Season 1: Episode 18 - The Origins of Spain

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Tolkien said, I believe that legends and myths are largely made of truth, and indeed present aspects of it that can only be received in this mode. And long ago, certain truths and modes of this kind were discovered and must always reappear. And I am attempting to tell a story that can help the truth reappear in a form that can speak to you where you are, connect you to the past, and take you to the future of which we dream. because I'm Rav Mike Foyer and this is The Jewish Story. Episode 18 The Origins of Spain So at the end of the last episode we actually left off at the 10th century the height of the Gaonic period. But in order to tell the story of Spanish Jewry we're going to have to go back in time.

And the only question is how far? in the Sefer Kabbalah the book of tradition written by Rebbe Avram Ibn Da'ud in mid-12th century Spain he writes a tradition exists within the Jewish community of Granada that they are from the inhabitants of Jerusalem of the descendants of Judah and Benjamin and not from the outlying villages and towns in the districts of the land of Israel and in order to prove this he quotes the following verse from Ovadia 1.20 And this exiled host of the children of Israel who are with the Canaanites as far as Zarephath and the exile of Jerusalem, which is in Sfarad shall inherit the cities of the Southland. And that use of Sfarad because today in modern Hebrew, Spain of course is Sfarad and if you're from Spain you are Sfaradi that usage is an attempt to identify Spain within the biblical narrative.

It's critical to understand that when the Jews of the Iberian Peninsula identify themselves through this verse from Avadya this is way more than just a foundation myth. It's more than the attempt to prove the antiquity of their community and it's more than an attempt to attach themselves to a nobility of ancestry even though as we'll see as our story progresses the Spanish Jewry really sees themselves as the nobility of Am Yisrael. This is a new type of tool for transforming the unknown of exile into the familiar territory of the Jewish story. So let me explain. The identification with Svarad in the verse of Ovadia maintains a link, even if it's tremendously tenuous, with the biblical narrative that's the backbone of our story.

so if post-destruction of the second temple the Jews had found themselves in the Iberian peninsula under the rule of the Visigothic tribes then, truth is, they'd have been completely off the map because neither Iberia or the Visigoths are in the text, nor do the rabbis know anything about them but, if the Jews find themselves in Svarad under the rule first of Edom which is Christianity in the rabbinic mind and then under the rule of Ishmael, which is Islam in the rabbinic mind, then, even though a new chapter has begun in our story, it's still the same story. So the power of legend is the ability to transform our present into a continuity with the past. In the last days of the Western Roman Empire, the Jews of the Roman province of Hispania were struggling under the rising power of Christianity, just as were all the Jews of the Mediterranean Basin but they were part of the Roman Empire when Rome was sacked and the final emperor of the West abdicated in the year 476 of the Common Era the Jews were left like driftwood on the shores of Hispania that province at the edge of the high tide of the empire from its heyday and under whose rule did they find themselves?

the Visigoths. They were a Germanic tribe who had, like many other tribes, who spilled over from northern Europe in the 3rd and 4th century, had conquered the Iberian Peninsula from Roman rule in around the 5th century, originally baptized in the heretical Aryan form of Christianity. You can go back and listen to the podcast on that. But, because of that, the Jews in the beginning actually felt little change in their transition from Roman to Visigothic rule. They were Roman citizens, and actually under Visigothic law were treated as such. However, in the year 587, Rechard, the Visigothic king of Iberia, converted to Catholicism, and things went downhill quickly. Because in addition to being the first Visigothic king to become a Catholic, he was also the first king to pursue an active anti-Jewish policy.

now in order to understand why it's critical to remember this stage of history Christianity itself was still in the midst of an ongoing struggle of how to relate to the Jews and if we're going to lay out the struggle in brief and really review something we've said before one side of it is embodied by the 4th century church father the Archbishop of Constantinople John Chrysostom now we have his sermons and they're virulently anti-Jewish and his theological position was that religion in general is spread through testimony and that Christianity has many witnesses from the Old Testament prophets to Jesus of Nazareth himself but the Jews have none therefore they are simply not to be believed and that view is in direct opposition to that of Augustin of Hippo who is arguably the most significant theologian in church history and does become indeed the backbone of medieval Christianity and its relationship to the Jews.

