History of the Jews, Vol. 4 (of 6). Graetz Heinrich

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СКАЧАТЬ interests to advance the common good and to promote peace. But when he suspected the violation of a Talmudical precept or the non-observance of even an unessential custom, his mildness was immediately transformed into most obdurate severity.

      On account of his Talmudical learning, his clear, penetrating intellect, and his irreproachable character, he was much sought after. The important community of Saragossa elected him its rabbi. Immediately on taking office, Isaac ben Sheshet gave an illustration of the tenacity with which he clung to the letter of the Law, even when it conflicted with the spirit. He observed, with regret, that the practice obtained of reading the book of Esther on the feast of Purim in a Spanish translation, for the benefit of the women. This practice had been introduced into other Spanish communities, and was not only applauded by all men of common sense, but had even been authorized by a few rabbis, who considered it unobjectionable from a Talmudical point of view. Ben Sheshet raised a cry of alarm, as if Judaism had been threatened with ruin. He called to his assistance the authority of his teacher, Nissim Gerundi, and together they opposed the excellent custom with sophistical argument. They appear to have been successful in abolishing it.

      Still more characteristic of Isaac ben Sheshet is his quarrel with Chayim ben Gallipapa, a rabbi, stricken in years, whose opinions differed from those of the rabbi of Saragossa. This man (born 1310, died 1380), rabbi of Huesca and Pampeluna, was a singular figure in the Middle Ages, whom it is difficult to classify. Whilst the rabbis of the time, particularly since the rise of the Asheride teaching, exceeded all bounds in the imposition of burdensome observances, and always, in cases of doubt, decided in favor of their most rigorous fulfillment, Gallipapa took the opposite view, and maintained that the aim of all Talmudical exegesis should be to disencumber life. The times, he considered, had improved, and neither the ignorance of the people nor the fear of defection was so great as to warrant such severity. This principle was no mere theory with Gallipapa, for he followed it practically. The freedom he suggested concerned matters of comparative insignificance, but at that time every trifle was regarded as important. On certain dogmas, also, Gallipapa held independent views. The Messianic belief which, since the time of Maimonides, had become an article of faith, to deny which was heresy, he boldly set aside. Gallipapa considered that the prophecies, in Isaiah and Daniel, of the great prosperity of Israel in the future, had been fulfilled in the days of the Maccabees, and wrote a work on the subject. Against this hardy innovator, a storm naturally arose. A neighboring rabbi, Chasdaï ben Solomon, of Tudela, a man of not over-fine sensibilities, denounced him to Isaac ben Sheshet, and the latter lectured the venerable Gallipapa, who had sent disciples into the world, as if he had been a mere schoolboy. He adjured Chayim Gallipapa to avoid scandal and give no opportunity for schism amongst his brethren. The modest attempt at reform went no further.

      This severe tendency in matters of religion was the natural outcome of the prevailing spiritual needs; and it must be confessed that the more rigorous, the better it was adapted to them. Isaac ben Sheshet and his friend Chasdaï Crescas, who, although no enemy of secular learning, entertained the same view as his colleague, and defended his orthodoxy on philosophic grounds, were considered, after the death of Nissim Gerundi, the most eminent rabbinical authorities of their day, not in Spain only. From far and near, inquiries were addressed to them, principally to Isaac ben Sheshet, but also to Chasdaï Crescas. The proudest rabbis and the largest communities invoked their counsel, and were content to abide by their decisions. The court of Aragon also regarded them as the leaders of the Jewish communities, but this operated to their disadvantage. In consequence of the denunciation of some malevolent person, the ground of which is unknown, the king, Don Pedro IV, ordered Chasdaï Crescas, Isaac ben Sheshet, his brother, Crescas Barfat, the aged Nissim Gerundi of Barcelona, and two others, to be thrown into prison. After a long time, they were released on bail. We may believe Isaac ben Sheshet, when he assures us that he and his fellow-prisoners were all innocent of the offense or crime laid to their charge. Their innocence must have come to light, for they afterwards remained unmolested.

