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Rav Yehudah Ha'Levi: Kinnos, Kuzari, & the Cairo Genizah
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[Music]
and welcome back rabbi dr eliezer broth
it is nice to be with you once again
for this
special episode
we are just a couple of days now before
tisha b'av
and
you suggested that perhaps we speak
about ibudha levy and we titled this
episode of the halevi
kinos
kosuri and the cairo geniza so
before we begin i just want to thank we
had somebody who reached out and is
sponsoring this episode it is being
sponsored by the baum family
rabbi dr eliezer brought shlita so thank
you very much anybody who would like to
sponsor future episodes please reach out
to myself
at schwadem
schwedmu.org
once again if you have any questions
comments suggestions reach out to myself
or eliezer brat
eliezer brought
gmail.com
so why don't we jump right in
give us a bit of a background
what the connection
of a behavior levy is to tish above
right now and why you picked this topic
to discuss
okay fair question so the reason is this
follows
about 15 years ago one tish above i
decided to investigate a legend that i
heard many times over the years
especially on tish above
when right before um the saying of the
kinna see in halloween
and that legend i'll quote it in the way
art scroll
kinis because that's what a lot of
people use
but we'll use other kinesis today so it
won't be just art scroll um it says his
follows
an ancient manuscript states derby levy
composed his kennel while journeying
towards architrave and recited when he
reached damascus facing the direction of
sin although historians believed that
ryuga levy only got as far as egypt
never even reaching damascus tradition
has it that he finally reached jerusalem
1145 there he fell to the ground in a
state of ecstasy as he was embracing the
dust near the temple mount he was
trampled and killed by an arab horseman
this is how it's found the art school
and there's all diff and now this is a
legend that i always heard and i decided
i want to trace the source for this
legend and what we could find out about
it
i was also fascinated by the khuzri
now this topic seems to have drawn me
into a rabbit hole which i never came
out of
i published some of my findings in
hebrew and in english but i always find
more and i need to keep in mind
okay so yeah you keep that in mind even
though we'll keep coming back to you
for more information on more topics
so why do you give the audience a brief
biography of abu dhabi as you said
certainly not in today's episode but who
was abu dhabi
when was he born where was he born when
did he die and how did he die but that
certainly seems to be part of the legend
so a brief biography
okay so just to make it very brief
he's born in approximately 1075 in spain
he dies in 1141 which we'll be
discussing more about that he's famous
in history for being one of the greatest
python he wanted hundreds of beautiful
pewter pismainim that became part of
davening
in certain places in certain filas in
yamnaram and other times more by
aspardom but even by ashnazim and
he's more famous for amongst many for
authoring one of the most important
jewish philosophical works that is the
kuzuri
was written in the dialogue form between
a king and a jew who's persuading who's
persuaded to convert to judaism of
course there's all types of questions if
the legend is true of that itself if it
happened didn't it happen beyond the
scope of today
anyway this yid defends yudiska dealing
with many issues of philosophy and
various myths among other topics it's
it's simply an incredible work it is
with the test of time and it's worth
reading and learning properly very very
carefully till today it was written by
revue da levi in arabic
but it was translated after he died in
hebrew
to translate from arabic into hebrew in
1167 apraxia by reb tibon the one of the
famous translators of of
many philosophicals farm
and it had tremendous impact on marshava
throughout the generations now just to
mention the marshall there's a quote
found in the sephora tyson
that the grass said about it they shall
learn it because he was kaddish vitar
and ike
such a quote powerful quote
um definitely
his son also was familiar was very
familiar with the kuzuri and many many
good islam throughout the generations
from china and onwards were familiar
with the khuzri and use it
as far as this bismaynum le muscle we
have a source from delianzo writes
in his
that the minigestrol in certain places
was on el shabus they would sing a
different tasmanim of his the one
referred in hashem referring
about him and
until today he this endless literature
about him
books about his swarm
purusha manisfarim
keep on coming out
early manuscripts of works on the the
kosovo has been published in recent
years just to mention a recent edition
of the sepha kuzuri from professor
michael schwartz