Augustine saw the Jews specifically as witnesses to the Christians. He said that they had preserved the books and knowledge of the Bible until the beginning of the Christian era. Therefore, the Jews were significant to Christian history precisely because of their fidelity and their recognition of the truth. and we spoke previously about the fact that this led to a sense in the Church that the Jews must be preserved. So Ricard starts on an anti-Jewish policy. And in the year 612 of the Common Era, King Cisabot of the Visigoths actually orders the forcible baptism of all the Jews in the entire Iberian Peninsula. And this is despite an edict from the Pope himself, which prohibited forced conversions, for the obvious reasons that this is likely not to lead to such fervent Catholics.

It seems that the anti-Jewish view of Chrysostom was holding sway amongst the Visigoths. And in fact, when we look at our primary document from the time, the Visigothic Code, we can see that this is true. This code, published in its full form in 654 of the King Ressus Wint, though it continued to be amended, combines elements of Roman law, Catholic Church law, and German tribal customary law. and it represents one of the most important early European-based laws which had broken from the purely Roman law and integrated, as I said, the tribal customary law with the history of Rome. It also represents, and most importantly for our story, the attempt by the Visigoths to create a unified society and they understood that homogeneity was a necessary precursor to such an effort and thus the problem of the Jews.

Remember, under Roman law, as we've mentioned, Judaism was legally protected, Jews were Roman citizens and lived under the protection of the emperor and therefore was forbidden to interfere with religious practice or Jewish judicial autonomy and this held true in the Iberian Peninsula as well. And though at first the Visigoths continued this practice, it deteriorated as their rule solidified until the last vestige of toleration of Judaism actually evaporated in the year 638, when the 6th Council of Toledo, a church council, reaffirmed the policy that Sissabot had said in 612 of forcibly baptizing all Iberian Jews At this point if you were a practicing Jew it was actually illegal to be in the Iberian Peninsula But not only was there a forcible conversion this council actually declared that the king right to rule was dependent on his working to eradicate Judaism, stating that, I quote, whoever in time shall come to attain the highest authority in the kingdom shall not ascend to the royal throne until he shall have sworn amongst other provisions of his oath not to permit the Jews to violate the Catholic faith.

And the law goes on to state that any king or bishop who fails to prosecute this mission is subject to damnation. This idea is going to come back to haunt us in the 15th century. If you look at the details of the Visigothic Code, there are laws that we're familiar with actually from previous Roman law as well, and the Pact of Omar in Islam, prohibiting Jews from owning Christian slaves it prohibits Jews from testifying against Christians excludes Jews from positions of authority and eventually even outlaws festivals and circumcision but if you want to understand the struggle in Visigothic culture and how it relates to that struggle within Christianity as a whole then perhaps the most interesting law there is what forbids Jews whether baptized or not from testifying in trials and in doing so it frames their testimony in terms of perjury basically saying that the giving of false testimony is exactly identical with Jewish identity this is the theology of Christ's thumb because the Visigothic lawmakers wanted a public sphere that was Catholic it forced them to deal with the Jews as an element that had to be removed from a well-ordered society and things might have gone from bad to worse if the beginning of the 8th century had not carried the wave of Arab conquest that we spoke about in the episode on the Rising Crescent right across the Straits of Gibraltar because the Visigothic state was actually overthrown in 711.

Nevertheless, their 7th century legal code continued to influence Catholic Spain all through the Middle Ages and the suffering that lies at the end of our story culminating in the Inquisition and expulsion of the 15th century is a direct result of the resurgent idea of creating a holy Christian state. But fortunately for now, the Arab conquest of the Iberian Peninsula was an overwhelming victory. The Visigoths folded like a wet towel, and within a matter of years, the Muslim army had conquered the entire peninsula with the exception of the northern kingdoms of Leon and Naval. Now, it's critical to note that their advancing army made use of existing Jewish communities, who, of course, had no reason to regret the defeat of their former oppressors.

