good maybe post haskalah will be more mystic than IOTL
especially since the Cairo Genizah is being studied at Or Tamid and was IOTL influential in the Conservative Movement
What if Jerusalem had assented to the 1538 Sanhedrin.
- Thread starter jacob ningen
- Start date
al shagara zaydaniye
So this is my attempt at a Zaydani battle standard - the calligraphy at the top is from Sura 3:146 and is usually translated either to "God loves the steadfast" or "God loves the patient." Those of you with better graphics skills and software than me, can I trouble you to clean up the discolored patches in the olive tree? (ETA: substantially fixed but still some stray pixels.)
Last edited:
Unfortunately I can't take credit for the calligraphy - I used a standard Diwani font. (I can read and write the Arabic alphabet, but the less said about my penmanship the better.)
same here. Although in my opinion ive found my penmanship in cursive hebrew and arabic are better than English print.
My cursive Hebrew is also better than my English - it's at least readable. My father's Hebrew writing is amazing - he used to make illuminated ketubot (the one below is mine).
Looks great, thanks! It will fly again next to the Yishuv flag (post 97, courtesy of @ramones1986 ) in the not-too-distant future.
Last edited:
SECOND ACT MARCH 1805
SECOND ACT
MARCH 1805
MARCH 1805
“Monsieur de Champagny has read the draft of your answers,” said Commissioner Duplessis, “and he is quite pleased.”
“And his Majesty the Emperor?” asked David Sinzheim.
Duplessis’ face betrayed the thinnest of smiles. “If the Interior Minister is pleased, then the Emperor is pleased.”
Sinzheim, too, allowed himself to smile. The draft had been the product of much work – debates in the committees, long hours in libraries drafting briefs to support the answers, late-night meetings with the Interior Ministry commissioners to discuss language that might cause trouble. Doing all this, and managing factions all the while, hadn’t been easy, and especially so with the other Sanhedrin in the background, although there were moments in the committees when its envoy Netanel had proven useful.
But the work was done now, fourteen answers to eighteen questions. And in a few more days, those answers would be passed into law.
“I expect that we’ll vote on it in a week,” he said. “Tomorrow is Purim eve, after Purim it’s the Sabbath, and the delegates will need a day or two to read everything through. So next Wednesday – we’ll have the first reading in the morning, and take the vote at the end of the day if Monsieur de Champagny wants to attend.”
“Why should it take so long? Read it out and take the vote, what more is there to do?”
For a moment, Sinzheim didn’t understand, and then he realized what the commissioner must mean. He hadn’t planned on there being an extensive floor debate – he, Vita and Furtado had already arranged for the Bonapartists and the other sensible men to reserve most of the floor time, and the clerk had been warned to rule anything subversive out of order – but surely there was no harm in letting everyone have a chance to speak and giving the delegates who hadn’t been assigned to the committee an opportunity to state minor reservations or add their interpretive gloss? What parliament, what high court, didn’t have debates?
“Are you saying,” he asked carefully, “that there should be no debate on the floor?”
“I’m saying that it isn’t necessary. The Interior Minister is pleased with the draft, and he’d like it to pass with a minimum of fuss.”
And if that’s what the Interior Minister wants, that’s what the Emperor wants hung unspoken in the air. Duplessis hadn’t actually forbidden speeches on the floor, but his meaning was clear enough.
“There will be no fuss,” Sinzheim answered – not a promise as such, but his meaning, too, was clear. He would assemble the committee chairs and faction leaders later and tell them. Furtado, he knew, would understand. He wasn’t as sure about some of the others.
_______
At his opening speech, Sinzheim had told the people that 1805 would have two Purims. There were in fact four. Purim Katan fell in the first month of Adar and Purim itself in the second; Shushan Purim was the day after, and because Shushan Purim coincided with the Sabbath, the day after that was Purim Meshulash.
Carel Asser and his cronies took over the Au Rocher de Cancale tavern on the evening that Purim Meshulash began. Shushan Purim and Purim Meshulash were traditionally celebrated only in Jerusalem, but Asser shouted “Paris is our Jerusalem!” and in the interest of celebrating and getting drunk, the young men, even the steady Mayer, had joined him. By an hour after sunset, they were deep into the private stock of kosher wine that they’d laid in with the taverner weeks since; they shared both wine and hamantaschen freely with the barmen and cooks, and they sang and prayed.
The elders of the Sanhedrin might have been astonished at how closely they followed the traditional service at first. But as full night fell, their songs grew raucous and their prayers angry and satirical. Asser had supported the Paris Sanhedrin when he’d first come to Paris, but his exclusion from the committees had been a blow, and the emptiness of the open sessions,where the discussion was confined to reading letters of greeting from abroad into the record and setting the committees’ agendas, had been another. The news today – that there would be no floor debate even on the final resolution, that rather than helping to shape the future of the Jews of Europe, he and his cohorts would be relegated to approving the committees’ work in silence, and that there wouldn’t even be a separate vote on each measure – had been the final straw for him, and the more wine was drunk, the clearer it was that the others in the tavern agreed.
Exactly how clear soon became apparent. There was a loud noise as one of the prayers ended, and when Asser turned to the place it had come from, he saw that Mayer – Mayer! – had jumped on a table and was leaping and dancing in a watered silk dress he’d gotten from only God knew where. Nor was the dress the whole of his costume; he’d put on a false beard and a double-peaked hat that Asser suddenly realized was meant to look like Sinzheim’s. And Ottolenghi, who’d never quite got over his time as a Jacobin, also climbed on the table and swept Mayer up in a parody of a country dance, and the onlookers gasped as they saw he was wearing a military coat and hat of the kind Bonaparte favored.
