The Love Apple

by Eliezer Segal

What is there to say about Judaism and the tomato? 

For some reason, I am personally unable to eat tomatoes unless they have been stewed into a gravy or sauce. If I did eat them, however, I would know that they require the blessing over “fruit of the earth”–to be followed by the blessing “ …who created many beings and their needs.”

They are not mentioned in the Bible or Talmud, because they were not introduced to the West until the discovery of the New World.

And it turns out that I am not the only person in the world who has an aversion to eating them. 

For quite a long time after the fruit was first imported to Europe from South America in the sixteenth century, not many people were willing to actually eat them, rather than just use them for decoration. The suspicion that they were poisonous (as are several of their botanical cousins in the Nightshade family) was eventually offset by the belief that they were an powerful aphrodisiac.

Still, it was not until the early nineteenth century that tomatoes came to be appreciated as a normal, healthy ingredient for salads and cooking.

The guarded attitude towards them is reflected in the refusal of Jews in certain parts of eastern Europe, especially Hasidic areas, to imagine that tomatoes could possibly be kosher. Convinced that because of their vivid colour, they must contain forbidden blood, those people referred to tomatoes as treif’eneh apelekh or meshugene apelekh. Residents of those regions would habitually spit when passing a grocery store that sold the defiled fruits, and took their business elsewhere. 

The literature and memoirs of the period are full of tales of the domestic discord and culture shock that ensued when Jews from tomato-avoiding regions wed tomato-eating spouses. 

“You say tomahto and I say tomayto…” 

I sometimes wonder whether the English word tomato, in spite of the dictionary’s insistence that it derives from an Aztec word, might actually be etymologically connected to the Hebrew tuma, “uncleanness.”

The Zionist pioneers devoted a lot of effort to to the quest for a type of tomato that could be grown as a commercially competitive crop on the soil of the Jewish homeland. They achieved considerable success with an Algerian variety that had undergone improvements in France. So entrenched did this species become that, in the early 1960’s, when Agriculture Minister Moshe Dayan tried to switch over to a more efficient breed, he was unsuccessful in his efforts. Only in recent years have the elongated “Moshe Dayan” variety of tomatoes begun to achieve widespread popularity. 

The common Hebrew word for tomato, agvaniyah, has had an infamous history. It was evidently coined in 1886 by Jerusalem author and scholar Yechiel Michel Pines for his Hebrew translation of a German work on Palestinian agriculture. It was popularized by his son-in-law, the literary savant David Yellin.

Agvaniyah (in fact, the grammarians debated for years whether to prefer the form agbanit) was intended as a translation of the German word Liebesapfel, which literally means “love apple.” The Hebrew root agav covers a range of sexual terms, including lust, buttocks, and some that are better imagined. It hearkens back to the Italian name pomi d’amore, a tribute to the fruit’s reputed ability to kindle passion.

The unsavoury name of this savoury fruit aroused some passionate opposition in the stern Jewish society of turn-of-the-century Palestine. 

Eliezer ben-Yehudah, renowned as the founder of modern spoken Hebrew, was ever in search of new words to enliven the language; and yet his monumental Thesaurus of the Hebrew Language contains not the faintest trace of the agvaniyah. Ben-Yehudah’s children later reported that their parents had systematically banished the word from their house because of its vulgar associations. Following suit, the word was for many years kept out of the Hebrew newspapers, whose editors were careful to sunstitute the Arabic bandora, which was derived from the other Italian name for the fruit: pomodoro [golden apple].

Among the Hebrew authors during the early decades of the twentieth century the notorious word shows up only rarely, and is usually cast in the role of an offensive epithet that proves deeply disturbing to everyone who hears it, particularly those prim and earnest young ladies who populate the romantic novels of the time. 

All in all, there appears to be something positively subversive about biting into one of those luscious, crimson tomatoes.

It is enough to make even a person like myself, an avowed foe of the fiery red fruit, reconsider my aversion, and think longingly back to my “salad days.”

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• First Publication:
  • Jewish Free PressDecember 16 1999, p. 8.
• For further reading: 
  • Sivan, Reuven. “Ha’agvaniyah umah she-‘olelu lah shemoteha.” Lehsonenu La’am 22, no. 3 (1971): 105-46.

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My email address is: [email protected]

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Sins in the Balance

by Eliezer Segal

In a magazine article that I happened to read recently, a Jewish actor spoke of how he envied his Christian friends for their convenient methods of obtaining forgiveness for their sins. A formal confession to the priest, the recitation of a specified number of “Hail Mary”s– and the penitents can leave church with the assurance that the burden has been lifted from their shoulders. Jews lack such an automatic absolution process, and hence (according to the author of the quote) spend more of their times wrestling with unresolved guilt. 

While this stereotypical generalization does not do justice to the nuances of either faith, and displays an abysmal ignorance of the atonement mechanisms associated with the Jewish High Holy Day season, I feel that it does point to an intriguing anomaly: In most areas of religious life it is Judaism that distinguishes itself, for better or for worse, by its concern for minute ritual detail, while the Christian tendency is towards sweeping generalization. However, when it comes the process of repentance, Jewish tradition takes a straightforward, pragmatic approach that focuses on identifying our shortcomings, renouncing them, and resolving not to repeat them in the future. On the other hand, classical Christian practice (as exemplified most strongly in the Roman Catholic church) has evolved elaborate rituals to absolve the penitents of their guilt.

In reality, Judaism has not been completely immune to the kinds of penitential rituals that we normally associate with Catholicism. Several ethical and halakhic works make reference to a Hebrew term known as “teshuvat ha-miskhkal,” which is best translated as “balance- penance.” The basic premise of this concept is that transgressors should be required to undergo specific acts of punishment or suffering that are equivalent to the amounts of pleasure or profit that they enjoyed through their indiscretions.

Although such penitential regimens are mentioned occasionally in Talmudic literature, they are treated as extraordinary practices by saintly individuals, and not as norms to be followed by ordinary people. Their widespread adoption does not occur until the Middle Ages, in central Europe.

Ascetic practices were strongly encouraged by the Hasidei Ashkenaz, the pietistic sect that achieved far-reaching influence among the Jewish communities of twelfth- and thirteenth-century Germany. The Book of the Pious, the most important manifesto of the movement’s ideals, commends a life of fasting and asceticism. Typical of its spiritual outlook is the story it recounts about a certain saint who was wont to spend the hottest days of summer lying among ants, and the winter days with his feet frozen into buckets of ice. When asked why such a righteous individual needed to resort to extreme acts of penance, he acknowledged that he was not personally guilty of such grave wrongdoing; however, he wished to alleviate the sufferings of the Messiah. The tale concludes with the assurance that the saint eventually was assigned the most distinguished place in Paradise.

This account of radical self-abnegation, coupled with its concern for the pains of a suffering Messiah, seems more appropriate to a Christian author than to one of the most distinguished Jewish teachers. Indeed, historians have observed that the penitential doctrines that prevailed among the Ashkenazic Jewish pietists were deeply imbued with the values of the surrounding Christian society. The notion that a penance should be commensurate to the sin is one that had been introduced around that time by the Frankish; and detailed manuals were composed in order to guide the priests in assigning appropriate penances to their flocks.

A Jewish version of those penitential manuals was composed by Rabbi Eleazar Rokeah of Worms. Rabbi Eleazar had learned these disciplines from his teachers in the Hasidei Ashkenaz movement, but he insisted that they derived from an unbroken oral tradition going back to Moses at Sinai. It was in the Rokeah’s classic formulation that the idea of “balance- penance” be came the standard for subsequent Jewish writers. It was based on the assumption that each sin produces a spiritual imbalance that must be rectified. 

Another class of penances was designed to ward off divine punishment in the next world by imposing a penalty that resembled the one that would have been inflicted by Torah law.

