FURTHER REFLECTIONS AFTER VISIT TO MOROCCO AND SPAIN AUGUST 2009

Further to my very interesting trip, I gathered many more historic facts and details than I was aware of prior to the trip.

This included the troubled relationship between the Jews who lived in Morocco and in Spain for hundreds of years and in particular between 1,000 years ago and 500 years ago and namely the period ending in the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492.

The historic background of Jewish scholarship was that from the time the Yidden went into Golus after the first Temple was destroyed, that is to Bovel (present day Iraq), the Torah Centre was always there through the times of the Anshei Knesses Hagodolah, Tanoim , Amoroim right the way through to the Geonim. The last of the Geonim was Rav Hai Goan who lived between 939 and 1038. Towards the end of his rule, the Torah centres shifted and many of his talmidim and their talmidim in turn, founded Yeshivas in Spain, North Africa as well as France and Germany.

The Berber Arabs invaded Spain from Morocco and North Africa around 711 and conquered, at least, the Southern part of Spain and on occasion, made even further inroads. Those Berber Arabs were, or became Muslim in faith and depending on which regime was in charge, were either tolerant, or friendly to their Jewish inhabitants, or antagonistic, even attempting to shmad them.

One could perhaps find an analogy nowadays in the difference between the attitudes of the rulers of Iran, intolerance, and those of Morocco, great tolerance to the Yidden.

Likewise the strongly Catholic Christian Spain was ruled by kings and queens who were strongly influenced by Dominican Monks and other clerics. Sometimes they were tolerant and friendly, and on other occasions, they were very intolerant and, eventually in 1492, they forced an historic choice, either convert or be banished. We all know the way they then split into different camps.

There were Jews, led by the Abarbanel, that went into exile, others who became Marranos and secretly adhered to the Jewish religion, and unfortunately, others who did convert.

There were similar problems in France and Germany during the same period, namely that the rulers sometimes were very intolerant and occasionally they were tolerant and friendly, we are well aware of the crusades and the way the mobs led by the clerics rampaged through France and Germany killing thousands of Yidden and there were numerous other massacres and forced exiles during the period.

However, despite all these trials and tribulations, Jewish scholarship flowered and flourished. This was the time of the Rishonim. To mention just a few, in France and Germany, there were Rashi and the Baalei Tosefos. In Spain and Morocco there were the Rif, the Rambam, the Ramban and the Rashba. There was the Rosh who was the leading pupil of the Maharam M’Rottenberg, the last of the Baalei Tosefos. The Rosh, because of persecution, fled from Germany to Spain and became Rabbi in Toledo.

There was, however, a major difference between Spain and Morocco and the Ashkenaz communities. In the latter, the Jews were not allowed to study in university, carry on in professions and were very much curtailed in all their business ventures. Many ended up being money lenders because the Christian religion forbade their adherents to lend on interest. This led to further hostility and disastrous consequences for our Jewish brethren in the Ashkenazi community.

In Spain and Morocco, especially under the Arab rulers, the opposite was true, Jews were even encouraged to study all types of philosophy and science and the greatest among them, including the Rambam and the Ramban were doctors and well aware of philosophy and other such disciplines.

As early as 960 R’ Chisdai ben Shaprut become the first court Jew, physician to the caliph, statesman and patron of Torah.

Around 1000 years ago, lived the very famous Rav Shmuel Hanaggid, who was a great Talmid Chacham (his sefer מבוא התלמוד is printed at the end of Mesechos Brochos in the Vilna Shas) he was also a wealthy man. He became the advisor to the Arab king in Granada, Spain and rebuilt the Alhambra Palace which had been in ruins. Apparently, he even had rooms in the Palace himself for himself and his family so that he should always be available to the king.

This ushered in a golden age, in Spain particularly, and Jewish scholarship and yeshivas flourished.

However, at the same time, there was a large Kairite community who distorted the Torah. This together with the study of Aristotelian philosophy which was all the rage at that time, led to a considerable lessening in observance of Torah and mitzvos among large parts of the community in Spain, in particular.

The Rambam was born in Cordoba, Spain in 1135 and 13 years later because of the persecutions at that time, fled with his father arriving in Fez some years later. He then had to flee on to Eretz Yisroel and finally for the last 37 years of his life, was in Egypt. He passed away in 1204.

We are all aware that he wrote the monumental Mishnah Torah (Yad Hachazokah) in clear precise and brilliant Hebrew. He also wrote a commentary on Mishnyas which was originally in Arabic and translated later to Hebrew.

