Today in Jewish History

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Nisan 11

 

Yahrtzeit of Rabbi Moses ben Nachman (1194-1270), known as Nachmanides, and by the acronym of his name, Ramban. Born in Spain, he was a physician by trade, but was best-known for authoring brilliant commentaries on the Bible, Talmud, and philosophy. In 1263, King James of Spain authorized a disputation (religious debate) between Nachmanides and a Jewish convert to Christianity, Pablo Christiani. Nachmanides reluctantly agreed to take part, only after being assured by the king that he would have full freedom of expression. Nachmanides won the debate, which earned the king's respect and a prize of 300 gold coins. But this incensed the Church: Nachmanides was charged with blasphemy and he was forced to flee Spain. So at age 72, Nachmanides moved to Jerusalem. He was struck by the desolation in the Holy City -- there were so few Jews that he could not even find a minyan to pray. Nachmanides immediately set about rebuilding the Jewish community. The Ramban Synagogue stands today in Jerusalem's Old City, a living testimony to his efforts.

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Nisan 12

 

The Jewish King Chizkiyahu fell critically ill, as recorded in the second Book of Kings, chapter 20. The prophet Isaiah visited Chizkiyahu and informed him that the sickness was a punishment for Chizkiyahu's refusal to have children. Chizkiyahu explained that he'd prophetically seen that an evil person would descend from him, and that's why he hesitated to have children. Isaiah countered: "You have a mitzvah to have children -- let God worry about the rest." Chizkiyahu prayed for forgiveness and God granted him another 15 years of life. The episode illustrates a foundation of Jewish thought: It is up to us to make the appropriate effort, while the result are in God's hands.

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Nisan 13

 

Yahrtzeit of Rabbi Yosef Karo (1488-1575), author of Shulchan Aruch, the standard Code of Jewish Law. Rabbi Karo was forced to flee Spain at the time of the expulsion, eventually settling in the holy city of Tzfat, Israel. His writings in Jewish law include Beit Yosef, an encyclopedic commentary on the Tur (written and refined over 30 years), and Kesef Mishneh, a commentary on Maimonides' Mishneh Torah. Yet Rabbi Karo is best known for his Shulchan Aruch, which covers the gamut of practical Jewish law; almost all Jewish legal discussions to this day stem from this code. Rabbi Karo also had kabbalistic leanings (he was a contemporary in Tzfat of the great Arizal) and he authored a book, Maggid Mesharim, in which he records his discussions with an angel. Rabbi Karo is affectionately referred to as the "Mechaber" ("the Author"), i.e. the rabbinic author par excellence.

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Nisan 14

 

In the Hebrew year 2448 (1312 BCE), the Jews in Egypt offered the Passover lamb, to be eaten later that night at the first Passover Seder. This was an act of great courage, as sheep were regarded as idols in Egyptian society, and the Jews were technically still subject to Egyptian slavery. This was God's way of emphasizing the idea that Egyptian society was in a state of collapse. In times of the Holy Temple, the Passover Lamb would be offered by every Jewish family; many thousands of lambs would be processed and prepared in the Temple during the afternoon hours preceding the Passover holiday.

On this date in 1943, the Warsaw Ghetto uprising broke out. The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest of the Jewish ghettos established by Nazis during the Holocaust. It initially held 400,000 people (30% of the entire population of Warsaw), crammed into a tiny area. In its three years of existence, some 100,000 Jews died of disease and starvation, before the Nazis deported some 265,000 Jews to the Treblinka death camp. When the Nazis decided to liquidate the ghetto, Jewish resistance fighters took action, digging hundreds of bunkers under the houses, connected through the sewage system. The final battle started on the eve of Passover 1943. Some 750 Jewish partisans shot and threw grenades at German patrols from alleyways, sewers and buildings. The Nazis responded with tanks and flamethrowers, rounding up or killing any Jew they could capture. After several days without quelling the uprising, the Nazis ordered the ghetto burned to the ground. The uprising ended after one month; approximately 300 Germans and 7,000 Jews were killed in the fighting. The remaining 30,000 Jews were sent to Treblinka for extermination. Several dozen fighters escaped through the sewers, and a number of these survivors went on to found Kibbutz Lohamei HaGetaot, located near Acco in Israel.

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Nisan 15

 

In the Hebrew year 2018 (1742 BCE), God made a covenant with Abraham, granting him and his descendents the Land of Israel, as recorded in Genesis chapter 15. Abraham lived at a time of widespread idolatry and corruption, and took upon himself the mission of spreading ethical monotheism to the world. In response, God set aside the Land of Israel as a laboratory where Abraham's descendants could create a model society, "a light unto the nations." Unlike other nations who claim land because their army was able to conquer it from someone else, Israel's claim to the land is based on Divine authority. Appropriately, it was also on this date that the angels informed Abraham that a son (Isaac) would be born as his successor (Genesis 18:10).

