Category Archives: Awesome Jews of History

Ramban (Nachmanides): The Badass Rabbi of Catalonia

January 18, 2018Awesome Jews of History, Jewish HistoryJewish history, ramban, Sephardim, The TorahDaniella

Dear Josep,

I don’t know how it took me this long to write a post about Ramban.

He happens to be my personal favorite Biblical commentator, because his Hebrew writing is so clear and expressive. When studying his commentary in high school, I got a huge kick out of the fact that he would quote Rashi–Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki of 11th-century Provence, the spiritual father of all Biblical and Talmudic commentary–and then just say “אינו נכון” (“This is incorrect”). About Rashi. That’s like a college freshman standing up in the middle of a lecture by a senior professor at university and saying, “That’s wrong.” What a badass, I thought.

I didn’t know the half of it.

“Ramban” is a Hebrew acronym of his name, which was Rabbi Moshe ben (son of) Nachman. But guess what? He had a Catalan name, too: Bonastruc ça Porta. That’s right: he was born in Girona in 1194, and lived there for most of his life. He is also known as “Moshe ben Nachman Gerondi”–Moses, son of Nachman the Gironan.

Ramban was a central feature of the Golden Age of Sepharad. He was 8 years old when Maimonides died, and Rabbenu Yonah (Jonah Gerondi), a rabbi and moralist most famously known for his ethical work Sha’arei Teshuva (“The Gates of Repentance”), was his cousin. He began his writings on Jewish law at age 16, and soon emerged as a prominent Jewish scholar, eventually being named rabbi of Girona and later, chief rabbi of Catalonia. He was also a doctor, like many other famous Jewish scholars of that age, and aside from the aforementioned Biblical commentary, wrote a number of notable works on Jewish law and philosophy. He seems to have lived most of his years in relative peace–until the event in 1263 that turned his life upside down and secured him a place of honor in the Jewish Hall of Badassery.

The Disputation of Barcelona

Most of what I know about the Disputation I learned from a thorough article on the topic by Rabbi Berel Wein, a well-known Jewish historian, called Ecumenicism and Dialogue 1263 C.E.. I also consulted Ramban’s own account of the debate, Vikuach HaRamban (“The Ramban’s Disputation”), in the original Hebrew.

The debate was initiated–as it often is–by a Jewish convert to Christianity (seriously, we are almost always our own worst enemies) who took the name Pablo Cristiani upon conversion. Cristiani convinced King Jaume I of Aragon to order a public debate between himself and the chief rabbi of Catalonia. The king summoned Ramban to Barcelona for a dialogue that began on the 20th of July, 1263, and continued through four debating sessions, the last of which concluded on July 31st.

Rabbi Wein points out that open interfaith dialogue is a fairly recent phenomenon. During the Middle Ages, the Church got into the habit of holding such public “debates” for the usual reason: to discredit Judaism and persuade more Jews to convert to Christianity. In most cases, it was a bit of a kangaroo court, because whatever poor rabbi was summoned to defend Judaism in these debates was never actually permitted to speak freely. I wonder why the Christian side always won!

The Disputation of Barcelona was different. Before opening the debate, Ramban asked the king for the right to speak freely–and the king granted it. “Because of this right, Ramban at all times spoke boldly, incisively, and openly,” writes Rabbi Wein. “Here, perhaps for the only time in the annals of medieval Christian European history, Jew meets gentile as equal, and for the majority of the debate is not the defendant or apologist but rather presses home his criticism and disbelief of Christian concepts and principles.”

In other words, Ramban got up there and not only effectively defended Judaism against Cristiani’s arguments, he repeatedly set Cristiani and his buddies on the defensive–with epic levels of sarcasm, I might add. When Cristiani quoted passages from the Talmud and Midrashic literature trying to prove that the Jews of Jesus’s time believed he was the Messiah, Ramban easily refuted their interpretations and added, “The prophet says that at the time of the Messiah ‘they shall not teach their friends war, etc.’… and from the days of Jesus until now, the entire world is full of robbery and pillaging, and the Christians have spilled more blood than any of the other nations, and they are also sexually immoral. How hard it would be for you, my great king, and for your knights, to survive if there would be an end to warfare!”