“Esther!” one of the young men cried. “Ahashverosh and Esther! Save us, Queen Esther! Whisper to the king in his bed and save us!”
“Vashti!” called another. “Sinzheim isn’t Esther, he’s Vashti!”
“No, Vashti was the one who refused to whore herself!”
Ottolenghi grinned and tipped his hat, but the debate was never settled; the noise had brought the taverner out of the kitchen, and when he saw how Ottolenghi was dressed, he not merely gasped but froze. He’d come to like the young men of the Sanhedrin, who’d been generous and friendly, but lampooning the Emperor could get him as well as them hauled before the magistrate. “Get out now!” he shouted. “Take off that damned coat and hat and get out! Come back tomorrow when you’re sober, but you’re not staying a minute longer tonight!”
Ottolenghi and a couple of the others looked like they might dispute the taverner's order, but Asser climbed up on a chair, drew the slim sword at his belt, and pointed it to the door. “To the streets, gentlemen! Paris is our Jerusalem tonight!” he cried. And then, good as his word, he leaped from the chair, pushed the door open and went out into the night, and the others followed.
Few passers-by gave them more than a glance as they flowed onto the rue Montorgueil; drunken students and clerks were a spectacle but a common one at this hour, and Mayer had the presence of mind to snatch Ottolenghi’s hat. They still sang, but they no longer prayed; their song now was a poem of the Haskalah, a paean to freedom, that Mayer had put to music a week ago. And their path brought them to the Marais.
Asser hadn’t realized that was where they were going – he hadn’t realized they were going any particular place. But the Marais was near, it was in the direction they’d chosen when they left the tavern, and it was the closest thing Paris had to a Jewish neighborhood. The synagogues were there, as were the hostels where many of them were staying – as was, he suddenly realized, David Sinzheim. They turned a corner and there he was, walking with Vita and Furtado and Segrè and a few of his other henchmen. Netanel bin Saleh from the other Sanhedrin was there too, and so were the Tiberias taverner and the emir’s man from Acre who’d come with him as bodyguards. They were talking – whether they were arguing or planning, Asser couldn’t say, but the anger that had been building all evening suddenly escaped him.
“Vashti!” he called, his voice growing louder as he drew out the single word, ending in a wail of primal rage. “Which king commands you, Vashti?”
Sinzheim couldn’t have known what Asser was referring to, but the shout was loud enough to draw his attention, and he was instantly aware of who had challenged him. “Vashti is not here,” he answered, “and nor should you be. You’re drunk and there’s no business of yours here. Go to bed.”
“I still know Haman’s name from Mordecai’s, so I’m not drunk enough.” Asser took a step toward Sinzheim’s party; the elder rabbi stood his ground, but for the first time, appeared afraid. “And I hear there’s to be no debate at the meeting, so maybe we should have it out now. Do you remember what happened the last time the Sanhedrin debated eighteen questions?”
From the look on Sinzheim’s face, he was surprised that Asser remembered that, but he certainly knew the reference. There had been a dispute in ancient times between the schools of Hillel and Shammai over eighteen points of doctrine, and according to Rabbi Joshua of Ono, that dispute had ended with the Beit Shammai students killing several members of Beit Hillel and standing over the rest at spearpoint during the vote. And Sinzheim looked down from Asser’s face and saw that he, and a few of the other youths who fancied themselves gentlemen, were carrying swords.
At that moment, Asser brought his sword up. He intended only to make an ironic salute, or perhaps to menace Sinzheim by brandishing the blade overhead. But he reckoned without Netanel.
Asser had fenced at the university; Netanel had seen battle, and he took no chances. In the next moment, Netanel drew his own sword from its scabbard and, in a single movement, sent Asser’s blade flying and set his own point at Asser’s belly. A few of the other young men made a step forward, but by then the bodyguards’ swords were also drawn, and they stood implacably between the quarreling parties.
“There are no Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai here,” Netanel said. “That incident is infamous, and if you repeat it, so will you be.” But he turned to Sinzheim and said, “nevertheless, they’re right. The Sanhedrin never takes its decisions without debate and without preserving the dissents – there have been many times when those dissents were adopted later. And besides, what if the vote fails? It isn’t just these men who are dissatisfied – we were talking just now about how many conservatives might withhold their votes over the marriage clauses or the denial of the people Israel.”
“Champagny doesn’t want a debate,” Sinzheim said – suddenly, somehow, this had become a conversation between him and Netanel. “He wants us all to acclaim Bonaparte. And if that’s our hope for the future, are we supposed to give it up for the sake of heaven and a drunkard from Amsterdam?”
“For a drunkard from Amsterdam, maybe not,” said Asser, “but for heaven and for our freedom, yes.”
Furtado bristled. “Our freedom is in Bonaparte’s hands, you whelp…”
“How much would Champagny like it,” said Netanel, “if the vote failed? How would Bonaparte look if his Sanhedrin fell apart?”
“Then what do we do?” Sinzheim’s voice was much lower, resigned now rather than indignant. “We risk angering Bonaparte if we have a debate, we risk angering him if we don’t…”
“Champagny didn’t forbid a debate, did he? There are debates and debates, and there are ways to make an argument that will be more pleasing to Bonaparte than others. And I think there is also a fifteenth answer you can give, and maybe it might mollify him…”
_______
“I call the vote,” said Vita, the Av Bet Din; Segrè, his colleague, seconded, and the delegates seated in a semicircle around the dais thundered their approval. The clerk ruled the motion in order, and the recording secretary began reading the first of the resolutions.