The catalogue of recommended torments included the aforementioned subjection to ice or insects, as well as the venerable practices of fasting, charity and flagellation. Some sins call for abstinence from meat or wine, sleeping on boards, going unwashed for long periods of time, and the like. 

The extremes to which people asked to be punished bordered on the pathological. Thus, for instance, the Book of the Pious dealt with the case of a person who asked his fellow to strike him to death. The rabbi ruled that it was permissible to strike him, but not to kill him. 

A survey of the crimes for which penances had to be prescribed provides us with an index of the weaknesses to which our revered ancestors were prone. High on the list were sexual crimes, including adultery and affairs with Christian women and maidservants. The sources also discuss penances for murder and manslaughter. In such extreme cases, the criminal was ordered to forsake his home and assume the life of a wanderer. In each community that he visited he must confess his sin, submit himself to iron shackles, and allow himself to be trodden by passers-by on the synagogue doorstep.

The halakhic status of these penances underwent some interesting evolutions over the years. It appears they were originally intended to be administered by the pietist teachers whose role it was to hear the confessions and guide the sinners through their absolution. However the communities were not comfortable with assigning such priest-like authority to Jewish sages, and instead accepted the regimens only on an individual basis, with the confessions being directed to the Almighty as part of the daily prayers, rather than to human intermediaries. This approach was adopted by Rabbi Eleazar Rokeah in his penitential manual. Nevertheless, we find that by the fifteenth century some Jewish towns were incorporating the penances into their communal regulations, using them as punishments for violations of public morals.

These extreme practices never caught on among Sefaradic Jews, whose typical attitude was more in keeping with Maimonides’ derisive condemnation of people “who are not satisfied with what was forbidden by the Torah, but heap upon themselves additional prohibitions, including continual fasting that does them no good.”

Even among the Ashkenazic authorities, there were several rabbis who expressed their reservations concerning the value of penitential practices. A particularly instructive example is contained in a responsum of Rabbi Ezekiel Landau (the Noda’ BiYhudah). Upon being asked by his correspondent to recommend a regimen for a serious transgression (the individual in question had married the daughter of a woman with whom he had previously conducted a lengthy adulterous affair), the rabbi replied that he was unaccustomed to dealing with such matters since they have no basis in Talmudic law. He insisted that he normally avoided the kinds of moralistic tracks that recommend penitential regimens, and knew about them only from vague childhood memories. 

In the end, Rabbi Landau acquiesced to prescribe a mild penance of fasting and charitable giving, but made it clear that such practices must always be seen as means towards contrition, and have no atoning power in themselves.

Rabbi Landau, like other several other distinguished teachers (including Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liady, Rabbi Moses Sofer, and more), was concerned that ascetic practices would come to be perceived as a quick substitute for the sincere and complete moral transformation that constitutes authentic Jewish repentance.

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My e-mail address is [email protected]

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The Walls Have Ears

by Eliezer Segal

I have not yet have the privilege of visiting the fair land of Australia, though I am certain that the publishers of Ha’atid are planning to surprise me one of these days with an all-expenses-paid vacation Down Under. 

I hope that by then the Melbourne Hebrew Congregation will have completed the renovations on its dome.

A well-structured dome, you see, can produce some interesting effects. It can also help explain some obscure passages in the Bible and Midrash.

Allow me to explain these remarks by referring back to wise old King Solomon, to whom Jewish tradition ascribes the Biblical Book of Ecclesiastes. It is in that book that we find this valuable bit of advice (10:20): “Curse not the king, no not in thy thought; and curse not the rich in thy bedchamber: for a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter.”

Commenting on this text, the third-century Palestinian sage Rabbi Levi observed: “the walls have ears.”

Rabbi Levi, who lived during some of the more tempestuous days of the Roman empire, was surely familiar with the role that slanderers and informers played in those perilous games of palace intrigue and back-stabbing. Many upright citizens came to unpleasant ends because their unguarded comments were reported to the authorities by unscrupulous deletores. 

Unfortunately, this is a state of affairs that persists in many different geographic and historical contexts. The rabbis invoked the precedent of the Patriarch Jacob in Genesis 31:4 who invited his wives to the field in order to hold a confidential discussion about what measures to take against the growing hostility of his father-in-law. When Rabbi Akiva spoke admiringly of the Medians for their discretion in taking counsel out in the fields, Rashi explained that “this accords with the popular aphorism that “the walls have ears.'”

Variations on this proverb recur in the literatures of many peoples, including works by Chaucer, Cervantes and Tennyson; though as far as I am aware, Rabbi Levi’s quote in the Midrash is the earliest documented occurrence.

[“But what does this have to do with the dome?” I hear you muttering in the background. Patience, mates. We’ll get there.]

Now, the image of walls with ears is surely a wonderful metaphor for the point it wishes to put across. Nevertheless, there were some literal-minded scholars who were apparently not particularly pleased by the rabbis’ use of such hyperbole.

Such an individual was Rabbi Isaac Lampronti, the eighteenth-century author of the Talmudic Encyclopedia Pahad Yitshak. Lampronti, who lived in Ferrara, Italy, was a striking exemplar of the unique style of Italian Jewish scholarship in all its eclecticism and erudition. More than any other medieval community, the Italian Jews were deeply immersed in the surrounding civilization, and succeeded in integrating it with their religious studies. Lampronti’s immense magnum opus, most of which did not see print until centuries after its author’s demise, displays a vibrant intellectual curiosity that embraces all aspects of literature and science from a deeply Jewish perspective.

The Pahad Yitshak contains an entry for “the walls have ears.” As is to be expected, he commences by citing the appropriate sources from the Midrash. But immediately thereafter, he seems to launch into a topic that is totally unrelated, taking his reader on an architectural tour of Mantua.

He proceeds to describe the royal Palazzo del Tè, situated outside the city gates, and focuses on the palace’s large vaulted hall. (Notably, he does not say anything about what lesser figures would have regarded as the palace’s principal attraction, its elaborate erotic frescos on the theme “the loves of the gods.”)

Rabbi Lampronti is chiefly concerned with the following piece of structural information:

If a person sits in one corner and speaks directly to that corner in a very, very faint voice, so that even those people nearest to him are unable to hear a thing–a person who is listening from the corner at the diagonally opposite angle of the hall will hear whatever he is whispering, clearly and distinctly.

I, the author, have often been there and tested this out and was able to hear, and the truth of the claim will be confirmed by all the residents of Mantua. I have heard that similar structures may be found in many other places in Italy and abroad. This phenomenon is easily understood by anyone who has some familiarity with engineering.

Perhaps this is what our rabbis had in mind when they said that “the walls have ears”; namely., that there are times when a person says something thinking that he has not been overheard. However, he is mistaken, since his words can be heard far away by an ear that is close to the wall, just as if the wall possessed ears to hear with.

Rabbi Lampronti has hereby succeeded in providing a scientifically acceptable explanation for Rabbi Levi’s quip about walls bearing ears: that under proper acoustical conditions–precisely like those that reportedly prevail in the Sydney Opera House–an imprudent whisper from the back row might be embarrassingly overheard by a newspaper reporter at the other extreme of the hall.

The good Rabbi proceeds to apply his interpretation to other Talmudic passages, including the one that warns the potential sinner that transgressions committed in the privacy of one’s home will eventually come to light because “the very stones and beams of a person’s house will testify against him, as it says (Habakuk 2:11): “For the stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it.” For Lampronti, this is no mere a poetic image, but a literal fact of architectural acoustics.

In support of his interpretation, our author cites some unconventional sources, including several that would make our contemporary rabbis cringe, such as Il Cristiano Instruito (“The Well-Educated Christian”) by the Monk Paulo Segnori, which describes an insidious vaulted prison whose warden could eavesdrop on the private conversations of all the inmates through a tiny hole in its top. 