This led, by the 12th century, amongst Christian writers to a tradition of Jewish treachery and conspiracy with the Muslim invaders. And that's going to be important to our story, because insofar as the Christians are going to wage a holy war, a crusade, against the Muslims, they will see the Jews as natural targets in that struggle. Now, though the Muslim victory was overwhelming, nevertheless, at first the Muslim rulers formed a particularly thin ruling stratum, while the Christians were the majority of society, along with a number of Jews. And the Christians and Jews, of course, retained their religious autonomy under the Dimi status enshrined in the Pact of Omar. and furthermore it wasn't actually mostly Arabs who crossed the Strait of Gibraltar it was converted Berber tribesmen these are the tribes of North Africa which will play a very important role in the story of the development of Islam in the Iberian Peninsula and these Berbers who again made up the core of the invading force lack the skills to form a state administration therefore pretty quickly despite the prohibitions of Islamic laws enshrined in the Pact of Omar, the Arab aristocracy had to turn to the Christians and Jews to fill the post-administration.

And thus, the Jews flourished in the Muslim province of Al-Andalus. There are very few documentary mentions of the Jews during the 8th and 9th centuries, during the early time of Muslim conquest. One of the few which we have, actually, is a response of Natrona Gaon of Surah, dated to 853. He calls Lucena a city of many Jews, there is not a Gentile amongst you. And this is indicative of the conditions. The Jews were thriving, and they were living in a world unto themselves. So let's get a little sketch of the political development of the peninsula at this point, before we can really get into the heart of the Jewish story. So, until the year 750, Al-Andalus and the rest of the Muslim empire was ruled by governors under the loose control of the Umayyad Caliph whose home was in Damascus however, in the year 750 the Umayyads were overthrown by the Abbasids and they actually fled to Al-Andalus to the Iberian Peninsula, the last remaining princes of their house so Abed al-Rahman who was the survivor of the Umayyad caliph, ruled as a governor, he and his descendants, first as emirs, local rulers, nominally recognizing the Abbasids as caliph.

The first turn toward independent rule began under the reign of Abd al-Rahman II, who came into power in the year 822 of the Common Era. His father had actually subdued most of the provincial revolts, these Berbers that had made up the army that the Arabs used to conquer the Iberian Peninsula, were constantly fighting each other. And his ability to calm those revolts led, of course, to stability and therefore a significant increase in tax revenue. Furthermore, at this time, the Abbasids, who from their base in Baghdad had been stirring up these revolts periodically against the government in Cordoba, which is the capital of Al-Andalus, had serious problems of their own at home, and they could no longer get involved in these covert operations against the Umayyads.

Therefore, Abed took advantage of this peace and prosperity, and he built a court and a bureaucracy modeled after the Khalif in Baghdad. He was the first emir of Kodoba to exchange embassies with Constantinople, with the Byzantine Christian Empire based in modern-day Turkey. And of course, the Byzantine Empire was more than happy to play the game of divide and conquer. and the emir in Cordoba was aiming to transform what had been a provincial capital into an international center of culture and the Jews were going to be a very important part of that process however, at the very same time it was incredible friction between the Muslims and the Christians because in Christian history the year 850 to 859 was the decade of the martyrs of Cordoba those were the years in which the Muslim Qadi the religious court judge ordered the execution of 50 Christians and they were executed on two different types of charges most were accused of publicly insulting the Prophet Muhammad by declaring him to be a liar and a madman and the rest were actually killed for openly preaching Christianity why would such a thing happen at this point?

it seems to me that this wave of martyrdom was the last gasp of the efforts by Christians to hold off the Islamic advance. Remember, at this point, Christians are still the majority population. But not only are they being conquered, they're experiencing waves of conversion. There's always a powerful draw, as we spoke about in the character of Kab a few episodes ago. There's always a powerful draw of the majority culture, particularly when it's so successful. And the territorial battles, the attempt to actually hold off Islam by the sword, were over for now. It's going to take another century or two before the Christian kingdoms to the north are going to be able to whip themselves into enough of a crusading frenzy to begin the Reconquista, the reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula.