Yeah. He actually said that. To the face of James I the Conqueror.

And if you think that’s chutzpah: “You believe this bitter thing [the Virgin Birth and the concept of the Trinity] because you are born a Christian, the son of Christian parents, and you have been indoctrinated your entire life by priests who have filled your mind and marrow with this belief, and you now accept its truth by basis of habit alone. But the thing you believe, that is the core of your faith, is completely illogical.”

Shockingly, Jaume didn’t order him beheaded on the spot. In fact, he related to Ramban with great admiration and respect, and comes across as a pretty good guy through this ordeal. When the debate was called off (apparently for fear of rioting–it was never formally closed), Jaume said to Ramban, “I have yet to see such a man as you, who, though being wrong, has yet made an excellent presentation of his position.” Ramban also reports that Jaume gave him a gift of three hundred coins and parted with him “with great affection.”

The Dominican priests claimed victory, and Ramban felt obliged to publish his account of the debate to let the public decide who had won. The Dominicans didn’t even try to refute his account–they accused him of blasphemy instead. King Jaume, mistrusting the Dominican court, called a special commission and ordered that the proceedings be conducted in his presence. Ramban’s defense argued that though he had indeed spoken out against Christianity, he had been granted permission to say all these things by the king himself. The king recognized that his case was just, but felt obliged to do something do calm down the Dominicans, so he sentenced Ramban to two years’ exile. The Dominicans felt that this wasn’t enough and appealed to the Pope, who expanded the punishment to permanent banishment.

Ramban Reestablishes a Jewish Presence in Jerusalem

So Ramban was forced to leave his family in Catalonia, and apparently spent the next three years wandering around in Castile or southern France, until he settled in Jerusalem–which, no thanks to the massacres and expulsions courtesy of the recently defeated Crusaders, had only two Jews living in it at the time. So he established the Ramban Synagogue, which still stands in the Old City today–likely not in the original location, but the building it’s currently in is still the oldest synagogue in the Old City. (It’s also, by the way, the first synagogue you ever walked into and prayed in. I know. I was there. 😉 )

Ramban’s reestablished community was the beginning of a 700-year continuous Jewish presence in the Old City of Jerusalem, all the way up until the War of Independence in 1948, when it fell to Jordan. It was in Jerusalem that Ramban wrote his magnum opus: his Biblical commentary. He also maintained a correspondence with his family and community in Sepharad, trying to create a stronger connection between the Jewish communities of Judea and Spain. He died after three years in the Holy Land at the age of 76.

If you want to read Rabbi Wein’s full article about the Disputation that summarizes the main points of the debate, you can find it online here; it was published in a collection of essays of Jewish responses to missionaries called The Real Messiah? (and if that sounds familiar, that’s because it’s mentioned in By Light of Hidden Candles!).

Speaking of awesome Catalans (albeit not Jewish ones), I am still following your news carefully and waiting with bated breath to see what happens next… and for those of our readers who have missed them, I’ve written three Josep-approved op-ed pieces for The Times of Israel on Catalan independence, which you can read here.

Much love,

Daniella

This post is #3 in my Awesome Jews of History series, the previous two being portraits of King David and Don Isaac Abravanel. Are there any awesome Jews of history you’d like me to write about? Let me know!

Awesome Jews of History #2: Don Isaac Abravanel

October 30, 2016Awesome Jews of History, Jewish HistoryDiaspora, Jewish historyDaniella

Dear Josep,

Marrying another bookworm has had its perks. Back before Eitan’s eye issues made it impossible for him to read from print books without pain, he bought books all the time. Even though our current stock is only a small fraction of his original collection, and even though we’ve been living together for eight years, every once in a while I’ll go searching through his old books and discover something interesting.