When all is said and done, there is an eminently practical lesson to be derived from all this: Even when sitting in the last row of the synagogue sanctuary, be exceedingly careful what you say about the cantor. 

As it teaches in Pirkei Avot, “do not utter anything that should not be heard, because in the end it will be heard.”

And besides, the walls have very sensitive ears.

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• First Publication:
  • Ha’Atid, the magazine of the Melbourne Hebrew Congregation, Spring 2000.

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My e-mail address is [email protected]

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Apples and Apocalypse

by Eliezer Segal

The Talmudic sages designated a “new year for the trees” in order to identify the agricultural year to which a fruit crop belongs, for purposes of tithing regulations. There is no evidence from ancient Rabbinic literature that the fifteenth of Sh’vat was celebrated as a holiday with distinctive observances or customs.

Shortly after the close of the Talmudic era we begin to discern a tendancy for the Fifteenth of Sh’vat to assimilate certain attributes of the real New Year, Rosh Hashanah. 

Liturgical poems from the Land of Israel, entreating the Almighty to bestow his favours upon the fruits of the trees, were composed in order to embellish the prayers on the Fifteenth of Sh’vat. This evidence suggests that the Jews of the Holy Land, who lived off the soil, and for whom the flourishing of the crops was a crucial matter of daily sustenance, were the first to observe the New Year of the Trees as a veritable holiday.

Perhaps we are justified in tracing a thread of continuity between the older Israeli practice and the customs of the medieval Ashkenazic communities. The pioneering leader of German Jewry, the tenth-century Rabbi Gershom the “Light of the Exile,” dealt in one of his responsa with the advisability of ordaining a series of communal fast days that would overlap the fifteenth of Sh’vat. Rabbi Gershom declares that in such a case it would be better to postpone the fast, rather than violate the festive character of the trees’ New Year which, after all, is compared in Talmudic literature to Rosh Hashanah. 

Later chroniclers of Ashkenazic customs, including Rabbi Jacob Moellin (the Maharil) noted as well that penitential prayers are to be omitted on the Fifteenth of Sh’vat, in recognition of the date’s festive status.

By the sixteenth century we hear accounts that Ashkenazic Jews were commemorating the trees’ New Year with a special ritual: the eating of fruits. This practice was recorded in the Yiddish Book of Customs(Minhagim Bukh) that was printed in 1590 in Venice and subsequently reissued in several European centres. A seventeenth-century authority even recorded that in Worms, Germany, it was customary to cancel school, and that the teachers were expected to treat their charges to liquor and cakes.

Until this time there is virtually no mention of these practices among Sepharadic Jews. Neither Maimonides’ comprehensive twelfth-century code of Jewish law, nor the Kabbalistic traditions from the circle of Rabbi Isaac Luria in sixteenth-century Safed contain any references to the observance of the Fifteenth of Sh’vat as a holiday.

For Jews in the Sepharadic diaspora, a decisive turning point occurred at the close of the seventeenth-century with the publication of a work of Kabbalistic pietism that bore the name Hemdat Yamim [“the Beloved of Days”]. Deeply imbued with the esoteric teachings of Luria’s school, the author of Hemdat Yamim drew upon a rich library of earlier works in order to attach Kabbalistic symbolism to all the days of the Jewish sacred calendar.

The Hemdat Yamim was the first book to set forth an elaborate Passover-like seder for the Fifteenth of Sh’vat, built around the ceremonial tasting of thirty different fruits from the Land of Israel. The consumption of each of each fruit was accompanied by the recitation of appropriate texts from the Bible, Talmud and Zohar. 

Underlying all the texts was an intense yearning for messianic redemption: When the exiled children of Israel return to their native soil, the blossoming of the fruit from the earth serves as a model for the resurgence of the Jewish nation. 

Hemdat Yamim was exceptionally influential, and it quickly gained acceptance among Jewish communities throughout North Africa, Europe, Turkey, the Balkans and central Asia. The seder for the Fifteenth of Sh’vat was later published separately under the title P’ri Etz Hadar [“the fruit of a goodly tree”], and became the basis for the celebration of the day in all Sepharadic and oriental Jewish congregations.

It is not surprising that the intense messianic craving that was embodied in the Hemdat Yamim ceremony struck a responsive chord in the hearts of Jews. However, there is still something extraordinary in the fact that this work should have been allowed to exert such a powerful influence on mainstream Jewish religious practice.

For, though the name of Hemdat Yamim’s author has not yet been determined with certainty, there is one fact about him that remains uncontestable: He was a fervent follower of the seventeenth-century messianic pretender Shabbetai Zvi. The author’s Sabbatian leanings were made amply clear in his poetic tributes to the movement’s leader and to its prophet, Nathan of Gaza. These allusions were pointed out at the time by Rabbi Jacob Emden of Altona and other opponents of the Sabbatian heresy. In fact, many Sepharadic writers came to presume that Nathan was the author. Several writers came to refer to him respectfully as “Rabbi Hemdat Yamim.”

The upshot of all this is that thousands of Jews who participate each year in their traditional Tu Bish’vat Seder, and find in it a vivid expression of their mystical longing for redemption, are in reality reciting words that were intended to proclaim the messiahship of Shabbetai Zvi. 

It would appear that the borderline between orthodoxy and heresy is not always as clearly delineated as we might have wanted. The diverse branches of Jewish tradition have branched off in many surprising twists and turns–but they rarely fail to bear delicious and fascinating fruit.

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• First Publication:
  • Jewish Free Press, January 20 2000, pp. 8-9.
• For further reading:
  • Scholem, Gershom. Researches in Sabbateanism. Edited by A. Shapira, Kitvei Gersom Scholem. Tel-Aviv: Am Oved, 1991.
  • Scholem, Gershom. “Veha-ta’alumah Be’einah Omedet.” Behinot 8 (1955): 79-95.
  • Tishby, I. Netivei Emunah Ve-Minut, Sifiriyyat Makor. Ramat-Gan: Agudat Ha-Soferim Be-Yisra’el and Masada, 1964.
  • Yaari, A. “Toledot Rosh Ha-shanah La-ilan.” Mahanayim 42 (1960): 15-24.

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My email address is: [email protected]

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The Crown of Aleppo

by Eliezer Segal

News Item: Shepherdstown, West Virginia December 1999 – January 2000. Prime Minister Barak of Israel and Foreign Minister Farouk a-Shara of Syria enter into ill-fated peace negotiations under American auspices.

The negotiations between Israel and Syria, which are currently proceeding with great intensity, have concentrated on borders, armies and diplomacy. To the best of my knowledge, little attention has been directed to the religious and cultural treasures of Syria’s Jewish community. Though that community has been all but eliminated over the last generation, we should not forget that it was one of the most ancient in the world. 

In this article I wish to describe one of the most extraordinary exploits of that beleaguered community, the tale of its custodianship over the Aleppo Bible Codex.

An aura of legend has always radiated from the “Crown” of Aleppo, which was believed to be the oldest existing manuscript the entire Hebrew Bible containing all the vowels and cantillation signs. In thousands of instances the Aleppo codex exhibits readings that are superior to those of any other manuscript or printed edition of the Biblical text. 

Although the codex has generated some extravagant legends concerning its antiquity, such as the one that ascribes its writing to Ezra the Scribe, it was probably written closer to the year 900 c.e. in the Land of Israel, near the birthplace of the Tiberian vocalization system of which it is the most faithful representative. 

The scholar who added the vowels and accents was Rabbi Aaron Bar Asher, one of the most illustrious experts in the specialized science of the Biblical text that goes by the name “Masorah.” The Masoretes developed elaborate systems for maintaining the accuracy of the written, consonantal text of the Bible, as well as for recording the vowels and accents, which had previously been handed down through oral memorization. Though several such systems were devised during the early medieval era, in the end the one from Tiberias achieved dominance; and Aaron Bar Asher was perhaps the most distinguished exponent of the Tiberian school of Masorah.