Sinzheim reclined in his seat, finally able to breathe after the hours of argument. The spectators who’d filled the Hôtel de Ville that day had certainly got their money’s worth; the debates had been stormy, two resolutions had been amended on the floor, and there had been an hour’s pause while the nationality clause was withdrawn and rewritten altogether. But every speech from the opposition had been met with an answer – Furtado, especially, had been masterful – and the other amendments and attempts at disruption had all gone down to defeat. And as Netanel had counseled on the night of Purim Meshulash, even the dissenting speeches had been filled with praise for Bonaparte and declarations of patriotism. And in cases where true chaos threatened, parliamentary procedure had told. The session had not been the orderly demonstration of submission and compliance that the Emperor and the Interior Minister had wanted, but perhaps it would do.
“The first resolution has been read,” intoned the clerk. “Say you aye or nay?”
“Aye,” Sinzheim called, rising from his seat and joining the chorus from the benches. It was almost done.
_______
BE IT RESOLVED by the Grand Sanhedrin of Paris on the twenty-first day of March 1805, being also the twentieth day of Adar II in the 5565th year of the creation of the world:
1. That this body is the Grand Sanhedrin of the French Empire and constitutes a legal assembly vested with the power of passing ordinances in order to promote the welfare of Israel and inculcate obedience to the law. Like the Great Sanhedrin of Palestine, it has legal authority over the Jews of the French Empire, the Italian Republic, and such other countries of Europe as may acknowledge its jurisdiction.
Some have questioned the use of the name “Sanhedrin” for this body; however, what this assembly is called is secondary to what it is. In every generation, the Jews of the Holy Land and the Diaspora, not excluding France, have convoked assemblies to administer the community and judge of the laws. This body harkens back not only to the ancient Sanhedrin of Israel but to the Talmudic academies and yarchei kallah of Babylon, to the rabbinic synods of the Rhineland, and to the proceedings of the Hachmei Provence.
This is a time of great change and great promise for the Jews of France, who have been uplifted under the benevolent rule of the Emperor Napoleon, and in such a time, the guidance of a legal assembly is needed. The rabbis and laymen of past times have risen to such occasions and so shall we, for as long as the need exists.
(Passed by voice vote; request for roll call refused and recorded by the clerk as having passed by acclamation. Dissenting opinion circulated on the floor but not published in the record.)
2. That rabbis may receive their authority by a number of methods that have grown up in law and custom, and must demonstrate knowledge of the laws of Israel and irreproachable character. If they meet the qualifications laid down in the Oral Law, they may give opinions on legal matters and serve as judges within the community, being themselves subject to judgment should they violate the laws.
(Passed by acclamation.)
3. That while rabbis have an overarching responsibility to minister to the Jews and to ensure that their congregations live according to the laws of Moses, they are also citizens of the state and are duty-bound to counsel obedience to its laws.
(Passed 57-14; concurring and dissenting opinions recorded.)
4. That as the sages of ancient times counseled, it is appropriate for rabbis to be educated in the arts and sciences, to be widely read, and to speak several languages in addition to learning the laws of Israel.
(Passed 66-5; concurring opinion recorded.)
5. That every Jew is religiously bound to consider his non-Jewish fellow citizens as brothers, and to aid, protect, and love them as though they were coreligionists.
(Passed by acclamation.)
6. That every Jew is to consider the land of his birth or adoption as his fatherland, and shall obey its laws and defend it when called upon.
(Passed by voice vote; request for roll call refused, and recorded by the clerk as having passed by acclamation. Concurring opinion with reservations circulated on the floor but not published in the record.)
7. That Jews are citizens of the countries in which they live and must honor the obligations thereof; however, as this body is unable to agree on what a nation may be, it cannot say whether Jews are a distinct nation or people.
(Passed 40-31; concurring and dissenting opinions recorded.)
8. That the Great Sanhedrin of Palestine enjoys universal respect among Jews, that its authority within the Holy Land is unquestioned. By its own acknowledgment and practice, however, it serves as a court of law only in the Holy Land. Moreover, while its opinions on matters of law and custom are not to be discounted, they are not binding upon the Jews of France should they contradict French law or should the rabbis of France reject them.
(Passed 42-29; concurring and dissenting opinions recorded.)
9. Polygamy is forbidden to Jews in France under the ancient decree of Rabbi Gershom ben Judah.
(Passed by acclamation.)
10. That marriages between Jews and Christians are binding under the civil law, although they cannot be celebrated with religious forms.
(Passed 38-33; concurring and dissenting opinions recorded.)
11. That divorce is permitted under the laws of Israel; however, where marriage and divorce are regulated by the civil law, Jews are bound to observe those regulations.
(Passed 55-16; dissenting opinion recorded.)
12. That Judaism does not forbid any handicraft or occupation, and that it is favored for Jews to work at all useful trades, as they did in ancient times and as they do in the Holy Land today under the guidance of the Great Sanhedrin of that land.
(Passed by acclamation.)
13. That Jews may serve in the military forces of France if they are called or if they volunteer, and that nothing in the laws of Israel forbids such service. However, Jews who so serve their nation should not be required by reason of such service to deny their faith or violate the commandments thereof, save those that the sages allow to be transgressed when required by the exigencies of war.
