Journey to Ramsgate: The Venom of Nesivos Olam, the Curse of R' Yaakov Emden, and Moses Montefiore

this torah class is brought to you by torahanytime.com okay friends friends countrymen romans here's the grand finale as the sun is about to set i want to share with you a story literally one of the most frightening stories i ever heard and it involves moses not to fury about a hundred and thirty years ago a five volume work called nasiva soilam was written by max cole the jewish apostate and anti-semite and it was disseminated throughout england the work is basically slander against the oral law the jewish people and judaism in general it trips venom and hatred against all things jewish it appeared in english in hebrew and it affected english jewry very sorely and there was a major conference how to plan a counter attack to this five volume work this eva who was able to attend the meeting sir moses found the fury he was about to leave he was about to go to damascus to defend the jewish people from the blood libel of 1840 by the way from damascus he went to russia to intervene with zara nikolai the first against the religious persecution in russia so moses mounted fury had the following suggestion they're going to finance the writing of a book that would be a counter argument would rebut all the claims of anti-semitism now this rebuttal had to be scientific had to be logical had to be precise and that the fury suggested that they speak with some russian scholars and finally somebody by the name of yitzchak bear levinson composed a book called zuru baval and zurubovel completely shattered the nasiva solom and uh it sort of restored jewish pride and rumor has it that as a result of this book which was the fruit of uh montefiore's imagination the author of the siva solomon did shiva and he died the kharatta and he died in shiva but only a few people know about it and after the story you'll know about it as well fasten your seatbelts the rov of gradna rav bin yaman diskin the son of the great guy in bishop diskin he conducted his rabbinical court with uh an iron hand and he was admired throughout the world for the strength of his besides you see the members of his president sat in the outer courtyard and they handled every small shiloh and when there was a bigger shyla they allowed entrance to rabinyam and diskin and when he gave up sac it was like the kailgado reading from the urimbatum but not anybody could just get into rabbinya mendiscan one day a coach it looked pretty much like this coach stopped in front of the rob's house from there hastily emerged a distinguished looking woman of wealthy appearance she enters the bezen's chambers she says she's a citizen of prussia she needs to see the rabbi it's an emergency they told her people don't just see the rabbi she said this is a emergency of the highest proportions she tells the rev she came from germany she was raised a very god-fearing woman and she lowers her voice and she tremblingly trapping tremblingly began the story she said my father was the debased author of nasiva soila the apostate the nasiva solam let me explain to you how he wrote that book in his youth he was a rebbe and a yeshiva in lita he was paid very poorly it all starts from bad salaries for the rebbe then the villagers started to accuse him of kalos reush and making fun of minhage israel and even though he was a good rebbe they stopped paying him he had to leave his a livelihood he had a wanderer and he left our house no we didn't know where he went we lost communication with him we didn't want to believe what we heard but we had heard that he converted to christianity and he's joined a sect of missionaries in london london is a dangerous place when the nisiva soilam appeared in london and we heard that the author of this asylum was none other than the rebbe of lita our father my mother was horrified everybody was embarrassed we were ashamed people began to collect money for us my money my mother opened up a store she remained her whole life a modest god-fearing woman and she somehow retained the respect of her neighbors all the years this woman said the goal of my life was to wipe out any vestige of memory of my father i married a tamil i established my own family and nobody at any time would ever want to remember our father the apostate in a siva solemn until the woman burst into sobbing one day i received a letter from london when i opened it my world turned dark it was a letter from my father who i hadn't heard of for 30 years i've been begging hashem to take his memory away from me so that his memory did not sully my soul the unopened letter arousing me feelings of disgust and i couldn't bring myself to open it and finally when i opened it it read as follows you ready for this dear daughter well do i know how basic and despised i am in your eyes and in the eyes of all the jewish people do i know the extent and gravity of my terrible sins to god his torah and his nation but i wish you to know my dear daughter that after many years during which i transgressed the most serious sins and sank into the quagmire of depravity the jewish spark was again rekindled in my heart my conscience began to plague me feelings of regret began to gnaw away at me i realized that my good friends the christian the instigators they tried to take advantage of me for my own purposes and as soon as that book is rhubarb was written that debunked everything i wrote they realized i was not so valuable they realized that i did not add to their ammunition and they forsook me they mocked me and i had to leave them completely now i live in a village old and ill broken in body and spirit not knowing where to turn or how to find shelter in my helpless position in my trouble i appeal to you my dear daughter save me admit me into your house and support me in my degraded old age in the way that you see fit this letter the woman said shook me to the core we discussed this with great tamir khachamim and we decided to respond to my father as follows we agreed to let you come and live with us on condition that you remove every vestige