It is now clear that this was the very same manuscript that was used by Maimonides when he formulated his regulations for writing Torah scrolls, in spite of many doubts that were once cast on the authenticity of the claim. Modern scholars were initially misled by some apparent discrepancies between the codex and Maimonides’ rulings. However, it was eventually established that the fault lay with the printed editions of Maimonides’ code, which had been tampered with in order to bring them into conformity with the current conventions. When reliable manuscripts of Maimonides were consulted, they revealed his consistent agreement with the distinctive readings in the Aleppo Codex. 

In the sixteenth century, the Keter was stolen from Cairo by bandits. Eventually it found its way to Aleppo, where the local Jewish community held on to it tenaciously, refusing to lend it out to scholars, let alone to consider selling it. A local tradition declared that if the codex were to leave Aleppo, the community would cease to exist. 

In a profound sense, the prophecy turned out to be true.

With the rise of Arab nationalism in the early years of the twentieth century, Biblical researchers began to worry about the safety of the Keter. Scholars from Jerusalem’s Hebrew University began investigating whether there might be some way to preserve its invaluable contents. The leaders of Aleppo’s Jewish community staunchly dismissed invitations to remove it from their town for safekeeping. What was worse, they would not even allow it to be photographed. With great reluctance, they permitted a visit from the renowned Biblical scholar Prof. M. D. Cassuto, and then did all they could to heap obstacles in the way on his examinations of the codex.

In 1947, following the United Nations resolution to partition Palestine, the worst fears were realized. Anti-Jewish rioters, with help from the army, set fire to the Jewish quarter of Aleppo, including all its synagogues and Torah scrolls (though they were careful not to hurt the Jews themselves). The report was soon circulated that its precious treasure was irretrievably lost. 

As Jewish refugees from Aleppo began to trickle into Israel, they told a different story: The details are still not clear, and at least four different Aleppo Jews (and one larcenous Syrian politician) have been credited with returning to the synagogue and rescuing the burning Keter. Many of the details are not yet being published in order to protect individuals who still reside in Syria. The story of the manuscript’s destruction had evidently been disseminated for the benefit of the Syrian authorities. 

A similar confusion obscures the story of how the Keter was kept in strictest secrecy from 1947 to 1958 by members of the Aleppo Jewish community, apparently after a detour to Beirut. At length, it was hidden among the personal effects of a Jew of Persian nationality who had recently been expelled from the country. At grave peril to his life, he succeeded in evading the customs inspection, and was able to smuggle his priceless cargo to Turkey, and from there to Jerusalem.

Even now, the Aleppo Jews would not acquiesce to give up the Keter to outsiders. A concerted campaign of pressure and persuasion was directed at the Aleppo community leaders, by the Israeli government, scholarly institutions, Jewish organization, and by members of the Aleppo Jewish diaspora, culminating in an official letter, issued in 1953, by Sepharadic Chief Rabbi Ouziel.

The most relentless of the manuscript-hunters was Yitzhak ben-Zvi, the learned authority on Middle-Eastern Jewry who became Israel’s second President. He had a life-long obsession with the Keter, which he had been allowed to view in 1935. As President, he tried to conscript to the cause the Israeli diplomatic and Intelligence services. 

In 1958, President ben-Zvi was able to announce officially that most of the Aleppo codex had found its way to safety in Jerusalem. It remains there, under expert preservation, today.

However, one third of the Aleppo codex has never yet been found. Unfortunately, that third includes most of the Torah, until Deuteronomy 28:17. Scholars have been reluctant to abandon hope for the recovery of at least some of those lost pages. 

There are some grounds for optimism. Stories are in circulation that some pages were misappropriated while still in Aleppo. None of the surviving sections exhibits signs of fire damage, so the story of its burning was probably untrue. A very auspicious development involved a single leaf of the Keter that was turned over to the Jewish National Library in Jerusalem in December 1982, thirty years after it had been brought to Brooklyn by a family of Jewish refugees from Aleppo. More recently, a researcher at Bar-Ilan University identified, in the library of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, a printed Bible from 1490 with handwritten notes in its margins by a sixteenth-century savant who had systematically recorded the readings of the Aleppo codex. 

The ultimate fate of this priceless treasure might ultimately be linked to the future of Israel-Syrian political relations. If true peace does emerge between the two warring nations, then the complete recovery of the Aleppo Bible might be one of the crowning achievement to that accord.

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• First Publication:
  • Jewish Free Press, February 3 2000, pp. 8-9
• For further reading:
  • Beit-Arié, Malachi. “A Lost Leaf from the Aleppo Codex Recovered.” Tarbiz 51, no. 2 (1982): 171-4.
  • Ben-Zvi, I. “The Codex of Ben Asher.” Textus: Annual of the Hebrew University Bible Project 1 (1960): 1-16.
  • Goshen-Gottstein, M. H. “The Authority of the Aleppo Codex.” Textus: Annual of the Hebrew University Bible Project 17-58 (1960): 1-16.
  • Penkower, Jordan S. New Evidence for the Pentateuch Text in the Aleppo Codex. Edited by M. Goshen-Gottstein and U. Simon, Ha-makhon Le-toledot Heqer Ha-miqra’ Ha-yehudi: Mekorot Umehqarim. Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1992.
  • Shamosh, Amnon. Ha-Keter: The Story of the Aleppo Codex. Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute, 1987.

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My email address is: [email protected]

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The Jewish Bride

by Eliezer Segal

She might well be the most famous Jewish bride who ever sat for a portrait. The plump young lady, seated alongside her stylishly dressed husband, has come to be known as “the Jewish Bride” in Rembrandts’s famous painting that hangs in Amsterdam’s National Museum. 

Evidently it was not Rembrandt who gave that name to the painting, and art historians are not convinced the figures on the canvas are in fact a bride and groom, let alone Jewish. Although it has been called by that name at least since 1825, and the artist is well-known for his use of models from Amsterdam’s Jewish community, there are some who have preferred to interpret the subjects as a father and daughter, or as “the birthday salutation.”

On the other hand, there are some scholars who are so certain of the correctness of the traditional designation that they claim to be able to name the figures.

The most popular such identification was proposed in 1929 by a Dutch scholar named Jacob Zwarts, and is based on an alleged resemblance between the man and woman in the picture and those who appear in supposedly appear in other works by Rembrandt; and especially in a copper engraving of a Jewish family that was intended to grace a never-published volume of Spanish poetry.

If this theory is correct, then the groom was one of the more colourful individuals in the extremely eccentric Jewish community of seventeenth-century Amsterdam. Don Miguel de Barrios was born a New Christian in Andalusia and, while living the life of a Spanish military officer in Brussels, also acquired success as a poet.

Like many Marranos, he led parallel lives. In Brussels, where it was legally forbidden to return to Judaism, he was the Christian Captain Miguel de Barrios, who rubbed epaulets with the social and diplomatic elites, and composed obsequious verses in praise of his native Spain, though not lacking in expressions of Jewish pride. When in Amsterdam, he professed his Judaism openly, under his Jewish name of David Levi de Barrios. It is unlikely that his Belgian comrades were unaware of his origins, though this does not seem to have seriously impeded his activities in the non-Jewish world.

Eventually he declared a formal commitment to his Jewish heritage, and made Amsterdam his permanent home. 

The bride in the picture, by de Barrios’ second marriage, was Abigail de Pina, who was descended from a prominent Moroccan rabbinic family, and whose father owned a sugar refinery in Amsterdam. Their wedding took place in August 1662.

