named Nir Oz, meaning ‘meadow of strength’.

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