of your previous status you must grow a beard grow long peas wear jewish attire and oh one more stipulation you may never speak to anyone else again in your life and then you could come live in our house and die in the room my father received the letter and he immediately accepted his conditions he began his journey broken debilitated ill debased he went into the room he cried like a child for days on end he withered away he basically died a slow death he was lying on a sick bed one day too weak to lift up his head we could already discern the signs of approaching death when he called to us and in a voice a week he said now let me reveal to you my children why i became a heretic this is my duty as they lay on my deathbed a secret which please reveal to the rabbis of the generation perhaps this will be a mitigating factor for me in the world to come dear children you may know that our family originates from altona one of the three famous german cities where ravionis and ibishot served as the rev when my father was a young man as you may be aware a heated controversy sprang up between riviacovenden or rionos it's about the kameos charms inscribed with holy names and ibis ibishuts with excellent kabbalistic information was proficient anne in and revyak of ending the ivitz suspected many of the of consorting with the false messiah against whom his father had battled violently and in his deal accused anybody of suspicion of being a member of the inner circle of shaab taitsv and the heads of the community said then we respect you of uh being a big tom mclachlan but if you go to the main show the moment you hear one joshua from abundance in ibishits you're going to be all over him you're going to call him out it's going to create great macholicas do us a favor please start your house minion even though house and yanum are the root of all evil in the world nevertheless we don't have a choice you can't darven in the main show by the way friends don't dive and enhance many other it ain't good for anybody but by the way so they told rabbiakavemden that he would have be able to have his house minion and my father the nasiva solemn said your grandfather he says to his daughter was the scribe of rabbiakov emden he was blessed with exceptional talent of expression and use of writing and when when rabbiakov didn't accuse rabianis and ibishuts of sibelianism it was my father who was the scribe to record the safer akitsas akrav that accused robionis and ibishits of all of rabbiakovdin's accusations now here's what happened well oh here it is this is the main paper one of the pamphlets called akika akitsa sa akrav lashed out violently against venus and ibishits and it was published on the day of mybrismila so my dad published the akitasa akrav against the venus and abhisheks at the day my brilla and it was disseminated at my bris after the circumcision and everyone came to my father and said mazel tov double mazeltov birth of max and mazel tov on the publishing of akitas akrav what an amazing work for claudius round this is incredible may your child grow up to fight the same battles that you fight and my father heard those words with great delight and he turned to her viacom then new zeal gibber what do you say about such a bracha that my son should grow up to be such a good writer than i am and ravyanka vandan said amane kanye he wrote sign may your son write works as you wrote against fibonacci bishops i did not hear that story until the day of my bar mitzvah but on my bar mitzvah my father told me the story of harav yaakov and gave me a bracha that i should grow up to be like my father who wrote against ubianis and ibishets but here my dear children begins the murky shameful chapter of my life from the day of my bar mitzvah and on i tried to subdue those thoughts that took over me but i couldn't help but constantly think about my father's battles against the saintly robinus and ibishits and here of yaakov and the truth sadik gave me a bracha that i should write such works and slowly feelings and thoughts of abikarsos took over me that i should write works against the torah against hashem against israel and even though i know a person always retains my free choice i feel that my free choice in this world was mitigated because my father solicited the bracha of rabbiak of emdin and even though he was at sadiq and this is not what he meant but because there was an element of hashem involved and this bracha was given that is why i ended up writing the work and therefore i beg you please tell the story to the israel that they should pray for my soul so that when i get up to the best in somalia they accept my shiva with an understanding that in a certain respect i was coerced to write this work this is the story that this woman told rabbinyamin diskin rabbenu the woman concluded as soon as my father had spoken these words he breathed his last breath i am impelled to fulfill his last will and that's what brought me to your house to come to you rabbinyamen and ask you please pray that my father soul having an elevation in the world to come rabbinyamin promised to fulfill her request he walked out into the courtyard he told over the story to the besden and he added my friends this story should serve as a rousing example of the length one should go always to avoid controversy even when you think you're doing it and even when good people tell you to get involved the entire chapter of this heretics repentance and return to the fold had many causes but the israel believed that the primary cause of why this individual the nasi lasolam eventually did shiva is because of the efforts of harav moisha ben haravyose through the efforts of sir moses montefiore who hired rev levinson in russia to write the work as arubaville which put an end to the silva salam and ultimately to his chuva thank you very much for joining us today for more great adventures ask josh what we're doing next maybe tomorrow where there's a some interesting forum if you want to join us call top bye-bye you've just experienced another torah class brought to you by torahanytime.com