Like Spinoza, Uriel d’Acosta and other Marranos who had returned to the Jewish fold, de Barrios found himself embroiled in a series of disputes with the established Jewish community. Offended by his frequent allusions to pagan mythology and immodest themes, the Amsterdam communal leadership would not allow him to publish his poetic works, which had already attracted contributions from lucrative sponsors. He was forced to print them in Brussels.

On the first day of Passover 1674, his Jewish bride found herself in a state of extreme distress, knocking desperately on the door or Rabbi Jacob Sasportas. Her husband had become immobile and unable to speak after a four-day regimen of fasting that had been commanded to him in one of his frequent ecstatic visions. Such extremes of religious piety were recurring phenomena for the ba’al t’shuvah de Barrios, who had by then abandoned his literary activity to become an active devotee of the apostate messiah Shabbetai Zvi

Rabbi Sasportas was perhaps the most uncompromising adversary of the Sabbatian heresy at that time, and we would have expected Abigail’s pleas to fall on unsympathetic ears. Yet the rabbi seems to have been so moved by their plight that he was willing to disregard de Barrios’ heretical leanings. He listened calmly to the patient’s ravings about the immanent cataclysms and redemption, urging him patiently to place his family’s welfare above his messianic fervor, and to get back to his proper business of writing poetry. The husband accepted the counsel, at least until his next bout of religious enthusiasm found him urging the community to more penitential fasting.

Although they remained poor ever after, their marriage lasted for twelve more years until Abigail’s death in 1686. The doting husband memorialized her in poetry, and the epitaph he composed for her grave spoke of “My doubly good wife Dona Abigail Levy de Barrios–With permanent love for me and with God her high soul.”

According to Zwarts’ touching reconstruction, at the time that the aged Rembrandt painted the picture, the artist was at a low point in his life, and he derived tremendous inspiration from the idyllic image of this loving and stable Jewish family.

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• First Publication:
  • Jewish Free Press, February 17 2000
• For further reading:
  • Kaplan, Yosef. From Christianity to Judaism : the story of Isaac Orobio de Castro, Littman library of Jewish civilization. Oxford [England] ; New York: Published for The Littman Library by Oxford University Press, 1989.
  • Landsberger, Franz. Rembrandt, the Jews and the Bible. Translated by Felix N. Gerson. fourth impression ed. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1972.
  • Scholem, Gershom Gerhard. Sabbatai Sevi; the mystical Messiah, 1626-1676. Vol. 93., Bollingen series,. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973.
  • Tishby, Y., ed. Sefer Sisath Novel Sevi le-Rav Ya’akov Sasportas. Jerusalem: Mossad Bialik, 1954.
  • Zwarts, Jacob. The Significance of Rembrandt’s ‘The Jewish Bride’. Amesfort, 1929.

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My email address is: [email protected]

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The European Geniza

by Eliezer Segal

The world of classical Jewish studies, because of its reliance on the information preserved in rare manuscripts, often veers between extremes of optimism and disappointment: On the one hand, scholars are appreciative of the valuable records that have survived the ravages of history; but at the same time, they are profoundly distressed to consider the vast numbers of manuscripts have fallen victim to centuries of forced exiles, book-burnings and neglect, leaving us only a miniscule remnant of the total numbers of literary works that existed in previous ages. 

And yet, there always glimmers a flickering hope that, just around the next corner, another vast reservoir of Hebrew manuscripts is about to be discovered.

The world of academic Judaic scholarship is currently in the midst of a most exciting new discovery, which has been designated the “European Geniza,” and whose breathtaking dimensions are only beginning to be appreciated. 

The roots of this discovery go back about twenty years, when some scholars became sensitive to the fact that the stiff bindings used to house older books and documents were often made of recycled materials, especially discarded parchments. In many cases, if one cut open the book covers, one would find that the cardboard-like material really consisted of unbound pages from older Hebrew tomes.

People in the know began making the rounds of antiquarian book dealers in order to purchase volumes upon which they could conduct their searches, but only on rare occasions did they come up with impressive discoveries. Understandably, the major European institutional libraries, which were the most promising source of suitable bindings, were not particularly willing to allow scholars to slash through their most valuable tomes.

The breakthrough came when it was found that a large proportion of Hebrew pages had been utilized for wrapping notarial files in Italian archives of all kinds: governmental, private and ecclesiastical. Once the researchers knew where to focus their efforts, they could undertake systematic searches. 

Readers familiar with the standard meaning of the Jewish genizah, a receptacle (usually housed in a synagogue) for discarded holy books, will recognize that the archives we are describing do not strictly fit that definition. Nevertheless, the epithet has caught on owing to the similarities with the renowned Cairo Geniza, whose literary and documentary treasures have so revolutionized the study of Judaism and Mediterranean culture. 

The results of the searches through the Italian Geniza, though still in their initial stages, have exceeded the most optimistic projections.

Thousands of pages have been discovered so far in archives throughout Italy. Unlike the better-known finds like the Dead Sea Scrolls or the Cairo Geniza, which consist largely of minute fragments that have to be reassembled like puzzles, most of the Italian documents are complete pages that have been extracted from their original bound volumes. They cover a representative sampling of Jewish literary genres, including the Bible and its commentaries, Talmudic and halakhic works, liturgy, science, philosophy and other subjects.

Among the more interesting finds is a tenth-century page of the Tosefta, which is the oldest known text of this third-century rabbinic work. There are also pages from the complete Torah commentary of Rabbi Joseph Kara, a student and colleague of Rashi who espoused the literal interpretation of the Bible. Prior to its discovery, the scholarly consensus was that Kara had not composed a complete, sequential commentary to the Torah.

The Italian Geniza also contains samples of the first Hebrew printed works. Of particular value are the rare pages of titles that issued from the short-lived Spanish presses in 1490 and 1491, on the eve of the Expulsion. 

Because Italy was always at the crossroads of Jewish migration and trade routes, the manuscripts are of diverse provenance: Though most are Ashkenazic (possibly, because the Ashkenazic scribes traditionally wrote their manuscripts on more rugged parchments), Sepharadic, Byzantine and Oriental texts are also to be found.

How did so many Hebrew manuscripts make their way to the binderies? It is of course tempting to blame it on the confiscations by the Church and the Inquisition. Though these may have contributed to the stock of cheap Hebrew parchments, they do not seem to have been the only factor at work here. In the days before the invention of pulp paper, writing materials could be prohibitively expensive, and used paper and parchment in all languages was likely to be recycled. 

A more consequential factor was the spread of printing. As the modern, mechanically printed works became more fashionable, the perceived value of the old hand-copied books diminished significantly, and many people could not be bothered to hold on to them. 

Now that the Italian discoveries have demonstrated the importance of searching through archival bindings, similar quests are under way in other European countries. The most recent bonanzas have been in Spain, especially in Gerona, which was home to illustrious Jewish scholars like Nahmanides. Already, thousands of paper pages have come to light in the book-bindings of the city’s Historical Archive. These pages appear to have entered their recycling process centuries earlier than the Italian ones, close to the most glorious days of Spanish Jewry. In Spain, the Hebrew pages were not used as wrappers, but rather they were glued together to make stiff book bindings, a use for which paper, rather than parchment, was fully adequate. For this reason, the documents that were preserved are much more variegated than in Italy. Not only formal literary works were preserved there, but also personal letters, commercial ledgers and other ephemera that give us intimate glimpses of day-to-day life in medieval society.

At the forefront of this research is the Institute for Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts, one of the chief research arms of the Jewish National and University Library (JNUL) in Jerusalem. The Institute coordinates the efforts of local European researchers, who send photographs of their texts to Jerusalem for identification.

Unfortunately, the costs involved in pursuing this project threaten to impose limits on its continuation. For all their willingness to cooperate, the various European towns and institutions that house the manuscript are not eager to foot the bill for hiring trained researchers to mutilate their archives; and the Israeli scholarly community does not possess the resources required to get the job done. The successful outcome of the project will depend on the generosity of supporters from abroad.