On Nisan 15 in the Hebrew year 2448 (1312 BCE), the plague of the firstborn struck Egypt, and Pharaoh finally acceded to Moses' request to "Let my people go." That night, the Jews held the first Passover Seder, eating matzah, bitter herbs, and the Passover lamb. The next morning, 3 million Jews left in the Exodus from Egypt, in what is known as the "birth" of the Jewish nation. This event is commemorated each year on Passover, when families gather to eat matzah, recite the Haggadah, and thank God for sustaining our people till this day.

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Nisan 16

 

In 355 BCE, Haman, the villain of the Purim story, was hanged (Esther 7:10). Haman promulgated a decree to annihilate the entire Jewish people, but when the plot was foiled by Queen Esther, Haman and his 10 sons were hanged from the gallows that Haman had originally built to hang Mordechai. As further irony, King Achashverosh appointed Mordechai to replace Haman as prime minister of the kingdom. Haman was descended from Amalek, the biblical nation that is the antithesis of the Jewish message of ethics and morality. On Purim, the Book of Esther is read publicly, and much noise is raised at every mention of Haman's name, symbolically stamping out his memory.

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Nisan 17

 

Yahrtzeit of Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe (1916-2005), the beloved master of ethical (Mussar) teachings in Jerusalem. Rabbi Wolbe was educated in Germany and Switzerland, later spending several years in Mir, where he became a close disciple of Rabbi Yerucham Levovitz and Rabbi Chatzkal Levenstein. Rabbi Wolbe is best known for his discourses on Jewish ethics, published in a two-volume work, Alei Shur. Rabbi Wolbe stressed the importance of self-scrutiny and self-knowledge as a way to achieve one's maximum potential. He also stressed the attribute of self-control -- thinking before speaking, eating in moderation, and concentrating for long periods without distraction.

 

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Nisan 18

 

Yahrtzeit of Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveichik (1903-1993), author of The Lonely Man of Faith, a classic work synthesizing Kantian existentialism and Jewish theology. Born in Poland, he earned a Ph.D. from the University of Berlin, and then settled in Boston in 1932. He became Rosh HaYeshiva of Yeshiva University, and over the course of five decades ordained some 2,000 rabbis. Rabbi Soloveichik descended from the famous Soloveichik Lithuanian rabbinic dynasty -- grandson of Rabbi Chaim Soloveichik, great-grandson of Rabbi Yoshe Ber Soloveichik (the Beis HaLevi), and great-great-grandson of Rabbi Naftali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin (the Netziv).

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Nisan 19

 

Yahrtzeit of Rabbi Menacham Zemba (1883-1943), spiritual leader of the Warsaw Ghetto during the uprising against the Nazis. Though Rabbi Zemba could have been rescued, he elected to remain in the ghetto to help give other Jews spiritual and emotional support. Rabbi Zemba was educated in the Ger chassidic method and gained renown as a great talmudic scholar who wrote more than 10,000 pages of Torah novella. (These manuscripts were torched in the Warsaw Ghetto.) He was offered the position of Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem, but declined, saying that he wanted to go to Jerusalem only as a "simple Jew." In the darkest days of the ghetto, he strove to bring a note of optimism by setting up secret places for Torah study -- in cellars, attics and bomb shelters. In the ghetto, he wrote an entire work on the laws pertaining to the sanctification of God's Name (Kiddush Hashem). During the uprising, while trying to escape a burning building, Rabbi Zemba was gunned down, while holding his 5-year-old grandson. His grave was later re-interred to Jerusalem.

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Nisan 20

 

Yahrtzeit of Rav Hai Gaon (969-1038), the last of the Babylonian Talmudic sages called the "Geonim." Rav Hai Gaon authored a commentary on the Talmud as well as a collection of responsa. He was the head of the yeshiva at Pumbedita, Babylonia, having succeeded his father, Rav Sherira Gaon. The death of Rav Hai Gaon marked the end of Babylon's 800-year reign as the center of Jewish life; the focus was then split between North Africa and Europe, giving rise to the customs of Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jewry.

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Nisan 21

 

In the Hebrew year 2448 (1312 BCE), seven days after the Exodus from Egypt, the Red Sea miraculously split and the Jewish people walked through on dry land. The sea then closed back, drowning Pharaoh and his troops. Till today, the final days of Passover are a special holiday, commemorating the splitting of the sea.

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Nisan 22

 

In the Hebrew year 2488 (1272 BCE), Joshua began a seven-day march around Jericho in anticipation of the Jewish conquest. The Jews circled the walls one time each day, for six days, and then on the seventh day marched around Jericho seven times -- until its walls collapsed amidst shofar blasts. The events are recorded in the biblical Book of Joshua, chapter 6.