(Passed 49-22; concurring and dissenting opinions recorded.)
14. That Jews may not exact usury either from other Jews or from gentiles.
(Passed by voice vote; request for roll call refused and recorded by the clerk as having passed by acclamation. Partial dissent circulated on the floor but not recorded.)
15. That this body shall appoint a committee to advise the Emperor and the Interior Ministry concerning the organization, regulation, and institutions of the Jewish community of France and, if the Emperor so desires, the Jewish community of the Italian Republic.
(Passed by acclamation.)
_______
Sinzheim closed the Sanhedrin with a speech that was as hopeful as the one he’d given five weeks earlier, and as he named the members of the committee that would advise the government going forward, he expressed confidence in a bright future. The Jews of France, he said, were joined to France now, and would be forever.
Only those who knew him well might have detected the notes of apprehension in his voice, or perhaps not even them; he was a masterful speaker.
Champagny, departing from the gallery a few moments later, made no secret of his apprehension. He’d been warned, at least, but this was not the way he’d planned for the Sanhedrin to end. The Emperor had tamed the parliaments of France and Italy, and this would remind him of the chaos of the Revolution and the Directory, and what would foreign princes say about a country whose Jews alone were untamed?
But the Emperor, that night in the study where he’d begun the project of the Sanhedrin months since, was more pleased than not. The Jews of Germany, and maybe even Poland, could be very helpful to him in the war that all his advisors agreed would begin by summer, and a display of freedom might be more convincing to them than a mere statement of it. And it had been satisfying to hear that nearly all the speeches, both from the majority and in dissent, had been couched in patriotic language. Whether the Jews truly supported him or whether they simply feared what would happen if they didn’t, the outcome was the same. He had a declaration that joined the Jews to the French state and abjured their most objectionable practices; wasn’t that what he’d wanted?
There was unfinished business, though; there certainly was that. He was glad for the permanent committee, because he intended to put before it a constitution for the French Jews – a charter that would organize the community into consistories, put the management of synagogues and the appointment of rabbis into the hands of reliable men, and establish the national seminary that had been in the back of his mind ever since he’d been told of the Or Tamid.
There would be a war to fight first. But after that, there was unfinished business.
Last edited:
So this closes out the Napoleonic Sanhedrin - the first one, at least - and the coming updates will move from that to the aftermath and from theological argument back to the wider world. I'm planning either two or three updates to cover 1805-07 in Europe, after which the story will jump to 1810-15 and complete the arc in both Europe and the Levant.
amendments debate revision. Voting without revision has only happened once in Jewish mythohistory(Sinai). On the other hand Dupleiss and Napoleon are probably trying to prevent another Tennis Court Oath moment. Also shades of Disputations of Barcelona Paris and Toulouse of not wanting debate but submission.
you didnt want a Sanhedrin you wanted a Herod. A Sanhedrin always debates and revises. shades of
brisker art of Gricean hermeneutics or the dialogue of the unsaid
ah Purim and political satire name a more iconic duo.
on Purim? luckily they'll avoid the accidental murder of the sages.
Buber's monologue disguised as dialogue
standard contract severability clause.
on the other hand the religious prenups should be interesting(not christians but Karaites in this article https://www.thetorah.com/article/control-the-calendar-control-judaism)
can you dm me the dissents. actually given the creative work of creating the majority opinions its not needed.
this reminds me of the Volozhin debate is the Or Tamid more like Cologne and Paris and Oxford and Al Azhar or more like Volozhin originally.
IMO the disputation with the Ramban at Barcelona was a bit different from Paris and Tortosa in that regard, but you're right about what Napoleon wanted. Both IOTL and ITTL, Napoleon believed that the best role for any governmental body that wasn't him was as a compliant rubber stamp. At this point, his parliaments were pretty thoroughly neutered and (correct me if I'm wrong) rarely even met anymore. He wanted a submissive Sanhedrin, which IOTL he got, and ITTL he didn't quite.
That raises the question of what made the difference - IOTL, the Assembly of Notables was able to keep its debates pretty firmly in camera, and although Asser was disappointed when told that the Sanhedrin would have no debates, he didn't try to force the issue at swordpoint. The different outcome ITTL is partly due to the Napoleonic Sanhedrin being called earlier and in more haste, but I'd say it's mostly due to the Sanhedrin of Palestine. The very existence of an assembly where rabbis are having contentious debates about faith and custom and are disagreeing in public about how to adapt to modernity could be enough, even if mostly unspoken and in the background, to make the Paris Sanhedrin delegates want the same.
Napoleon ITTL was thus in the unfortunate position of Louis XVI or the Stuart kings of England - he wanted something that required a parliament to do legitimately, and had to call one at the risk of it getting away from him. Which it could have - I could easily have written the whole thing collapsing. But Sinzheim is an excellent politician - this is unmistakably clear IOTL both from his leadership of the Paris Sanhedrin and his career afterward - and Netanel would prefer the Sanhedrin to succeed in a way that limits its jurisdiction than fail in a way that leads to more blatant and unbounded assertion of state authority over Jews everywhere, so it didn't.
This is Napoleon we're talking about. He fancied himself a Caesar, so a Herod is exactly what he wanted. And while he'll have to live without having one for the moment, this doesn't mean he won't try again.