      The authority of Chasdaï Crescas and Isaac ben Sheshet was appealed to by the French communities to settle an important point in a dispute about the chief rabbinate of France. A change, largely the outcome of the political condition of the country, had come over the circumstances of these communities. Manessier de Vesoul, the zealous defender and protector of his co-religionists, was dead (about 1375–1378). Of his four sons – Solomon, Joseph, Abraham, and Haquinet – the eldest succeeded to his father's post of receiver general of the Jew taxes and political representative of the French Jews, and the second became a convert to Christianity. Solomon and his brothers enjoyed the same esteem at the royal court as their father. They were exempted from wearing the humiliating Jew badge, and they diligently cared for the interests of their brethren. Among Jews, however, they do not seem to have obtained the consideration that their father had enjoyed. On the death of the king, Charles V, their importance ceased altogether. The regent Louis, Duke of Anjou, confirmed, for a consideration, the privileges acquired by the French Jews (14th October, 1380), and prolonged their term of sufferance in the land by another five years. His protection, however, did not reach far, or rather it involved the Jews in his own unpopularity. The impoverished population of Paris, driven to despair by burdensome taxation, loudly and stormily demanded redress of the young king and the regent. Egged on by a nobility involved in debt, they included the Jews in their outcry, and demanded that the king should expel from the country "these shameful usurers who have ruined whole families." The people did not stop at words; at the instigation of the nobles, they attacked the houses of the Jews (November 16th, 1380), robbed the exchequer of the receiver general (of the Vesoul family), pillaged their dwelling-houses, destroyed the bonds of the debtors, appropriated the accumulated pledges, murdered a few Jews, and tore children from the arms of fleeing and weeping Jewish mothers to baptize them forthwith. A large number of Jews saved themselves by flight to the fort Châtelet. The regent was much irritated by this violent outbreak, but was unable to punish the offenders at once on account of the excited state of the people. He ordered that the Jews be reinstated in their homes, and the plunder restored to them. Few complied with the order. The prevôt of Paris, Hugues Aubriot – a man of considerable energy, who had beautified and enlarged the French capital – also interested himself in the Jews. In particular, he brought about the restitution of the stolen and baptized children. For this he was violently attacked by men whose learning should have taught them better. Aubriot, by his orderly administration, had made enemies of the university professors and students, who denounced as criminal his interference for the benefit of the Jews. He was accused before the bishop of Paris of having held intercourse with Jewish women, and even of being a secret adherent of Judaism. He was found guilty of heresy and infidelity, and made to pay with imprisonment for his humane conduct towards the Jews. Not only in Paris, but also in other towns where the people rose against heavy taxation, Jews fell victims to the popular excitement. Four months later, similar bloody scenes were enacted in Paris and the provinces when the rising of the Maillotins (so called from the mallets with which the insurgents were armed) took place. For three or four days in succession Jews were again plundered, ill-treated, and murdered (March 1st, 1381). The king, Charles VII, or rather the regent, attempted to protect the Jews and to obtain some indemnification of their losses. They were, however, unable to recover from the blow they had received. In these tumults the sons of Manessier de Vesoul appear either to have lost their lives, or, at any rate, their position of influence.

      This change in the fortunes of the French Jews brought in its train a violent communal dispute, the excitement of which extended far and wide. The chief rabbi, Matathiah Provenci, had been gathered to his fathers. The communities had elected his eldest son, Jochanan, in his place, and the king had confirmed their choice. He had been in office five years, and was projecting the establishment of an academy, when a former pupil of his father, one Isaiah ben Abba-Mari, arrived in France from Savoy with the authorization of the German chief rabbi, Meïr ben Baruch Halevi, granting to him alone the right to maintain an academy and ordain pupils as rabbis. Whoever exercised rabbinical functions without his authority and, especially, meddled with marriages and divorces, was threatened with excommunication. All unauthorized documents were declared null and void. By virtue of his authority, and in consequence of Jochanan's refusal to subordinate himself to him, Isaiah relieved him of his office (about 1380–1390). The Vesoul family being extinct or having lost prestige, Jochanan СКАЧАТЬ