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Nisan 23

 

In 1921, Arab mobs attacked Jewish residents of Jaffa and stormed the Zionist Immigration Center, killing 47 Jews. The Arabs used rioting as a political tool: After each outbreak, a British commission of inquiry would pin the cause of the violence on the Arabs' fear of being displaced by Jews. To stop the rioting, the commission would recommend that restrictions be placed on Jewish immigration. In this particular case, the Arabs won the battle -- to scare the Jews out of Jaffa -- but lost the war: The riots spurred Jewish settlement in neighboring Tel Aviv, which left Jaffa nearly devoid of Jewish commercial interests. Again in 1929, rioting caused Jews to leave Jaffa, and before long Tel Aviv had overshadowed Jaffa as Israel's main commercial center.

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Nisan 24

 

In the Hebrew year 2448 (1312 BCE), after crossing the Red Sea, the Jews came to a place called Mara -- literally "bitter," because the water there was bitter. The people complained and Moses miraculously made the waters turn sweet. It was here that God gave the Jews some of the first mitzvot -- the laws of Shabbat and some civil laws -- in anticipation of the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, some six weeks later.

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Nisan 25

 

In 1933, King Christian X of Denmark attended the 100th anniversary celebration of a synagogue in Copenhagen, to demonstrate his solidarity with the Jews. During the Holocaust, King Christian served as a rare example of refusal to cooperate in the murder of Jews. Almost all of the Jews of Denmark survived the war, while those in almost every other Nazi-occupied nation had their ranks decimated. In September 1943, the Nazis decided to deport all Danish Jews to the death camps -- but overnight a rescue organization was established and Danes from all walks of life helped to ferry some 6,000 Jews to safety in Sweden. Remarkably, less than two percent of the Jewish population of Denmark perished -- and Denmark later apologized for sending 19 Jews to concentration camps. One story (probably apocryphal, and popularized by Leon Uris in his book, Exodus) says that King Christian X bravely promised to wear a yellow star if the Jews would be forced to.

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Nisan 26

 

Yahrtzeit of the biblical Joshua, Yehoshua Bin Nun, in 1243 BCE. Joshua was born in Egypt, and he led Israel in the first decisive battle against Amalek (Exodus ch. 17). Joshua was Moses' prime disciple, and accompanied him partway up Mount Sinai. Joshua was also one of the 12 spies sent by Moses to explore the land of Canaan. Before Moses died, God had him appoint Joshua as his successor. When Joshua led the Jewish people into Israel, the Jordan River miraculously split. Joshua's first conquest was Jericho; after circling the city for seven days and blowing shofars, the city walls collapsed. These and other events are described in the Book of Joshua.

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Nisan 27

 

Holocaust Remembrance Day. In Israel, for one minute in the morning each year, a siren sounds throughout the Land and daily life stops. Cars halt in the middle of the highway, factories go silent, and students cease to study. People utter prayers or personal thoughts memorializing the 6 million Jews murdered at the hands of the Nazis. On this day, places of entertainment are closed by law, TV stations air Holocaust documentaries, and low-key songs are played on the radio. Flags are flown at half-mast and a memorial ceremony is held at Yad VaShem, the Holocaust Memorial, in the presence of the Israeli Prime Minister, President, survivors and their families.

This date is also the yahrtzeit of Rabbi Avigdor Miller (1908-2001), one of America's leading Torah educators. Rabbi Miller was born in Baltimore, and he studied as a young adult in the famed Slobodka Yeshiva in Europe. In the 1960s, he produced a series of groundbreaking books on Jewish thought, at a time when rabbinic works in English were almost unheard of. He was particularly skillful at connecting secular phenomena to the Divine. For example, before eating an apple he exclaimed, "Almighty God, look at this magnificent apple that You created! The wisdom of its waterproof enclosure, the beauty of its tantalizing red color, and the temptingly delicious aroma with which it is perfumed. How can I even begin to thank You!" Rabbi Miller's greatness is preserved on audiotape, in the form of a 2,000-part lecture series on Jewish ethics and history.