Once Purim collides with modernity, the symbolism can go all kinds of ways.
lol
Yup - and remember that the Yishuv ITTL is having to define its relationship with both the Karaites and the Samaritans earlier than IOTL. They'll mostly follow the precedents set in Egypt, where, as the article mentions, Rabbanite-Karaite marriages were governed by contract - the earlier research into the Geniza will be very illuminating in that regard. But the briefs compiled by the Paris Sanhedrin in support of this resolution might also be influential. This is one area where the Paris Sanhedrin might establish some genuinely ground-breaking procedures.
If I actually wrote out all the dissents, I'd be here until... well, I don't need to tell you how rabbis argue, so you know how long I'd be here. As you say, though, the dissents can be inferred from the majority opinions. Also, there may be references to some of the dissents in future updates.
The Or Tamid is modeled pretty consciously on al-Azhar as well as the Babylonian academies. The Bonapartist yeshiva, however, will be closer to the path of Volozhin, and could become an interesting mess, especially since it will face pressure to become a Restorationist yeshiva, then an Orleanist yeshiva, then etc. etc. In any event, I think we're beginning to see how the emancipation bargain in Europe ITTL is diverging from OTL, and that will affect the future of European Jews and the Yishuv both.
Last edited:
That's amazing! How did you do it?
I'm not sure how readable it is (especially with the added stylistic flourishes to make it look more like a tree), but here's an attempt at the original calligraphic concept.
I'm a bit confused......what role does exactly Or Tamid Yeshiva play among the Yishuv?
Is mandatory ITTL to attend Or Tamid to become a Rav or Haham? Or for being admitted as a Sanhedrin member? What about ordinary semikhot to become a common rabbi?
And are there any yeshivot other than Or Tamid in Eretz Israel, bearing in mind that different schools of thought coexist side by side? Should a hardline Yerushalmi who wants to become a posek share desk and classroom with Dror Daim followers?
It's very interesting to follow TTL chain of events that is apparently leading to a more uniform (but diversity-friendly) interpretation of Halakha.....however, sometimes I lose track due to so many intricacies....
OTOH, Spinozist-pietist Acre School looks like it has many common features with OTL Chabad Hasidism. I fancy the effects of some sort of blending of that "quasi heretic" modernist lay movement into the Wadi Ara tzabarim and a new input of Olim from the Pale.....
Is mandatory ITTL to attend Or Tamid to become a Rav or Haham? Or for being admitted as a Sanhedrin member? What about ordinary semikhot to become a common rabbi?
And are there any yeshivot other than Or Tamid in Eretz Israel, bearing in mind that different schools of thought coexist side by side? Should a hardline Yerushalmi who wants to become a posek share desk and classroom with Dror Daim followers?
It's very interesting to follow TTL chain of events that is apparently leading to a more uniform (but diversity-friendly) interpretation of Halakha.....however, sometimes I lose track due to so many intricacies....
OTOH, Spinozist-pietist Acre School looks like it has many common features with OTL Chabad Hasidism. I fancy the effects of some sort of blending of that "quasi heretic" modernist lay movement into the Wadi Ara tzabarim and a new input of Olim from the Pale.....
Last edited:
Think of Or Tamid like al-Azhar. It's the establishment school - it's subsidized by the Sanhedrin (and probably, by this time, the state as well), its semicha [1] is the most prestigious, its legal opinions carry great weight and are usually deferred to by courts and the government unless there's a good reason not to do so. OTOH, it isn't the only yeshiva, nor is it the only valid source of semicha (there are plenty of hahamim with unbroken chains of authority who aren't part of it) - and remember that this is also a time when it was possible to lead a congregation or even be a posek without having a formal rabbinical title. [2] The professionalization of the rabbinate was just getting started at this point, ironically with the French consistories. Anyone who teaches at the Or Tamid is considered qualified as a posek, but there are poskim who don't.
Also, while the Or Tamid's teachings and personnel are heavily weighted toward the "center," it does try to be open to all the schools of thought that fall within the mainstream of Judaism - the Spinozists of Acre are a step too far but the Dor Daim are just within the line. And there are political and dynastic considerations as well - the school isn't going to refuse an applicant whose name is Karo or Benveniste, for instance, nor will it say no to a grandson of the Maharitz even before he marries the nagidah.
As I've mentioned before, one can't expect 18th-century institutions to have neat categories or tidy administration. And that does make it easy to lose track sometimes - it was a complaint at the time.
[1] I think I've transliterated that word at least four different ways just in this thread.
[2] The story about the Chofetz Chaim only getting semicha as an old man is disputed, but the fact that it's plausible says all that needs to be said.
Yes - one of its roots is Judah the Pious's, well, pietism, so it draws from some of the same forerunners as Chabad, and it also has Chabad's openness to the world. It's obviously more influenced by the Haskalah than Chabad is - I'm pretty sure that R. Shneur Zalman wouldn't be flattered if compared to them - but it has features (including its heavy Polish influences) that will make it attractive to immistrants in the post-Napoleonic period.
Last edited:
RAVES AND PANS 1805-1807
RAVES AND PANS
1805-1807
1805-1807
“You have the name of one of my sons,” said Mayer Amschel Rothschild to Sous-Lieutenant Nathan Mayer.
“Almost,” Mayer answered, although it wasn’t true; the names themselves might be the same, but the gulf between Nathan Mayer and Nathan Mayer Rothschild was greater than that between the earth and the stars. “But I’m sure, sir, that that isn’t why you asked to meet with me.”