This book was one such discovery.

That’s not Benjamin Netanyahu, for the record; it’s Benzion, Bibi’s father, who was one of the most prominent modern scholars on late medieval Spain. I’ve been wanting to get my hands on any or all of his scholarly works on the Inquisition and the conversos (because hi, it’s me), and I was astonished to find this book on my own bookshelf a couple months ago. (Eitan says he bought it used someplace a long time ago and forgot it existed.) Don Isaac Abravanel is apparently B. Netanyahu’s first book, originally published in 1953.

In the months that followed I read the book and developed a keen interest in Abravanel. I found his character weaving itself into a short story I was writing during that time, which pushed me to read the book more deeply as well as some of Abravanel’s Biblical commentary in the original Hebrew. I knew Abravanel as “Abarbanel,” (the commonly accepted pronunciation of the name in the Jewish community)–at first as a Biblical commentator whose opinions were brought into my classes on the Torah and the Prophets, and then as a historical figure who had a pivotal role during the period of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492. But this biography really brought everything together for me about his character and his role in history.

So allow me to introduce you to Awesome Jew of History #2: Don Isaac Abravanel.

A portrait of Abravanel. Source unknown.

Don Isaac Abravanel was born in Lisbon in 1437 to one of the wealthiest, most distinguished Jewish families in Iberia. His grandfather, Don Samuel, served three successive Castilian kings, and in the days of Enrique III, he had assumed the office of contador mayor–the highest position in Castile’s financial administration. He was outspoken in defense of Jews and Judaism in his native Seville, and the Jews of Spain considered him their leader… so you can imagine how shocked and horrified they were when he converted to Christianity, apparently voluntarily. As a result of his conversion, the older of his children cut off ties with him and moved to Portugal. Among those estranged sons was Don Judah, Don Isaac’s father.

Don Judah did well in Lisbon, apparently becoming a royal treasurer for João I, and Don Isaac was brought up with a great deal of wealth, familiarity with the nobility and royalty, and a thorough Jewish and secular education. He began writing Biblical commentary and philosophical works as a young man. And I can tell you as someone who translated bits of his writing to work into my story–the man was overflowing with the words of the Bible even when he wasn’t talking about it. The text I translated was mostly autobiographical, and yet every sentence made multiple Biblical references. If I was unsure about some phrase or other I just Googled it and immediately found it in Psalms or Jeremiah or Deuteronomy.

As an adult, he moved into a position of power under Alfonso V, who appointed him treasurer. But the problem with getting friendly with a king of Portugal (or any medieval monarch, for that matter) and establishing yourself in his royal court, is that there’s a fast turnover rate, and more often than not, the following king is going to suspect you of other loyalties. That’s what happened to Abravanel. When João II took the throne, he suspected Abravanel of treason and eventually put out a warrant for his arrest. Abravanel was certain of his innocence, but understood that he stood no chance of convincing the king, so he fled to Castile. The king seized all his assets. Thus Abravanel lost his entire fortune, and had to start over in a new kingdom.

But guys like Abravanel don’t really manage to keep a low profile. Abravanel employed his exceptional knowledge and skills, and slowly worked his way up the social ladder. His skills eventually came to the attention of one King Fernando of Aragon. Fernando and Isabel employed him as a financier, and he became second only to Abraham Senior as the highest-ranking Jew in the kingdom. It’s interesting to note that despite everything, Abravanel seems to have had something resembling a good relationship with the Catholic Monarchs. Fernando was a very slippery, poker-faced kind of guy, managing to make everyone think they were getting along great while stabbing them in the back.

So, in 1492, when the Catholic Monarchs captured Granada and issued the Alhambra Decree, Abravanel was in a very unique and crucial position, having a place of power and esteem within the royal court. He and Abraham Senior worked tirelessly to cancel the decree. They had an audience with Fernando three times, appealing to his practical side, offering him an enormous bribe to be collected from the Jewish community. But Mr. Aragonese Poker-Face never committed to anything, always dismissing them with an “I’ll think about it” kind of response. Thus unsuccessful, they tried appealing to Isabel. With Isabel, Abravanel took an entirely different approach.

