cated the study of the Gospels and of the Koran, as well as the knowledge of their interpretation, and he maintained that the Mohammedans and Christians were both guided in their faith by what they possessed, just as the Jews were guided in their faith by what they possessed."'60 Abu Isa was defeated by the forces of the Caliph at Rai. He himself was killed (755) and his followers were scattered. A sect known as the Isawites survived.61 2. Serene (from Shirin) announced himself as the Messiah about the year 720 c. E. He promised to restore Palestine to the Jews after expelling the Mohammedans. He gained a large following. Isador Pacensis, writing in 750, narrates that many Spanish and French Jews, believing implicitly in the Messiahship of Serene, abandoned their homes and their possessions and set out to meet him. The ruler confiscated their property. Serene was finally captured and haled before the caliph Yazid II. He sought refuge in lying words, saying that he had deliberately planned to mislead and to mock the Jews. The Caliph bound him over to the Jews for punishment. Judging from the Responsum of Natronai Gaon, Serene and his followers violated Rabbinic law, and set at naught many of the traditions originating with the Rabbis, even as the followers of Abu Isa had done.62 3. Yudghan of Hamadan, surnamed al-Rai, the Shepherd, was a disciple of Abu Isa. He himself did not claim to be the Messiah, only a prophet and the forerunner of the Messiah, but his followers hailed him as the Messiah. Little else is known of his life and of his activities. The Yudghanites likewise took issue with Rabbinism on many important laws and practices.63 The second half of the ninth century gave rise to Eldad Ha-Dani, who, though not a false Messiah, brought reports 60 See Friedlaender, "Jewish Arabic Studies," in J. Q. R., New Series, III, p. 240, who correctly traces these views to Islamic influence. 61 Harkavy, 'a nınɔn nınıp, in Graetz, Heb. ed., III, pp. 501–502. 62 Ibid., III, pp. 170-173. 63 Ibid., III, pp. 453-455, 503. of the Lost Tribes, whose restoration was an essential feature of the Messianic saga. Eldad's report was the source of the Prester John legend of the twelfth century. Eldad claimed to come from Eastern Africa, where the tribes of Dan, Asher, Gad and Naphtali lived. Eldad, who traveled extensively, spread the news through Babylon, Egypt and Spain of his discovery of the Lost Tribes, whom he found in Persia, Armenia, Arabia and Chazaria, and of the Bene Moshe, who dwelt beyond the River Sambation. His report was universally credited even by leaders of thought, such as Zemaḥ Gaon and Ḥasdai ibn Shaprut. Abraham ibn Ezra (12 c.) and Meir of Rothenburg (13c.) seem to be the only men who in the Middle Ages doubted Eldad's story. CHAPTER III THE PERIOD OF THE CRUSADES (11–12 c.) A. THE BACKGROUND The terrible tragedies which came upon the Jewish communities of Northwestern Europe in the wake of the successive Crusades-the most devastating in the millennium which followed the destruction of the Temple-find their reflex in the intensified Messianic expectations of the time. The hordes of the First Crusade (1096 c. E.) swept over the Jewish settlements between the Rhine and the Moselle and laid them waste. Especially did the communities of Metz, Speyer, Worms, Mayence, Cologne and Treves suffer at the hands of the plundering, massacring mobs. Some four thousand Jews were slain or suicided. The black terror of those days speaks to us out of the Selihot, Kinnot, and memoirs which have come down to us. Strange to say, the very year 1096-the year of the First Crusade was fixed upon generally as the year of Redemption. 