“No, young Mayer, I won’t waste time pretending.” There was no reason why the patriarch of the Rothschilds would invite a sous-lieutenant from an occupying army – even one who had been a notary from a good Alsatian Jewish family – to share cigars and port, except…
“The Sanhedrin, of course – Napoleon’s Sanhedrin, that is. You were a member of it, I understand? That would be a good thing for me to know about, now that we in Frankfurt may become subject to it.”
“I was a member of the Sanhedrin as I am now a French officer – in the most minor way possible.”
“Very good, young man.” The old banker laughed, and his stern, narrow face was suddenly natural. “But still, you were there, and though I have my sources, I was not. And before the unpleasantness broke out, you were back in Strasbourg, and no doubt you observed the effect of Bonaparte’s usury decree?”
“Yes, sir.” So that was Rothschild’s concern – he should have figured. Napoleon had followed up the Sanhedrin’s ban on usury by issuing a civil decree annulling many debts and requiring Jewish bankers to obtain licenses. “It was the small money-changers who lost their businesses. The large bankers, the ones who made loans to the government…”
“So that’s what I’ll have to do? Make loans to Bonaparte, at terms that are in his favor? It seems, young Mayer, that a court Jew’s lot changes little from generation to generation, and that there are still to be court Jews no matter what the Emperor says about emancipation, is that not so?”
“I hope not, sir. The decree is for ten years, and is meant to be transitional…”
“And as a notary, you did your best to help your compatriots make the transition? I’m sure there are ways, and since you are in Frankfurt now – I hope temporarily – I would value your knowledge of how my business might best carry on. But Bonaparte, I think, is no different from those before him – he considers us a tricky race, and believes the public needs to be protected from our tricks. He at least offers us emancipation in exchange, but no, at bottom he’s no different.”
“It was the consensus at the Sanhedrin, sir, that our people do need new areas of endeavor. We looked to the example of the Holy Land. On the one hand, we give up usury; on the other, everything else is opened to us.”
“The Holy Land? I have interests there too, young man. And I agree that we were restricted to banking far too long and in far too many places – I daresay I know that far better than you. But those of us who are bankers know only banking. And is it any more right to restrict us from banking than to restrict us from everything but banking? The world would fall apart without banks, young Mayer, whatever the romantics may say about usury.”
“You’re right, sir,” said Mayer – it seemed the safest thing to say, and the old man did have a point.
“It’s a half-measure,” Rothschild answered. “Friedländer, you know, says that half-measures must always fail. He says that we Jews must become like other men, or else we will forever be kept apart from other men – that attempts to be both, like your Sanhedrin, must end badly. Do you agree, Mayer?”
“No, sir. In that, too, we looked to the Holy Land.”
“And so, maybe, should I. My own half-measure, my own transition…” Rothschild leaned forward and poured Mayer another glass of port. “I will take your counsel, while you are here in Frankfurt, on how to navigate these licensing matters. I will pay well for your time – more than a sous-lieutenant earns, I’m sure. And when you go on to fight for the Emperor in other places, I would like you to let me know what ties the Jews of those places have with the Holy Land – what businesses in that land might be best placed to cater to them… I believe, also, that you met with the envoys of their Sanhedrin while you were present at yours?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then you can tell me about that as well. You will not always be in the army, Mayer, and you too might want to look to your transition.”
_______
Congregation Adath Jeshurun of Amsterdam seemed a different place to Carel Asser than it had a year before. He’d thought that the congregation was at the forefront of emancipation, the one that had fought longest and come farthest in making the Haskalah a reality and in forging a role for Jews as free citizens. But in Paris, he felt, all that had been swatted contemptuously aside.
He’d won some concessions, yes. He’d won a floor vote, yes. But that vote had, if anything, moved the Sanhedrin’s declarations farther from the principles that Adath Jeshurun had built. And the disdain the Sanhedrin’s leaders had shown at every turn…
It was bad enough that Bonaparte thought of the Dutch Jews as tools. He’d expected that. But Sinzheim had clearly thought of them – of him – the same way. And now Sinzheim was Chief Rabbi of France, and Carel Asser was a member of an Amsterdam synagogue that would likely soon be incorporated into the consistory system that Sinzheim was building…
“Have you heard the news from Frankfurt?” asked Yehuda Litwak, who’d entered the room while Asser was ruminating, and Asser suddenly felt ashamed of himself – as if he’d spoken his thoughts out loud, and as if he’d been rebuked for a petulant child. “The German states – most of them – are emancipating their Jews.”
“I hadn’t heard, but we’ve all been expecting it, no?” In the wake of the Paris Sanhedrin and the outbreak of war, the German Jews had flocked to support Bonaparte – the Emperor had gambled well, if that were his goal – and citizenship would be their reward. There had been matters to negotiate, most notably the amount of compensation that the German princes would be paid for losing their servi camerae and no longer having Jews as property of the state, but the final outcome had never been in doubt. And now, according to the broadsheet that Litwak spread on the meeting-room table, that outcome had happened.
“The German Jews are celebrating – or they were, when the broadsheet was written. Some of them are calling it Purim. Not Friedländer, of course, but some of them.”
Purim. Asser remembered the Purim night when the dispute over the Sanhedrin had come to a head. It hadn’t been a Purim for him, but for the German Jews, evidently it was.
“When you are a slave,” he said slowly, “any freedom is Purim, is it not?” Maybe that was it. Maybe, to the Jews who lacked the freedoms that Jews had in France, the Sanhedrin, and the French armies that followed in its wake, were salvation. But for the Jews of Amsterdam, who had more freedoms than the French Jews, it was a different story.