However, when it looked into its cultural inheritance, Christianity knew another tool in the struggle for religious supremacy, and that was martyrdom. Most of these martyrs actually it appears invited their execution Some of them walked into the Qadis court and denounced Muhammad to his face or stood up in the main mosque of Cordoba and started to preach the gospel that's not going to end well so, for the rulers of Al-Andalus the transition from emir meaning local subject ruler to caliph meaning an independent kingdom came when Abed al-Rahman III faced a threatened invasion by the Fatimids and the Fatimids were actually a rival Islamic empire that was based in Cairo at the time where the official caliph was in Baghdad Abed figured since the invading Fatimids claimed the caliphate and he himself could therefore claim it in his battle with them and when he was victorious why give it up?

and thus he became the caliph of Cordoba It's important, by the way, just for a little bit of a sense of world history, to note that this is very similar to the split of the Roman Empire into eastern and western halves. Because at this point in history, these world-spanning empires, world such as it is, were impossible to administer. Truly global empires are going to have to wait until the modern age, when communication and transportation catch up with human aspiration. And the irony is, then, by that time, the human aspiration for freedom is what will tear them apart. Nevertheless, the years 929 to 961 mark the first independent caliph of Cordoba, Abed al-Rahman III. And his caliphate will actually last until 1031, when it fragments into independent Muslim kingdoms known as the Taifa.

We'll speak about it next episode. and for the Jews this caliphate is going to prove to be an incredibly rich growth medium for culture in Spain that is actually parallel to the height of the Jewish culture going on in the Gaonic era. Remember we spoke in the last episode that Rav Sa'ad Yagaon who I argued is really the flowering of the fullness of Gaonic culture dies in the year 942 that's in the heart of the caliphate because the caliphate is not just a safe haven for Jews. They weren't just saved from persecution. It's an intellectual petri dish in which whole new forms of Jewish creativity will emerge. I'll give you an example. At its height, the library of the second caliph, Al-Hakam II, was one of the largest known in the world.

It housed at least 400,000 books, Hebrew, Arabic, Latin. So, the beginning of the Jewish story in Muslim Spain really lies with Chazdai ibn Shaprut appointed as the physician to the first caliph Abd al-Rahman III and thus begins a well-known phenomenon the Jewish doctor but Chazdai was not simply a doctor in a world filled with medieval intrigues and factional rivalries he was uniquely trusted by the king just think about it, if the king trusted him when he said, Your Majesty, turn around, drop your pants, I'm going to stick this sharp object in you. And he certainly was going to trust him with his advice. And furthermore, it wasn't just Abed's experience of Chazdai's integrity. It was also not just Chazdai's status as a Jew, and therefore someone who lay outside of the rivalries of the Arab nobility.

It was his wisdom, his proven character, and his vast knowledge in particular of languages. because Chazdeh was fluent in that critical combination of Hebrew, Arabic, and Latin. Latin in particular in the Arab world was essential because no one spoke it, and it was the only way in which they could communicate with the Christian kingdoms around them. So therefore, without ever holding any official title, Chazdeh ibn Shaprut became a key advisor, and ultimately the de facto foreign minister of the Caliphate of Cordoba. He used his skills to receive embassies, arrange alliances, and make relationships with many European powers. I guess, best demonstrated by one example. In the year 965, the Holy Roman Emperor Otto I sent an embassy to the Caliph.

Now, the Caliph was afraid that the letter which these ambassadors carried from the German Emperor might possibly contain statements derogatory to Islam, which if he read it would not only make any negotiation impossible it might actually require him to declare Jihad holy war against the Holy Roman Empire and that's a holy mess therefore he commissioned Chazdai to open the letter and read it and indeed our Jew realized right away that the letter that he held could not be given to the Caliph in an amazing act of diplomacy he then convinced the envoys who held the letter to go back to the Emperor and ask for a new letter with modified contents. John O'Gorza, the monk and diplomat who represented the emperor in this embassy, later wrote in his memoirs that he had never seen a man of such subtle intellect as the Jew Chazdai.

And if you recall from our last episode, it was Chazdai ibn Shaprut who brought independent Torlern into Spain. In the story of the four captives that I told, he was the one that ransomed Rav Moshe ben Hanoch from the pirate Ruhamas and became his patron in establishing a yeshiva in Cordoba which became the center of Torah learning for all of the Iberian Peninsula and in doing this he freed the Jews from their dependence on the Torah which came via letters and messengers from Baghdad. This of course made him rise even further in the eyes of his master because the caliph had devoted his life to gaining independence from the Abbasid capital of Baghdad. And Chazdai, in what is probably his most important attribute, was a lover of the Hebrew language, even beyond its manifestation in Torah.