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Nisan 28

 

In 1912, the RMS Titanic sank after crashing into an iceberg in the North Atlantic. The Titanic was the largest passenger and most luxurious steamship in the world at the time, accommodating over 2,000 passengers. Promoters bragged that it was "the ship that even God couldn't sink." The sinking resulted in the deaths of more than 1,500 people, ranking it as one of the worst peacetime maritime disasters in history, and by far the most famous. Here is a unique Jewish angle: As the ship began to sink, and passengers struggled for one of the few spots in a lifeboat, Leah Aks carried her baby Frank to the deck, trying to get on line to be rescued. In the pandemonium, one man grabbed Leah’s baby and threw him overboard into a lifeboat. Leah was hysterical at having lost her precious baby, but she also managed to get into a lifeboat and was saved. Two days later, she saw a woman holding a child -- her baby Frank! An argument ensued and the other woman refused to give up the baby, claiming it as her own. Leah said, "I can prove this is my child -- he is circumcised." (In Europe at that time only Jewish children were circumcised.) Baby Frank was duly reunited with his mother – and he lived till 1991.

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Nisan 29

 

In 1945, U.S. soldiers liberated the Buchenwald concentration camp. Although not technically an extermination camp (prisoners were used as slave labor in local armament factories), mass killings took place at Buchenwald, and many inmates died in the course of gruesome medical experiments. Elie Wiesel, who went on to write stirring accounts of the Holocaust, for which he earned the Nobel Peace Prize, was an inmate at Buchenwald. Toward the end of the war, the Nazis evacuated inmates from Buchenwald to Flossenberg, where they were liberated.

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Nisan 30

 

Yahrtzeit of Rabbi Chaim Vital (1543-1620), the primary disciple of the famed kabbalist, the Arizal. Rabbi Vital was born in Tzfat, studying under the great Rabbi Moshe Alshech and Rabbi Moshe Cordevero. The Arizal, who died at age 38, taught Rabbi Vital for only two years. But Rabbi Vital diligently transcribed the Arizal's teachings, which have served as the basis for all subsequent study of kabbalah. Rabbi Vital also authored his own kabbalistic work, Aitz Chaim.

Nissan 30 is also the yahrtzeit of Rabbi Yaakov Emden (1698-1776), known by the acronym Yavetz. Born in Germany, Rabbi Emden was the son of a great rabbi known as the Chacham Tzvi. Emden was a controversial figure who relentlessly opposed the Shabbatai Tzvi messianic movement, and accused the great Rabbi Yonason Eibshutz of being a follower of that movement. Shabbatai Tzvi was a dangerous character who had declared himself the Jewish messiah, and predicted that 1666 would be the year of Israel's redemption. When the prediction did not come true, Shabbatai Tzvi converted to Islam, leaving behind a distraught Jewish community. Rabbi Emden's scholarship is preserved in a set of responsa, She'eilat Yavetz.

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Iyar 1

 

In 372 BCE, the foundation of the Second Holy Temple was laid in Jerusalem, as recorded in the Book of Ezra (3:8). The grandson of a Jewish king, Zerubavel, led the first band of Jews back from the Babylonian exile. He helped clear away the charred heaps of debris which occupied the site of the Second Temple, and the foundation was laid amid public excitement and rejoicing. This Second Temple would become the center of Jewish worship for 420 years, before being destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE. Today, the Western Wall is a remnant of the Temple complex, the focal point of Jewish prayers for millennia.

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Iyar 2

 

In 1948, the Jewish soldiers of the Hagganah captured the city of Tzfat and the port of Haifa, just days prior to Israel's declaration of independence. Despite the disadvantages in numbers, organization and weapons, the Jews prevailed in the crucial battles, capturing several major towns and temporarily opening the strategic road to Jerusalem.

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Iyar 3

 

In 1556, 24 Jews were burned at the stake in Italy, by order of Pope Paul IV. These were Conversos -- Portuguese Jews who had had been forcibly converted to Christianity, yet continued to practice their Judaism in secret. During the Inquisitions designed to discover Conversos, an estimated 32,000 Jews were burned at the stake.

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Iyar 4

 

Yahrtzeit of Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveichik of Brisk (1810-1892), famed talmudic scholar and author of the Beis HaLevi commentary. Legend says that his first wife divorced him after mistakenly thinking he was an ignoramus. In 1854, Rabbi Soloveichik joined the leadership of the famed Voluzhin Yeshiva, the center of Jewish scholarship at that time. He was known for his great piety; it is said that his fear of sin was comparable to an ordinary person's fear when his life is in danger. He became rabbi of Brisk, Lithuania, thus launching the famous Brisker rabbinic dynasty; his son was the famed Rabbi Chaim Soloveichik.

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Iyar 5

 

In 1948, the State of Israel declared its independence, in a ceremony led by David Ben-Gurion in Tel Aviv. The first act of the new government was to remove British restrictions on Jewish immigration. The Declaration of Independence granted full civil rights to Arab citizens of Israel, and called for peace and cooperation with neighboring Arab countries. The following day, the armies of five Arab nations attacked Israel. Despite decades of hardship, terror and wars, Israel has become a world leader in research and agriculture -- and most of all, the center of spiritual inspiration for the Jewish world.