The Sanhedrin had set a standard – one that would uplift the Jews that were beneath it, but threatened to reduce those who were above it.
“I think,” he continued, “the next fight will be in our parliaments – what’s left of them – and our courts, to keep ourselves separate from France.” Bonaparte had made Holland a vassal of France, but it hadn’t made Holland part of France, and there was still a separate Dutch law to which Jews could appeal for their status.
And he, Asser, was a licensed advocate in the Dutch courts. Maybe he could fight Sinzheim more successfully there than he had that night in Paris.
Petulance be damned; there was work to be done.
_______
Henri Rottembourg walked into the Emperor’s tent a major and came out a colonel.
“It’s well deserved, Colonel, very well deserved,” Napoleon said, handing Rottembourg his new insignia. “You were magnificent in the battle yesterday. And” – he smiled – “you were fortunate to be magnificent where I could see you.”
“I should hope so, vôtre majesté.” Any officer of the Imperial Guard fought in the Emperor’s presence, and inheriting command of a battalion two hours into a battle was a good way either to be noticed or to be disgraced. For Rottembourg, yesterday on the field of Jena, it had been the former.
“And that lieutenant, Mayer, is one of yours too, isn’t he?” Without waiting for an answer, Napoleon held out another set of insignia, those of a captain. “You can present these to him with my compliments.”
“I will, vôtre majesté.” Rottembourg hesitated for a moment, wondering whether to take the Emperor’s time with a story about a mere lieutenant, but decided to tell it. “The men call Mayer the cannoneer – he’s quiet and studious, so they think he belongs in the artillery. But yesterday, vôtre majesté, he was a cannonball.”
“So I was told. He was in that Sanhedrin of mine, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, vôtre majesté, he was.” Rottembourg was astonished – it was true that the Emperor made a point of knowing all the Guard officers’ names, but recollection of such a detail about an officer as junior as Mayer was quite a feat of memory.
“I hope he’s a better swordsman now than then.”
“I think that was another man, vôtre majesté. But yesterday, he wielded his saber well.”
“Very good.” Napoleon leaned forward. “You know, Rottembourg, I had several reasons for that Sanhedrin business. One was to get the help of the German Jews, and maybe soon the Polish ones. Another was to increase the number of men like Mayer, and like you. French soldiers – Frenchmen.”
Again, Rottembourg was astonished – not so much at the sentiments, which Napoleon had expressed before in public and which were no doubt not the whole of his reasons, but at the way that, in private, he’d made them personal. It wasn’t usual for the Emperor to unbend this much to his majors, or even to his colonels.
“But this will have to be farewell for a time,” Napoleon continued, and Rottembourg suddenly knew the reason for the Emperor’s compliment. “I’m sending you and Mayer to the 108th, under Friant. He needs officers. And he was in Egypt with me, you know.”
He won’t mind getting another Jewish colonel and captain, was what that really meant. But Rottembourg said only “thank you, vôtre majesté.”
“It is I who owe the thanks,” Bonaparte answered, and the new-minted colonel was dismissed.
The drinking began a short time later. The men were happy enough to celebrate Rottembourg’s promotion – he’d led them to victory, after all – and unsoldierly as Mayer was, the troops found him impossible to dislike. Though it was still morning, the men brought out casks of wine, and it wasn’t long before they were singing marching songs, performing the wild Russian dance steps that had ironically become popular in the army, and raising the new colonel and captain to their shoulders and carrying them around the camp.
But from his seat on a sergeant-major’s shoulders, Rottembourg also noticed who wasn’t there. Only one of the other majors had cared to join the celebration; that, at least, might be because they’d hoped to be promoted in his place. But several of the other officers were also missing, and only one of the colonels of the other Guard regiments had come. French soldiers and Frenchmen, the Emperor had said, but it seemed that not everyone agreed.
Then the sergeant-major put him down, a soldier pressed another cup of wine into his hand, and he let himself forget.
_______
No one in the Russian army knew quite what to do with the Chabad regiment.
That there was such a regiment had come as a surprise, although it shouldn’t have. Rabbi Shneur Zalman had preached against Napoleon for years, and after the war broke out – after the Sanhedrin’s fifteen articles, a state rabbinate, and Bonpartist godlessness threatened not only the Jews of Germany but those of Poland and Lithuania – he’d raised donations and recruited young men to fight. But Russian army officers didn’t pay attention to what Jews did, and when two thousand Hasidim had turned up at the front, the apparition of Christ wouldn’t have startled them more.
Well, they’d found a place for the Hasidim in the battle line – they needed soldiers, even these. And keeping them in their own regiment was no trouble – who else would want to serve with a bunch of Zhids? But they didn’t fit. Potemkin’s Izraelovsky Regiment had at least looked like soldiers; these men didn’t, although their black coats and fur hats seemed oddly like a uniform. They had their own cooks who lugged around kosher pots and refused meat from the army stores; they prayed three times a day, on the march even, with that strange swaying rite of theirs; they followed a system of rank and command that only they could understand; and they would fight on their Sabbath but God help anyone who told them to march. Whatever they were, they weren’t Russians – they were an army unto themselves even more than the Cossacks, and they preferred it that way.
But though they weren’t Russians, they fought for Russia, and that proved to be enough. Most of the officers and men in the other regiments despised them, but after the first battle, it was “Christ-killing Zhids, but they fight,” and for that, they’d had a place. For that, they’d had a place in the advance, and in the long retreat.