Writes Netanyahu: “He now spoke to the queen–the haughty, fanatic and often ferocious Isabella–not like her financial agent, not even like a cautious, diplomatic courtier. He spoke to her now like a scion of the House of David and as a representative of an unconquered–and unconquerable–people. He spoke to her, moreover, like a prophet of old, in daring, castigating and threatening language. If Isabella thought that, by measures like the expulsion, the Jews could be brought to surrender or to extinction, she was greatly mistaken. He pointed out to her the eternity of the Jewish people, that they had outlived all who had attempted to destroy them, that it was beyond human capacity to destroy the Jewish people, and that those who tried to do so only invited upon themselves divine punishment and disaster.”

Isabel’s response, too, echoes eerily prophetic through the annals of history: “Do you believe that this comes upon you from us? The Lord hath put this thing into the heart of the king.”

And so, Don Isaac Abravanel failed to reverse the fate of his people. Abraham Senior converted to Christianity in order to stay in Castile, and Abravanel left with his brethren, losing his fortune and his honor for the second time.

Abravanel moved to Naples. Italy was very unstable at the time and he had to move around a lot in the coming years because of various wars. He eventually settled in Venice, and he died there in 1508.

Like all of his contemporaries, Abravanel struggled to make sense of the expulsion. As you know, it was one of the most highly traumatic crises in Jewish history, and many Jews found themselves in a place of deep discouragement and despair. Some feared that the expulsion marked the beginning of the end of the Jewish people.

Abravanel’s response to the crisis was a mystical/spiritual one. He wrote extensively about the coming of the Messianic era, and even calculated when the Messiah would come. He had some compelling arguments for the year 1503, but obviously, he turned out to be very wrong. When I read articles about Abravanel in the past and learned about this feature of his writings I found it annoying and depressing. He was so sure that the horrors of the expulsion marked the beginning of the Redemption with a capital R. And he we are, five hundred years later, still saying “Any minute now!”

But when I read Netanyahu’s take on this aspect of Abravanel’s philosophy, I saw it in a new way. One of the things I have learned about hope in the last few years is that it has intrinsic value that is completely detached from outcome. As I wrote on this article for Trish Hopkinson’s blog: “I saw hope as a seductive and deceptive force that enticed me to climb higher, making the inevitable fall hurt that much more… But that place it takes us is not just a place we fall from. It’s a place where we see farther, where we breathe better, where we reach higher.”

Abravanel gave the Jewish people hope.

He gave great detail and vivid color to a very theoretical idea of the bright future that lay somewhere ahead of all this gloom.

Our national anthem is called “The Hope” for a reason. Hope is what has carried us through and kept us moving forward even in the darkest of times.

For that, if not for the vast library of intriguing ideas and scholarship he left behind, and for his tireless efforts to make the world a better place for Jews and non-Jews alike… he deserves to be remembered as a great man, and an Awesome Jew of History.

Love,

Daniella

The previous Awesome Jew of History was King David! Is there an awesome Jewish historical figure you’d like me to write about? Let me know!

Confessions of a King David Fangirl

May 31, 2016Awesome Jews of History, Jewish HistoryJewish history, king davidDaniella

Dear Josep,

I was a rather unusual teenager in quite a number of ways.

For one thing, I hated shopping.

I never wore makeup–on principle–and rolled my eyes at the way my peers spent hours preening in front of the mirror.

While most girls my age spent their vacation time at the mall, the movies, or the beach, I was happiest cooped up in my room… writing novels.

Like the teenage girls they were, my friends swooned over the likes of Orlando Bloom, Johnny Depp, and… I can’t even remember who else was popular at the time. That’s how much I cared!

I, on the other hand, was a King David fangirl.

Yeah. The one from 3,000 years ago.