His patronage of two individuals actually revolutionized the Hebrew language in general, and poetry in particular. The first was Menachem ibn Saruk, the great Hebrew philologist and poet. Yeah, there's that word again. Remember, philology is the study of language through time. And up until this point in history, as we spoke about in the last episode in the time of Rabbi Sa'ad Yagaon, the Jews had never really thought about their language. But now that it had become a language of scholarship and study and not so much a spoken vernacular, the question arose not only of how to understand it, but of where it came from. Now, Menachem had originally found his patron in Hazai's father, Yitzchak. And when the father died, the son used his wealth and his power to encourage Menachem to complete his life's work, a dictionary of the Hebrew language, which was known as Hamach Beret, the notebook.

Hamach Beret was actually the first complete lexicon of the Hebrew language. It contained also some basic rules of grammar. Even though being composed in Hebrew, it didn't fully incorporate the Arabic grammatical analysis and structures. Nevertheless, it was clear to Menachem that there are inviolate laws underlying the Hebrew language. Now you should appreciate that this seemingly obvious assertion is going to have profound consequences in the long run. Because one of the major themes in the story of the Jews of Spain will be the struggle between the emerging philosophical culture and its competition with the traditional narrative. By asserting that the primary text of divine revelation has rules of grammar, Menachem is actually taking a small step toward binding God's hand, because the word of God is subject to grammar.

And apparently, God did not attend Menachem to enjoy Chazda ibn Shaprut's patronage in peace, because soon after the Machbered appeared, it was the subject of a vehement literary attack by another founding pillar of Hebrew literature, Dunash ibn Labrat. Dunash, it seems, was likely born in Fez in North Africa, and in his youth we know that he had been a student of Rav Sa'ajig On in Baghdad, from whom he learned a love for the Hebrew language and a connection to his grammar And when he arrived in Kultava he single revolutionized Hebrew poetry by introducing into it Arabic meter Now he himself was not without controversy, because in addition to incorporating Arabic influence into the sacred realm of the songs of the prophets, he was willing, like his teacher Rav Sa'adjah, to look at the Arabic of the Koran in order to understand Biblical Hebrew.

Remember, Menachem wrote his dictionary in Hebrew, and therefore it was purely self-referential. Dunash, like Rav Saadjah, felt that Arabic as a cognate language was a source of information when Hebrew terms were unclear. But appreciate the challenge here of a religion struggling with a dominant culture. You're saying that we can't understand our sacred texts without reference to the language of theirs. Now, Dunash's attack on Menachem was both grammatical and theological. First of all, Dunash held against Menachem that Hebrew words are based on three-letter roots. Menachem had said they were based on two or perhaps even one-letter roots, but the three-letter root of Dunash is actually the accepted understanding of our day.

But even more critically, Dunash asserted that certain of the definitions in the Machveret were likely to lead the reader to wrong interpretations of the law and proper belief. The dictionary, in other words, according to Dunash, was a gateway to heresy. And this dispute did not end well for Menachem. He was summarily ousted from his home, according to some stories on Shabbat itself, and he lost the support of his patron living out his life in poverty. And who says grammar is boring? so no matter where you hold in the argument or what its source was Dunash and Menachem represent the flowering of the process that we discussed in the last episode that began with Rabsa Adyagon and that is the awakening of Am Yisrael to the depth and critical power of the Hebrew language and it will bring about the rich poetry of Jewish Andalusia that we will speak about in the coming episode now it also awaken the potential danger of a critical approach to sacred texts which in itself will actually become an attack on the lifestyle that's built upon them.