The generals had hoped to stop that retreat, to hold Bonaparte’s army at the Alle river. For much of the day, it had seemed that they would, but as the shadows grew longer, it became clear that the Russian left was breaking, and once again, the retreat was called. The fifteen hundred Hasidim that were left of the original two thousand, obedient to the bugles and to their leaders, formed square and began to withdraw.
They themselves were still in good order, as were the other regiments on the right of the Russian lines. But their path of retreat didn’t require them to cross the river, and they weren’t the ones trapped against its banks. More and more, the sounds of panic rose from the left, and moments later, their part of the field was full of soldiers fleeing desperately for safety.
“Let them in! Let them in!” called Berel of Grodno, who’d taken command of one side of the square, and the Hasidim opened their ranks to let the nearer of the fleeing soldiers take shelter. A few sheered off, preferring even the uncertainty of a lost battle to a regiment of Zhids, but most who could reach them joined them, adding their numbers to the Jews’ ranks even if only for one time.
“Welcome!” shouted Berel with almost no irony. “The more the merrier!” And it was true – the more guns facing outward from the square, the better the chances to get clear of the French in one piece. “Keep going, keep going, keep together.”
Most of the new men took their places in the ranks, obeying Berel’s unmilitary commands with a trace of amusement, but one suddenly pointed in the direction of the advancing French. “The general!” he shouted. And Berel looked where he was pointing and saw – a Russian general in an elegant uniform, fleeing at the gallop from a pursuing troop of French lancers.
“Idiot,” Berel said. “One of those generals who has to be the last one to retreat.” But he saw that the general was losing ground – it seemed that his horse was nearly spent, and that the nearest of the lancers would soon be on him.
“Idiot,” Berel said again, but he called out for his riflemen – most of the Hasidim were musketeers, but there were a dozen who’d learned somewhere to shoot a rifle, and they’d served the regiment as skirmishers. “Three to a man. The four nearest.”
Twelve shots rang out. Four French lancers fell from their saddles. The others slowed and swerved to avoid the fallen men and runaway horses, and by the time they returned to their pursuit, the general had gained a hundred yards. The lancers saw that their quarry would soon be within musket range of the retreating squares and that they now had no hope of catching him before they got there, and they wheeled to look for other pickings.
The quarry in question looked in the direction from which the shots had come, stared in astonishment, and laughed at the absurdity of God’s creation. But then the general – General Prince Andrei Ivanovich Gorchakov – raised his saber to the Chabad Regiment in salute and rode on.
_______
The day the peace was signed, Colonel Rottembourg called Chef de Bataillon Mayer into his tent and handed him his letter of resignation from the army.
“Have I displeased you?” asked the shocked Mayer, but Rottembourg put his hand on his shoulder and smiled.
“No,” he said, “it’s that our lords and masters have other things for you to do. Can you guess?”
Mayer tried and failed. “No, sir.”
“Well, you were a notary before you were an officer, so you know law. You’ve learned soldiering, that’s plain. And you’ve looked after a few of Rothschild’s interests, so you know something of the money business too…” He put up a hand to forestall Mayer’s protests. “No, no, it’s a good thing rather than otherwise. Because all those things together fit you for diplomacy.”
“A diplomat?” Now Mayer was truly in shock. “Am I to present my credentials at the Tsar’s court and say ‘good morning, Sire, I am Ambassador Zhid?’ Even in the Court of St. James, that would be unheard-of.”
“No, maybe not that. But our trade with Jerusalem and Nablus has been increasing, and we need someone to watch out for us there, and for that, who better?” Rottembourg held his hand up again. “Before you say no, think that in peacetime you’ll molder. We both know that without battles where you can distinguish yourself, promotion will come slow to a Jew if it comes at all. And if you stay, you might also be drafted for that second Sanhedrin the Emperor is planning to ratify his consistories and organic laws. If you found the last one tedious, imagine the next.”
Mayer hadn’t found the Paris Sanhedrin entirely tedious – it had, in many ways, been formative, and he still remembered the night he’d played the part of Queen Esther and it had almost come to battle. But yes, he understood what Rottembourg meant. And being consul to the Tuqans in Nablus and Jerusalem… if nothing else, that wouldn’t soon grow dull.
“You could do well there – a few discreet letters to Rothschild, no? And if you make yourself useful, there could be other posts. New posts can be made in the diplomatic corps more easily than in the army.”
He pushed the letter toward Mayer, laid a pen down next to it, and Mayer signed his name.
And so Mayer traveled to Venice with an army wagon train, and from there took ship to Ashdod. The new port at Ashdod, a mile or two north of the ancient one, had opened only this year; the city that had grown around it, five parts Muslim to four Jewish and one Christian, had an unfinished look. Like many travelers, Mayer stayed at Isdud village a short distance inland, though he let a guide show him the ancient ruins for half a piaster and remained in port long enough to post a letter.
From there, Jerusalem wasn’t far, and the Zaydani had joined with the Tuqans to improve the road, so the journey was an easy one. He made the trip in a single long day, riding out before dawn and climbing from the coastal plain into rolling hills, and reached the Jaffa Gate as the sun was setting. And as he’d arranged, Haim Farhi, the Tuqans’ man of business, was waiting just inside with his retainers and family.
In another world, Mayer would have remembered that moment as his first sight of the streets of the Holy City. But that world was cut off in an instant, before it could begin. In this world, for the rest of the long life that the Name would grant him, Mayer would remember this as the first time he saw Sarah.