As far as the Mishnah Torah was concerned, he wrote it, as he states himself, in order to give a concise final ruling about every din in Torah.

He also stated that he wrote his Perish Hamishnyas in order to give the multitude who spoke and wrote in Arabic the opportunity to study Torah and understand it.

He strongly attacked the Karaites.

In addition to all this, in order to try to stem the tide of Aristotelian philosophy to overwhelm Torah true concepts, he wrote his famous Moreh Nebuchim, Guide to the Perplexed. As he points out himself, this is only for people who are perplexed and, at that time, there were many. He tried to reconcile wherever he could the Aristotelian principles with Torah principles but where this was not possible, strongly defended our Torah and mitzvos. He also tried to explain the mitzvos in a rational manner.

His aim was to wean away the intellectuals who had been too much influenced by a non Jewish approach and he was, to some extent, successful.

He was undoubtedly a man of immense stature, we all know the expression

ממשה עד משה לא קם כמשה

From Moshe (Rabbenu) until Moshe (Maimonides), there has never been any other Moshe.

However, he was attacked by other great Rabbis of his period in respect of the Mishnah Torah, because he did not quote his sources and only gave a concise halacha which he felt was the final way to decide. They objected on various grounds including the fact that it was difficult to disagree if he did not quote his sources and give other people an opportunity to examine matters in detail as has always been the way of our great Rabbis all through the ages. (In fact, in his later years, he admits in a letter that this was a fair comment and that if he has time and strength he intends to quote sources for some contentious decisions of his. Unfortunately, he never got round to it being too busy in Egypt as the King’s physician and with Jewish affairs.)

He was also attacked strongly by other great Rabbis in particular in the South of France, known as Provence for his book Moreh Nebuchim. They disagreed with some of his principles and attitudes but even more so with the fact that any sort of compromise should be suggested and the dangers that this might create.

Although other great Rabbis defended him, there were bitter rows and finally a חרם was enacted, about 30 years after the Rambam’s death. The next year, the Rambam’s Moreh Nebuchim was burnt in Paris (right next to the Louvre).

Nine years later, in exactly the same place, 24 cartloads of Talmud manuscripts were burned and this caused not only the loss of numerous manuscripts which no longer therefore exist but the greatness of learning in France began to fade as Torah went eastwards through Germany to Poland etc.

It is a fact that the Rishonim quote the Talmud Yerushalmi on many occasions and we do not have much of the wording in our editions. Furthermore, anybody who has ever attempted to learn Yerushalmi will know that there are obviously missing words and others misspelt because the text does not flow. One has to bear in mind the fact that until Rashi produced his classic commentary on Talmud Bavli, the Talmud Yerushalmi was studied by leading Rabbis even more than Bavli. It was shorter, more concise and in some ways easier to understand.

At that time, well before printing was invented, specialised sofrim had to copy existing manuscripts and there were, therefore, very few and far between, especially with all the exiles and tribulations encountered by our Jewish communities.

Therefore I believe that when the 24 cartloads of Talmud manuscripts were burned in Paris, they included most of the known Yerushalmi manuscripts and we have, therefore, lost forever the clarity of that Talmud.

We were lucky in so far as Talmud Bavli is concerned, that there remained the Munich manuscript (of which I have a photocopy) as well as other lesser manuscripts which survived the trials and tribulations of the Middle Ages.

To return to the events after the burning of the Moreh Nebuchim. The Dominican Monks who saw that Jews themselves had burnt a Jewish book decided that in that case, they could suggest the King of France Louis IX, that Jewish books generally should be destroyed and remember that these were all before the time of printing and, therefore, they were not many precious manuscripts around. 24 cartloads of manuscripts is an awful lot and these were collected from all round France etc.

One of the signatories to the original חרם was Rabbenu Yonah who lived in Spain. He was, however a Talmid of the one of the Baalei Tosefos who were Ashkenazim. They did not have, as mentioned above, the blend of learning Torah studies and other types of knowledge. In fact, in Ashkenaz, study of anything other than Torah was very much frowned upon. It is therefore not surprising that Rabbenu Yonah was also a signatory.

I understand that he wrote Shaarei Teshuvah as a kapporah for what had ensued. He died in Toledo on the way to Eretz Yisroel where he had wanted to go to ask mechilah at the kever of the Rambam as he regretted the חרם and its consequences.