You see, the more I learned about him, the more I admired and identified with him. He was a poet-musician-warrior-prophet-king who was crazy in love with God. He played the lyre, felled a Philistine giant with a single stone, danced like a maniac in celebration of God’s glory, and cried his heart out in public on many occasions. He made some terrible mistakes, but he owned them. He was a badass with a sensitive and highly spiritual soul. His political actions set the stage for the most prosperous golden age in the history of the Jews, and he was the progenitor of what may have been the longest continuous dynasty of communal leaders in the history of humankind.¹

Both of the upcoming holidays, Jerusalem Day and Shavuot, have a connection to King David. So I shall take this opportunity to unleash my inner fangirl, and tell you all about my favorite Biblical character. 🙂

Okay, so it turns out I can’t actually tell you all about him. I started writing my merry way through the juiciest moments of his life story as told in Samuel I, and by the time I got halfway through the Goliath story, this letter was already 1,000 words long!

So I’ll have to give you the highlights.

David, son of Jesse, was born in Bethlehem during the period of Samuel the Prophet. He was probably a child when the first king of Israel, Saul, was ordained. When Saul fell out of God’s favor for failing to carry out a commandment, God ordered Samuel to ordain David–then still a kid whose family apparently didn’t think much of him–as the new king. The Bible describes him as “ruddy, with beautiful eyes, and handsome.” Some interpret “ruddy” as meaning he had red hair, and you can see him depicted that way in many paintings. Most likely, though, it means he had a reddish complexion. Rosy cheeks, if you will.

Anyway. Soon after David’s secret ordination, King Saul felt the spirit of God leave him, and became quite depressed. Someone suggested finding a musician to play music and lift his spirits. Long story short, David became the first Royal Music Therapist.

Then the whole fiasco with Goliath happened–a story I assume you are at least somewhat familiar with. After his stunning defeat of the Philistine warrior, David became quite the rock star among the Israelites. He married the king’s daughter Michal and became best buddies with his new brother-in-law, Jonathan. (I believe these days we call it a “bromance.”) But Saul started to suspect David of trying to topple him from the throne, and started trying to kill him.

"So.... should I see this as a termination of our therapeutic relationship?" — “So…. should I see this as a termination of our therapeutic relationship?”

Michal and Jonathan helped David escape, and he ran into the wilds of Judah, hiding out in the desert with a little band of followers.

David spent the next period of his life scurrying around the Judean Desert trying to avoid getting caught and killed by Saul. There were a few close calls, and some confrontations that ended with Saul saying he was sorry and then changing his mind the next morning. (I believe these days we call it “bipolar.”) But David never attempted to take power during Saul’s lifetime and never dreamed of harming him. Heck, he cried like an idiot when he so much as tore the corner of Saul’s robe in a cave in Ein Gedi.

Anyway, Saul was finally killed in battle in the Gilboa, along with his sons, including David’s best friend Jonathan. “How the mighty have fallen” is a famous line from David’s heartbroken lament for Saul and Jonathan, recorded in the final chapters of Samuel I.

With the old king dead, David began his rise to power. First he ruled over Judah from the city of Hebron. (Remember, Jerusalem was still under the Jebusites at this point.) Gradually the rest of the kingdom accepted him as their king. He proved very capable in battle and eventually conquered Jerusalem and established it as the eternal capital of Israel. (That’s where Jerusalem Day comes in. Shavuot is traditionally considered to be the birthday, and death day, of King David.)

There are many more stories to tell from Samuel II, but the most important one is the Bathsheba scandal. You may have heard this story too. It stands as an example of something unique about the Bible as a historical document: it does not gloss over the mistakes and sins of our great leaders. What happened is this: King David was looking out his window one night and he saw a woman bathing on her rooftop. He was so overcome with desire for her that he ordered her brought to the palace, and when he discovered that she was married, he arranged for her husband to be placed on the front line of the battle, basically assuring his death. When the husband did inevitably die in battle, David married Bathsheba.