If the riches of the European Geniza can be successfully brought to light, they will undoubtedly make an immeasurable contribution to our knowledge of the Jewish past.

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• First Publication:
  • Jewish Free Press, March 2 2000, pp. 8-9.
• For further reading:
  • Perani, Mauro, ed. Fragments from the “Italian Geniza”: an Exhibition. Bologna: Italian Ministry of Cultural Resources and the Jewish National and University Library, 1999.
  • Perani, Mauro. Frammenti di Manoscritti e libri ebraici a Nonantola, Archivo Storico Nonantolano. Nonantola: Comune di Nonantola, 1992.
  • Cremona, Archivo di Stato di. Manuscritti e Frammenti Ebraici nell’Archivo di Stato di Cremona, Centro Richerche e Studi delle Testimonianze Medievali e Moderne del Guidaismo Italiani. Rome: La Fenice Edizioni, 1995.
  • David, Abraham, and Joseph Tabory, eds. The Italian Geniza: Proceedings of the Conference Held under the Auspices of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the Jewish National and University Library. Jerusalem: Orhot Press, 1998.

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My email address is: [email protected]

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The Purim-Shpiel and the Passion Play

by Eliezer Segal

Since I have come to be perceived in certain circles as Calgary’s resident authority on ancient Judaism, I am occasionally consulted by the staff of the Badlands Passion Play in Drumheller in their sincere resolve to imbue their production with historical accuracy. Needless to say, the situation elicits some very mixed and ironic emotions in me when I think of the sinister history of European passion plays. In their classic medieval versions, the Jews were invariably cast as the demonic Christ-killers; and at the conclusions of the performance, the incensed audiences were ready to take out their wrath upon the local descendants of that depraved brood, resulting in violent attacks against innocent Jews.

Although we are much more familiar with the image of Jews as innocent victims of these riots, historians are now calling attention to a large body of circumstantial evidence which suggests that the reading of the Megillah on Purim played an reciprocal role of inciting Jews against Christians, even to the point of acts of violence and murder.

Evidence of this phenomenon can be traced as far back as the Byzantine Empire, where the Emperor Theodosius, in his famous law code, felt it necessary to include a directive to the provincial governors instructing them to forbid the Jewish practice or burning an effigy of Haman on Purim, a figure which was perceived as a parody of the crucified Jesus.

Theodosius was of course the ruler of a Christian empire, and we might justifiably accuse him of slandering the Jews, or even of erroneously imagining an anti-Christian affront where none was intended. However several considerations lend credence to his suspicions.

Though we are accustomed to imagine Haman and his sons as hanging on a gallows from a noose, that manner of execution was evidently unknown in antiquity. The ancient Aramaic translations always render the word by the root tzalab, meaning “crucify.” This of course was a common Roman form of capital punishment, and originally had no uniquely Christian associations. However, for later generations all references to crucifixion were naturally associated with that of Jesus,

We are all familiar with Haman’s descent from the Amalek, that archetypal enemy of Israel. Our standard telling of the story tends to overlook the fact that the Biblical Amalek was a descendent of Esau, whom midrashic tradition regarded as the prototype of the evil Roman Empire. With the Christianization of Rome, some Jews continued to apply the symbolism of Esau to the Christian church and to the Byzantine empire which demonstrated intense hostility towards Judaism. 

Shortly after the promulgation of the Theodosian Code, an incident was reported in the Syrian town of Inmestar, when a mob of drunken Jews began blaspheming Christians and their messiah. They seized a Christian child, placed him on a cross, and began to make sport of him, eventually causing the boy’s death. The circumstances make it likely that the unfortunate event occurred on Purim, and was inspired by the Jews’ equation of Haman with Jesus or Christianity.

Again, we have good reason to suspect that the story is nothing more than an anti-Semitic fabrication.

Neertheless, in medieval Byzantium, Jewish converts to Christianity were required to make a solemn declaration that they “anathematize those who celebrate the festival of Mordecai…;and those who nail Haman to a piece of wood, and joining it to the sign of the cross, burn them together while hurling various curses and anathemas against the Christians.”

Here too, the accusations emanate from hostile sources, and our history is replete with such charges being leveled against us without any factual basis. It is entirely possible that malicious outside observers were ascribing imagined motives to the traditional Jewish condemnations of the Biblical Haman. 

Similar doubts arise when we read that in later times Christians continued to be offended by the fact that European Jewish communities were accustomed to publicly disgrace their own sinners on Purim (a feature that was also central to the gentile carnivals of the time). It seems that Christians, used to viewing the present through the lens of their scriptures, automatically equated any Jewish act of public chastisement with the scourging of Jesus.

A particular thorny problem is the following episode, which was related in widely differing versions by two independent Jewish chroniclers, as well as by a Christian writer:

In a French town named Bray [or: Brie]-sur-Seine, at the close of the twelfth century, a Christian attached to the royal court killed a Jew. The victim’s family succeeded in bribing the local duchess to hand the perpetrator over to them to be hanged. According to the Christian reporter, the execution was preceded by a ceremonious procession through the town square during which the murderer had a crown of thorns placed on his head (in a transparent burlesque of Jesus’ crucifixion). So incensed was King Philip Augustus upon hearing of this development that he ordered the martyrdom of the local Jewish community.

Here too the sources differ with reference to several of the salient details. Only one of the Hebrew sources states that the hanging took place on Purim; whereas the other one does not mention a hanging at all, but rather that the resulting pogrom occurred on Purim (presumably in retaliation for arresting the Christian). The non-Jewish source dates the execution two weeks after Purim. Historians are in disagreement about how much credence to attach to each of the versions; though some have insisted that the story makes the most sense against the background of the chauvinism and general license that characterized the medieval Purim celebrations.

I am personally inclined to see this as another instance of Christians permanently type-casting the Jews as the bloodthirsty taunters of their messiah. However, in light of the repeated tendency of Jews to equate Haman or Amalek with their contemporary enemies, one can sympathize with those historians who attach greater weight to the reports.

In fact, this might be the real moral of the story: When religious or ideological communities began to perceive each other as symbolic archetypes, rather than as living, breathing human beings, then it is only a matter of time until they start treating each other inhumanly. At that point, both the Passion Play and the Purim-shpiel are transformed into regrettable tragedies.

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• First Publication:
  • Jewish Free Press, March 16 2000, pp. 12-3.
• For further reading:
  • Chazan, Robert. “The Bray Incident of 1192: Realpolitik and Folk Slander.”Proceedings of the American Academy for the Advancement of Jewish Research 37 (1969): 1-18.
  • Doniach, N. S. Purim, or the Feast of Esther: An Historical Study. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1933.
  • Horowitz, Elliott. “‘And It Was Reversed’: Jews and Their Enemies in the Festivities of Purim.” Zion 59, no. 2-3 (1994): 129-168.
  • Roth, Cecil. “The Feast of Purim and the Origins of the Blood Accusation.” In The Blood Libel Legend: A Casebook in Anti-Semitic Folklore, edited by Alan Dundes, 261-72. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991.
  • Thornton, T. C. G. “The Crucifixion of Haman and the Scandal of the Cross.” Journal of Theological Studies 37 (1986): 420-29.

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My email address is: [email protected]

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“In Every Generation…”: The Strange Omission in Rabbi Kalischer’s Haggadah

by Eliezer Segal

Over the ages, the Passover Haggadah has provided Jewish thinkers with an effective instrument through which to express their most profound thoughts on a variety of religious topics. It was therefore to be expected that when Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Kalischer published his own Haggadah in 1864, it would be filled with original and timely insights about the issues that were of concern to him.

Rabbi Kalischer (1795-1874) was one of the pioneering figures who, decades before Herzl, called upon his fellow Jews to take an active role in creating an independent Jewish society in the land of Israel.