1. Solomon ben Simeon (12 c.), the chronicler of the First Crusade, makes mention of this high hope which was entertained by his contemporaries: "And it came to pass in the year 4856 A. M., the 1,028th year of our exile, in the eleventh year of the 256th cycle (= 1096 c. E.), when we had hoped for salvation and comfort, according to the prophecy of Jeremiah, 'Sing (256 in Gematria) with gladness for Jacob and shout at the head of the nation."1 But it was turned into sorrow and groaning, weeping and 1 Jer. 31.7. lamentation."2 This seems to be the first clear use of Gematria in Messianic prognostication applied to the Roman exile. Heretofore only actual dates and figures, the length of the earlier exiles or verses suggesting timeperiods, were employed. From now on any word or words, however faintly reminiscent of Redemption they might be, are summoned at the behest of Gematria to yield up its secret. The science becomes exceedingly popular, running parallel, no doubt, to its growing popularity in other fields, notably Kabbala and exegesis. 2. Eliezer ben Nathan (12 c.) in his account of the persecutions of 10963 likewise states that the eleventh year of the 256th cycle-1096 c. E.—was looked upon as the Messianic year. The same thought is expressed in his 4:אלהים באזנינו שמענו Selina Time and Time again our soul waited But the end was long delayed and the wound was not healed; 3. That the Messianic hopes centering in the year 1096 were widespread is attested also by a reference in the Lekaḥ Tob-the Midrashic commentary of Tobiah ben Eliezer, a native of Castoria in Bulgaria, written in 1097. On Ex. 3.20 he writes: "And in the year 4857 A. M., that is to say, the year 1029 since the destruction of the second Temple, which is also the twelfth year in the 256th cycle (1), I, Tobiah, son of R. Eliezer, looked searchingly into our divine books and considered the length of our 2 Neubauer-Stern, Heb. Berich. über die Judenverfolgungen während der Kreuzzüge, p. 1. Ibid., pp. 36-46. ♦ Reprinted in Bernfeld's Sefer Ha-Dema'ot, vol. I, p. 207, and Brody and Wiener's Anthologia Hebraica, pp. 223–225. זמן אחר זמן נפשנו חכתה וארך הקץ וארוכה לא עלתה חשבון רנ"ו ליעקב חכינו יָשַׁע בְּעִתָּה קוה לשלום ואין טוב, לעת מרפא והנה בְעָתָה exile, how 'our power is gone and there is none remaining, shut up or left at large; and how all the ends have passed and Redemption is now dependent upon repentance alone, as it is written, 'If thou wilt return, O Israel, saith the Lord, yea return unto me," and again, ‘If thou return, then I will bring thee back, thou shalt stand before Me." We are now looking to the Rock of our Salvation, trusting that even as in the days of Egypt he will now show us wonders."8 4. Benjamin ben Zeraḥ, called Baal Shem, who lived in the latter half of the eleventh century (he speaks of the Temple as already 1000 years destroyed), and who probably witnessed the Crusade, writes in his Seliḥa, m of the taunt which the enemies of Israel hurled at the Jews: "Ye have calculated the times of Redemption and they are now past, and the hope of salvation is over and gone."10 When in place of Redemption the year 1096 ushered in calamity, the faithful ones, never despairing, began to hope that the very disasters would be the "birth-throes of the Messiah." This hope finds frequent expression in the pathetic prayers which have come down to us from that period. 1. Samuel ben Judah (12 c.) in his dirge-Piyyut for אלהי אקראך במחשב the Sabbath before Shabuot beginning which mentions the year 1096 as well as the Council of Deut. 32.36. • Jer. 4.1. 7 Jer. 15.19. We use the version of the Florence manuscript. See the Introduction of Buber to his edition of Lekaḥ Tob, ed. Wilna, 1924, p. 16. • Brody's A. H., pp. 212–215. עתִּי נאלה מניתם ונגמרו ותקות התשועה פסקה והלכה לה 10 Benjamin ben Zerah gives no Messianic year of his own. In his Piyyut for the Sabbath before Shabuot beginning you baby bbas, he quotes from the Letters of Rabbi Akiba, that the world will come to an end in the year 6093 A. M. =2333 c. E.: "Once in the generation of the Flood (did the world come to an end), and again in the year 6093 A. M.". Dr. Günzig erroneously assumes that this refers to the Messianic year, and that ben Zeraḥ is giving an original calculation (see his Die Wundermänner im jüdishen Volke, p. 19). |