Not a pleasant story. Especially if you compare it with Saul’s sin. All Saul did was have pity on an Amalekite king and some sheep. David committed adultery and murder! Why was Saul’s kingdom torn from him, then, while David’s wasn’t?

Most sages argue that the difference is in their responses.

When Samuel came to rebuke Saul, Saul got defensive and insisted that he had done nothing wrong, and only admitted that he had sinned after Samuel informed him that God had decided to discontinue his dynasty.

In contrast, when Nathan the Prophet came to rebuke David, David immediately said “I have sinned before the Lord!” He took responsibility and owned his actions. He did real teshuva. He did suffer consequences for his sin–the death of his firstborn son from Bathsheba, and the turmoil in his household (the rape of Tamar, the rebellion of Absalom, etc.)–but God did not take the kingdom from him or his descendants.

There is another important figure in the Bible who exhibited this kind of accountability: David’s ancestor Judah. On two notable occasions,²Judah showed a willingness to own up to his mistakes and accept the full consequences of his actions. Tradition has it that it was this character trait of Judah’s that made God choose him as the progenitor of the Davidic line.

I think the Bible makes a powerful statement through this. Everyone makes mistakes. The question is whether you try to make excuses and justify yourself, or whether you take responsibility, own your mistakes, and try to learn and grow from them. That, says the Bible, is the mark of a true leader.

When King David died, he passed the kingdom to his son, the wise King Solomon, who built the first Temple and ruled over Israel during a period of great prosperity and peace. We believe that the Messiah will be a direct descendant of King David, because God promised him that his dynasty would endure for eternity.

And now, I can’t finish a post about King David without mentioning the book of Psalms.

Tradition has it that the Psalms were composed by David, and if you read through them you will see that many of them begin with a statement about the author (usually David) and sometimes about the circumstances under which the psalm was written or for what purpose. Bible critics will argue that it was written much later by other poets, who used the context of King David’s life to lend their work legitimacy, but it’s impossible to prove or disprove. I’d like to believe that he did write at least some of them.

Either way, I think the spirit of this Biblical figure is encapsulated within the wrenching and uplifting words of these remarkably raw poem-prayers.

When you open up a book of Psalms, you find the full range of human emotion laid out before you: from ecstasy, gratitude, and hope, to terror, despair, and loneliness. You find expressions of ultimate closeness and oneness with God alongside explicit expression of doubt and fear of abandonment. The fact that David could say both “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for You are with me” (Psalm 23) and “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” (Psalm 22) makes me feel a little less alone in trying to reconcile those two sentiments that battle it out within me from time to time.

So… yes. King David was my teen crush and I’m not the least bit ashamed of it.

Love,

Daniella

P.S. I’m thinkin’ this could be the first in a series of posts about important Jewish historical figures, called Awesome Jews of History. Is there a Jewish historical figure (or two… or five) that you’ve been curious about? (And by you, and mean you, Josep, and also you, blog readers!) Let me know!

P. P. S. Heck yeah, of course I dressed up as King David for Purim one year! Or at least… my interpretation of him as a kind of Biblical rock star. 😛

Yes, I know its a ukulele and not a lyre. A girls gotta work with what she has, aright?! — …with a ukulele. Look, a girl’s gotta work with what she has, a’right?!

^{1. Though the sovereignty of the Jews was ended after the destruction of the First Temple, the Jews always maintained a special status for those descended of the Davidic dynasty, and chose their leaders from their number. During the Gaonic period in Babylon, up until around 1,000 C.E., Jews were governed by the Exilarch, who was a descendant of the Davidic line. Thus, one could say that the House of David ruled the Jewish people for more than two thousand years.↩}

^{2. The first was during the scandal with his daughter-in-law Tamar (Genesis 37:26); the second, and more well known, was when Joseph framed Benjamin, and Judah took responsibility and offered to go to jail in his stead (Genesis 44:18-34).↩}