It therefore does not surprise us to discover that his Haggadah included penetrating observations on the contemporary situation, such as this assessment of the political emancipation of European Jewry: “At present, the Almighty has proclaimed liberty for the Jews in most states, and this is a prelude to the time when we shall be free people in the Land of Israel.”

Similarly, Kalischer’s description of how the ancient Hebrew slaves retained their religious distinctiveness served as a contrast to the rampant assimilation that was overtaking many Jews in his own days: “They did not choose to be like the gentiles–like the Egyptians–as one nation, in order to ease their poverty and subjugation, as our contemporaries believe, who wish to be esteemed in the eyes of the gentiles, and are ashamed to observe the Jewish religion.” He preached that these manifestations of Jewish self-deprecation would ultimately make them even more despised, and that it was by proudly maintaining their uniqueness that Jews would earn respect among the nations of the world.

Indeed, Rabbi Kalischer’s commentary fulfils all our expectations in serving as a sounding board for his proto-Zionist ideology.

Nevertheless, historians have been troubled my the glaring absence of one theme that had formerly been dear to Kalischer’s heart, but which is virtually absent from his Haggadah in spite of its appropriateness to the context.

The topic is the renewal of sacrificial worship.

As early as 1836, Kalischer had approached Baron de Rothchild urging him to purchase Palestine from the Turkish emperor for purposes of Jewish colonization. At that time Kalischer insisted that, even if the entire homeland could not be acquired, the Baron should at the very least gain possession of the Temple site so that sacrifices might be offered as soon as possible. 

In Kalischer’s messianic scenario, the resumption of the sacrificial cult must occur at the earliest stages of the process, so that atonement could be obtained for the sins of the people, an essential prerequisite for the subsequent stages in the redemptive process.

Kalischer made it clear that the sacrifices he was speaking of would precede the actual rebuilding of the Temple. He discussed the details of these controversial opinions with some of the leading rabbinic authorities of the time, posing his initial halakhic question to his own teacher Rabbi Akiva Eiger of Posen, who responded quite disapprovingly. 

Eiger subsequently turned the matter over to his son-in-law, the renowned Rabbi Moses Schreiber (the “Chasam Sofer”) of Pressburg. While assenting in principle to the legality of Kalischer’s proposal, the latter noted, with a sense of realism lacking in the young Kalischer, that the Muslims were unlikely to consent to the construction of a Jewish Temple on the site of their mosque.

The Chasam Sofer also noted, citing a previous discussion by Rabbi Jacob Emden of Altona, that according to Jewish law the only sacrifice that could be offered prior to the construction of the Temple, and while the majority of the people were still in a state of impurity, was the Passover offering.

Rabbi Schreiber’s statement was not published until several years later, in a book by his student Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Chajes, in which Chajes added his own arguments for the legitimacy of restoring sacrifices. Among other things, he noted that according to the Talmud sacrifices continued to be offered for about eighty years after the destruction of the Temple.

In 1857 rumours were circulating in the Hebrew press that the Jews in Jerusalem were preparing to offer the Passover offering, in accordance with Rabbi Kalischer’s ruling.

This inspired a spirited correspondence between several of Europe’s foremost scholars and rabbinical figures. Those who opposed Kalischer’s ideas (including the historian Heinrich Graetz) cited Maimonides’ ruling that prayer was not merely an inferior replacement for sacrifices, but an evolutionary step beyond it. 

And yet, for all his early enthusiasm for the renewal of sacrifices, Rabbi Kalischer’s commentary on the Passover Haggadah, which seems like the perfect vehicle for advocating this idea, tacitly abandoned the call for immediate renewal of the sacrifices, replacing it with discussions about political emancipation and national liberation. Though the text of the Haggadah provided him with a perfect opening when it prays for the time when “we shall eat of the sacrifices and the Passover offerings,” Rabbi Kalischer did not exploit the opportunity to argue for his youthful dream.

Evidently, the key to this inconsistency lies in the extensive changes that European Jewry had undergone in the intervening decades.

At the beginning of the century, Jewish traditionalists were up in arms over radical attempts at liturgical reform, such as the notorious 1819 Hamburg prayer book that had deleted references to sacrificial worship and the return to Zion. These time-honoured Jewish values were felt by the champions of religious reform to be at odds with their aspirations to be accepted as enlightened, patriotic European citizens “of the Mosaic faith.” The traditionalist forces fought a lengthy campaign to ban the publication of the new-style prayer books.

At that time, responding to these challenges, Kalischer deemed it important to promote traditional Jewish values and aspirations, and it made perfect sense to present the renewal of sacrifices as an indispensable prerequisite of Messianic redemption. With very few exceptions (including Rabbi Akiva Eiger), the views that had been voiced for and against Kalischer’s proposal had been drawn precisely along ideological lines, between the traditionalists and the reformers. 

However thirty years later, when he published his Haggadah commentary, the situation had changed considerably. For one thing, his ideas about sacrifices had proven very unpopular, even among individuals who were in other respects supportive of his programme. 

More importantly, there were now more urgent matters on the public agenda. The Jews in the Holy Land were in dire economic distress in the wake of the Crimean War. The European emancipation was a fait accompli, and the pressing need for political action and economic self-sufficiency took priority over issues that had seemed so important thirty years earlier. Furthermore, the reports (untrue, as it happens) that the Jews of the Holy City were on the verge of actively offering sacrifices caused alarm among rabbis who had hitherto been dealing with the matter on a comfortable theoretical level and as part of their anti-Reform polemic; but who generally shied away from messianic enthusiasm. A newer generation of Orthodox and Neo-Orthodox rabbis in Germany, including Jacob Ettlinger and Samson Raphael Hirsch, shared many of the modernist assumptions about the superiority of prayer over animal sacrifice. Therefore, the tide of halakhic opinion now turned solidly against Kalischer.

The Haggadah teaches us that in each generation we ought to see ourselves as if we had personally experienced the Egyptian Exodus. In the case of Rabbi Kalischer, the pace of social and political changes had accelerated so much that, within a single generation, he was impelled to interpret the lessons of the Haggadah in very different ways.

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• First Publication:
  • Jewish Free Press, March 30 2000, pp. 14-15.
• For further reading:
  • Bleich, J. David. “A Review of Halakhic Literature Pertaining to the Reinstitution of the Sacrificial Order.” Tradition 9 (1967): 103-24.
  • Katz, Jacob. “Demuto ha-historit shel ha-rav zevi hirsch kalischer.” Shivat Zion 2-3 (1952-3): 26-41.
  • Myers, Jody Elizabeth. “Attitudes Towards a Resumption of Sacrificial Worship in the Nineteenth Century.” Modern Judaism 7, no. 1 (1987): 29-49.
  • Salmon, Yosef. “The Rise of Jewish Nationalism on the Border of Eastern and Western Europe: Rabbi Z. H. Kalischer, David Gordon, Peretz Smolenskin.” In Danzig, East and West: Aspects of Modern Jewish History, edited by Isadore Twersky, 123-37. Cambrdge: Harvard Center for Jewish Studies and Harvard Semitic Museum, 1985.
  • Ticker, Jay. The Centrality of Sacrifices as an Answer to Reform in the Thought of Zvi Hirsch Kalischer. Vol. 15, Working Papers in Yiddish and East European Studies, 1975.

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My email address is: [email protected]

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The Eggs and the Exodus

by Eliezer Segal

More than any other festival in the Jewish calendar, Passover is defined by its foods. The basic obligations to eat matzah and maror, as well as the obligation to remove all leaven from one’s home are explicitly commanded by the Torah as memorials to the slavery of Egypt and the miraculous deliverance from oppression. A glance at the foods on the traditional seder plate immediately evokes the volumes of history, values and emotions associated with the themes of the holiday.