So I'm going to close with one last story from the life of Chazda ibn Shaprut this incredible physician linguist and unofficial foreign minister of the Caliphate of Cordoba and that is his correspondence with the legendary Kingdom of the Khazars. Now, the Kingdom of the Khazars was in reality a powerful trading state that was situated north of the Caspian and Black Seas, which places it basically as a buffer between the Byzantine Christian Empire to the west and the Umayyad Islamic Caliphate to the east. And it's believed that at some point in the 8th century, the royal elite of this kingdom converted to Judaism, which makes it the first independent Jewish kingdom since the destruction of the temple and the only one until 1948.

And we have a set of correspondence between Chazdai ibn Shaprut and King Joseph of the Kaisars. Now, you should know that at this point the historicity of these letters is actually challenged. It's a matter of debate amongst the academics. But it doesn't matter to me because they all agree that Chazdai's letter to the Khazars, was clearly in circulation amongst the Jews of Al-Andalus, not long after his time, whether he wrote it or not. And in this letter to the king, Hazai says that he'd heard rumors of a Jewish kingdom known as Al-Khazar, and he had dismissed them as untrue. But when, I quote, the ambassadors of Constantinople came, and that was in the year 945, with presents and a letter from their king to our king, I interrogated them concerning the matter.

So the ambassadors indeed say to him that what he's heard is true, and they described to him this powerful military kingdom in the headwaters above the Caspian Sea, which is allied with the emperor at Constantinople. And Chazay then writes, when I heard this report, I was encouraged, my hands were strengthened, and my hope was confirmed, therefore I bowed down and adored the God of heaven. so why was this letter so widely distributed at the height of what we know as the golden age of Spain and why would the knowledge of a kingdom of Cazars strengthen the hand of the most powerful minister in Muslim Spain certainly part of it was the ability to reply to the insult of the Christians remember they had been claiming for centuries that the Jews were without a kingdom due to the rejection of Jesus of Nazareth, and therefore an independent kingdom of Jews was a source of great comfort.

But Hasnai lived in an Islamic culture, as did the next few generations of Jews who would read his letter as a source of hope. Furthermore, he lived in a time of peace and prosperity, of cultural fusion, whose fruits, as we will see, will further not only Jewish, but human society. I think the understanding can be found from the fact that Islam offered a place for Jewish religion through the Dimi status, which, despite being second class, was significantly more secure than the official stance of Christianity, whether the powers that be followed Christ's stone's vision or that of Augustine. And furthermore, Arabic culture, particularly in its literary and linguistic aspects, offered a rich new soil in which the creative genius of Israel would strike root, and from which it could draw inspiration.

But, the Islamic Empire, and even its crown jewel of Al-Andalus, could not offer them a home. Remember, the definition of exile is the belief that I am not where I belong. That no matter how good it is here, I'm not at home. I'm not where I'm meant to be. And the idea of a kingdom of Jews living free, of a far-off realm in which we could order the manner of our lives without bowing to the law, culture, or power of others is a theme that will surface many times in many places throughout the Jewish story. In the golden age of Spain, it will be a daydream, a hazy notion at the borders of consciousness that will become progressively more insubstantial as life becomes more secure. But the story of the Jews of Spain is not all made of gold.

and as this stage progresses many of the leaders of Am Yisrael are going to lose sight of where and therefore who they are and unfortunately it's a repeated theme in the Jewish story that when the Jews forget their exile the world around them takes it upon itself to remind them but for the Jews of 10th century Spain such thoughts are a memory of the past and perhaps for the wisest amongst them like Chazda ibn Jabrut a shadow on the horizon of the future because the power of legend is the power of taking the facts and weaving them together into a story which is much bigger than the truth and for now we've entered a truly golden age I just want to thank everybody who helps make this show possible I want to thank all the people who give their hard-earned money to keep this material free and widely distributed.

If you want to join them, I encourage you to go right now to www.patreon.com and you can find my M. Foyer page and hit the donate button. You can do a little bit of podcast support. I also want to thank the folks at the Land of Israel Network for giving me the opportunity to reach such an incredible diversity of hearts and minds. I want to thank Pardes and the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies that's p-a-r-d-e-s dot org dot i-l for giving me the opportunity to touch so many Jews. I want to thank sulomiakosulomiakos.com for being my home you can find me easiest way is at Rav Mike on Facebook and I want to thank you for listening I'm Rav Mike Foyer and this is the Jewish Story