I mentioned earlier on that the Rosh had fled to Spain and he became Rabbi in Toledo around 1300 or so. He was welcomed by the Rashbo who was the Rabbi in Barcelona from where he went onto Toledo. He and his son, R’ Yaakov Baal Haturim, who wrote the Tur, the predecessor to our Shulchan Oruch, succeeded his father in Toledo, shortly after he died, the situation changed rapidly and there was major persecution by the Christian community.

In this context, I visited a beautiful and grand Shul which was erected in the 1300’s and used by the community there perhaps for 40 or 50 years. It was then taken over by the Catholic community and utilised as a Church for the next 600 years. However, the city of Toledo which lives on tourism decided 20 or 30 years ago that they would like to attract more of our Jewish brethren as tourists and therefore persuaded the Church to return this building to them. It is now known as a Sephardi museum. On its restoration there was discovered around the high walls pesukim from Tehillim etc. still engraved going back over 700 years .

Unfortunately, the persecution at that time was so intense that a younger son of the Rosh, who had married the daughter of his brother, the Baal Haturim, and was still alive, was pressured to accept Christianity. The Shem Hagodolim reports that he together with his wife and his mother-in-law, took their own lives rather than be faced with the brutalities of the inquisition which had already commenced 100 years or so before the expulsion in 1492.

There was a blessing in the relocation of the Rosh to Spain.

Unlike the present day world, where we have instant communication, by telephone, fax, etc., at that time, communities and countries were very insular. Therefore, the customs of the Ashkenazi communities of France, Germany and further east became increasingly divergent from those of the Sephardi communities in Spain, and Northern Africa,. Each community had its own gedolim and as new circumstances arose, the halacha was decided according to their understanding. Furthermore, differing customs, more so than halacha, took hold in each community.

The fact that the Rosh, who was brought up in Germany and knew and understood the halachic angle from that point of view to a very high calibre, was then catapulted into a Sephardi community where he encountered many divergent customs enabled him and even more so, his son, who had also been brought up as a young man in Germany, but then lived the rest of his life in Spain, to bring together considerably the divergent strands.

100 or so years later, three great Rabbis commenced making a detailed commentary on the Tur. I know of a tradition that the reason why that of R’ Yosef Caro was chosen was because he was always careful not to denigrate in any way any of the Rabbis’ opinions that he brings in prodigious detail right the way through the four sections of Shulchan Oruch. Because of this his commentary was accepted over the others.

Based on that commentary, he, himself, wrote the Shulchan Oruch as we know it nowadays on which there are now, of course, so many super commentaries right the way up to the Mishnah Berurah.

Rabbi Yosef Caro was born in Spain a few years before the inquisition and fled in 1492. He travelled around a number of countries around the Mediterranean until he finally settled in Tzfas in Eretz Yisroel. He then wrote the Shulchan Oruch as we know it. He, himself, writes that his guiding light in deciding halachic conflicts and who to follow are based on three leading Rabbis, namely the Rif, the Rambam and the Rosh. If two agreed and the other one disagreed, he would follow the majority.

Furthermore, he often brings the exact wording of the Rambam when stating a halacha in Shulchan Oruch.

I would like to suggest that the reason he did this was to try and ensure that we should never have again a bitter type of argument as happened with the Rambam and his opponents hundreds of years before and which led to the dire consequences that I mentioned above. Perhaps if the Moreh Nebuchim had not been burnt and the Dominican Monks would not have had the temerity to therefore burn 24 wagon loads of Jewish books, they would not have then proceeded, albeit many years later, to burn Jewish people alive at the Auto de Fe and otherwise maim them and cause them to go into exile, become Marranos, etc.

I would also suggest that one of the reasons why the famous Mishnah Berurah has become so accepted world wide by Ashkenazim and Sephardim is because Rabbi Yisroel Meir Kagan likewise is very, very careful when quoting prior Rabbinical sources (even where he disagrees with them) to be respectful at all times.

We all know how important Sholom is. The Mishnayas ends with a statement

לא מצא הקב''ה כלי מחזיק ברכה לישראל אלא השלום

The Shemoneh Esrei ends with the last brocho beseeching Hashem for sholom, the Kaddish ends with a double portion of asking for sholom. Let us all hope and pray and try ourselves to spread sholom in the Jewish world and the world in general. Legitimate disagreements take place, but they can be dealt with in a respectful manner to avoid the terrible happenings similar to those mentioned earlier in this article.

עושה שלום במרומיו הוא יעשה שלום עלינו ועל כל ישראל אמן