Amidst this wealth of solemn symbolism lies one humble foodstuff whose significance is less than obvious, and whose function in the seder is so obscure that it is likely to remain on the table until the end of the meal without ever getting eaten, or even mentioned.

I am referring to the lowly Passover egg. 

The Torah does not command us to eat an egg, or to stare at one during the Passover meal. The egg is mentioned briefly in the Talmud as part of the festive menu, but without attaching any distinctive value to it, let alone ordaining a place of honor on the seder plate.

Talmudic sources speak of serving “two cooked dishes” at the Passover meal, especially for people who are not partaking of the Paschal sacrifice in the Temple. The rabbis offered diverse suggestions as to what these two items ought to be: meat, rice, a bone, beets, fish…or (according to one opinion among several) an egg. 

A tradition cited in the Jerusalem Talmud states that the requirement to eat two dishes has a symbolic meaning beyond the mere enhancement of the feast: “One dish is a memorial of the Passover sacrifice, and the other is a memorial for the pilgrimage offering [hagigah].” 

In the Babylonian Talmud this symbolism was attached only to meat dishes. Neither Talmud indicated that eggs had any relevance in this connection.

However, as we proceed through history we find a subtle, though persistent, tendency to bestow upon the egg a ritual status in the context of the seder.

A responsum ascribed to Rav Sherira Ga’on, who presided over the Babylonian academy of Sura during the tenth century, explained the need for two foods in a different way: “They commemorate the two messengers, Moses and Aaron, whom the Almighty sent to Egypt.” And in the interests of egalitarianism he is careful to note that “some serve an additional dish in order to commemorate Miriam, as it says (Micah 6:4) ‘and I sent before thee Moses, Aaron, and Miriam.'” 

The three foods that Rav Sherira recommends are: fish, meat and …an egg. And aside from their association with the three shepherds of Israel, Rav Sherira describes yet another significance. They correspond to the three foods upon which Israel will feast in the Next World; namely: fish, corresponding to the Leviathan; the egg, corresponding to the wondrous bird known as ziz saddai [see Psalms 50:11; 80:14)]; and meat, corresponding to the wild ox.

Thus, our unassuming Passover egg has now taken on eschatological dimensions, representing one of the menu items in that great banquet that the righteous will enjoy in the messianic epoch.

Rabbinic tradition identified the ziz saddai as a fabulous bird, so enormous that when it spreads it wings it eclipses the sun. Furthermore, the flesh of the ziz comes in many different flavors, all of them kosher. Its presence at the messianic feast will more than compensate for all the non-kosher birds that Jews have refrained from enjoying in deference to the divine commandments.

The customs that evolved among the Jews of Italy tried to accommodate all the different symbolisms, by placing on the seder table two kinds of meat (roast and boiled) to represent the Passover and pilgrimage offerings; as well as the fish and egg that commemorate the messianic repast. 

The Italians were just about the only medieval community in which the egg had a quasi-official status at the seder. Most of the halakhic authorities did not stipulate specific foods. Those who did, like Maimonides, insisted on two meat dishes.

Among more recent interpreters the view has taken hold that the meat at the table comes to represent the Passover sacrifice, while the egg represents the pilgrimage sacrifice. This notion was a departure from the earlier and more logical view that used meat to symbolize both sacrifices. The commentators were hard put to find any meaningful connection between an egg and an animal offering.

Rabbi Aaron of Lunel, the author of an important compendium on Jewish customs, pointed out that eggs, representing the circularity of life and death, are traditionally served to mourners, and suggested that their role on Passover is also to express our sorrow over the destruction of the Temple and our inability to offer sacrifices there. Rabbi Moses Isserles found support for this motif in a peculiarity of the Hebrew calendar that has the first night of Passover always falls on the same day of the week as the Ninth of Av, the anniversary of the destruction of the two Temples.

Other authorities opposed this interpretation on the grounds that it is inappropriate to mourn on a festival. For this reason, Rabbi Moses Feinstein discouraged the eating of eggs at the seder.

Truly, the tenacity with which our egg has insinuated itself into the Passover ceremony seems unrelated to any of the symbolic or halakhic explanations that have been proposed for its presence. In such cases one is strongly tempted to ascribe the phenomenon to foreign influences.

An obvious suspect would be the Christian practice of handing out colored eggs in connection with the Easter holiday which occurs at the same season of the year. To be precise, the Easter egg itself is a curious holdover from pre-Christian fertility celebrations that survived in popular European custom.

It is of course out of the question to accuse our pious forefathers of imitating such a blatantly un-Jewish practices. And besides, there is still a considerable leap between the simple Passover egg and the colored ones that are left by the Easter bunny.

And yet, to be honest, there were localities in Poland where it was customary for Jews to “go for a vikup” during Passover. The practice (the Yiddish expression is related to a Polish word meaning “ransom”) involved paying a visit to relatives, and receiving from them colored eggs, especially ones that were tinted yellowish-red with the help of a special formula fashioned from onion skins. 

In some Hasidic circles, including the Karlin and Lubavitch sects, the distribution of painted eggs took place later in the season, on Lag Ba’omer. 

A children’s magazine published by Chabad-Lubavitch in 1945 described the thrill of a group of children as they prepared for the festivities. One of the children was especially excited because “Mommy promised to prepare some hard-boiled eggs for my Lag B’Omer lunch–colored.” When asked about the reason for this practice, she explained that the eggs are an expression of mourning for the death of Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai which occurred on that day. However, Rabbi Simeon 

was very happy when the time came to surrender his soul to the Creator, because he knew that everlasting happiness awaited him. And so, while the Lag B’Omer eggs are to remind us of his death, their purpose is not to make us feel sad on this day. Lag B’Omer is a children’s festival, and children love color. And so it became customary to paint the shells of the eggs in various colors to make the children feel very happy on Lag B’Omer.

However, it is not only in Europe that Jews were drawn to coloured eggs. In Afghanistan, the eggs made their ritual appearance earlier in the season, and were associated with the Purim festivities. Throughout the month of Adar it was the custom there to roll the eggs, to see whose could keep going the longest without breaking. For each egg that did get crushed in the competition, the children would curse Haman. In Kurdistan, coloured eggs were included in the Mishloah manot that were distributed to children on Purim.

It would appear that the persistence of the eggs in the Jewish Springtime festivities might have had its roots in borrowings from cross-cultural folklore. 

Or are we perhaps dealing with an ancient Hebrew springtime custom that somehow avoided being mentioned in the official sources?

It sounds like one of those eternal chicken-or-egg questions.

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• First Publication:
  • Jewish Free Press, April 20 2000, pp. 22-3
• For further reading:
  • Erich Brauer, and Raphael Patai. The Jews of Kurdistan, Jewish Folklore and Anthropology Series, ed. Raphael Patai. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1993.
  • Goldberg, Harvey E. “Anthropology and the Study of Traditional Jewish Societies.” AJS Review 15, no. 1 (1990): 1-22.
  • Yom-Tov Lewinsky, ed. Sefer Ha-Mo’adim, Vol. 6, Tel-Aviv: Agudat ‘Oneg Shabbat (Ohel Shem) and Dvir, 1955.
  • Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch. “Lag B’Omer.” Shaloh (Shi’urei Limmud Ve-das), May 1 1945, 1-4.
  • Mondshein, Joshua, ed. Otsar Minhagei Haba”d. 2 vols. Jerusalem: Heikhal Menahem, 1996.
  • Tabory, Yosef. The Passover Ritual Through the Generations. Edited by Meir Ayali, Hillel ben Hayyim Library. Tel-Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad Publishing House, 1996.
  • Herzog, Marvin. The Yiddish Language in Northern Poland: Its Geography and History, Indiana University Research Center in Anthropology, Folklore and Linguistics. Bloomington and the Hague: University of Indiana Press and Mouton, 1965.

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My email address is: [email protected]

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