it came out about five years ago it's
already in its fifth edition
another edition came out to make it a
little more user-friendly for the the
masses but
in short the kuzuri has been
people have been fascinated with the
kuzuri and probably will continue to do
so
forever okay now that's just the
introduction
fine it seems like we need to have a
separate episode or episodes just on the
kuzuri
hashem
there's time still ahead of us
hashem okay let's focus on
what we want to talk about today so you
mentioned that in the art scroll there
is a story a legend about a behuda
halevi
about one of the kidness so that kinis
is the kingdom of
um maybe now's the time you want to get
into what that kina is
and why
we're having this conversation today
specifically about that kinah and the
story of you the levy
okay so first
like this
um
as a way of a little introduction
the kinis
is something we say every year on tish
above
and
it's very hard to understand regular us
irregular american jews we're not so
familiar with the fancy hebrew of the
kinis
and it's always very people have always
find found it very challenging to say it
and understand what's going on
um and understanding these rich putin
and whatever you want to kindest
whatever you want to call them
in many in recent years a lot of places
have rabbanum give up give different
they say they they they don't they pick
a few and then they give the background
behind the few that they are going to
talk about
now salvation
versus salvation it seems in the pr i
don't know when he started this minute
but he had a minute that he would give
shirum from early morning till late in
the afternoon where he would discuss the
kines
now these it seems some years they were
recorded um and eventually they were put
out by rabbi jacob shack rabbi jacob
we'll just get it right because i don't
want anyone to have complaints or jake
rabbi
jacob jacob j
this is called this is the first book
it's called the lord is righteous in all
his ways
this is a transcript that he worked on
very hard of the shiiram it's a
beautiful read very very it could change
one's tisha buff a little later
and this is printed by i think that's
have and maybe and some other places a
little later cohen issued based on those
here and then other nurseries of the
very shirum something of kinase messiah
sarah
and there's a lot of overlaps the user
of shakhtar's materials but they also
have other materials and when one goes
through this you get a tremendous
insight into the chemist and on this
guinness and um this is the by way of
introduction now there's at the end of
the kinis
there's about ten kines that are called
the the um
they referred to as the p putin of zion
and
this is the
kin noise i think that you're referring
to right that oh you press put out
together with cohen which is
he went through it and he did an
excellent job and wandered
has been
making these presentations on tish above
for years and years and years
um actually very fascinating in fact
this year he actually i got to thank you
because he called me and asked me every
year he likes to speak about certain
goddamn that passed away and this year
obviously he has to talk about kanyeski
and he asked me if i could
speak for a few minutes
and draw upon some of the things that we
discussed together so thank you and
anyone who tunes in will see a short
presentation
regarding about him again like we said
we're not here to masturbate but the
perspective of his farm
so
so those so these kidneys it's a it's a
credible it's a very worthwhile buy if
someone to go to go through on tishbov
even not during tish above now or
salvatrik in the in the uh it's called
on the kin on kina number 36.
so he begins saying about that
and some of the aspects will get back to
throughout the presentation today but he
says like this he says this kinah
reflects the principle in review levy's
important philosophical work the kuzari
that the land of eretz israel is unique
not only in a metaphysical sense but in
a natural sense as well
the ear is clear and charged with
nature is more beautiful and magnificent
than in searing than anywhere else the
rain the soil the stones are all
physically different in the land of
earth israel when the entire describes
land of israel being a land of flowing
with milk and honey
the intent is that there is a unique
quality in the nature of the land itself
then he goes on
and he says rebuke the lady was in love
with the land of eretz israel while
there are many pilgrims who traveled
towards israel none expressed their love
for israel as passionately as he did for
example the rambam he mentions the land
only once in marina vucam
the rabbina becca in his classic
workhorse of this doesn't talk about
it's australia at all now we know the
ramban was a myriadical lover of tion
but rabuda levy was perhaps the most
zionist
as river salvation says of the torah
scholars in the middle ages
he says that ramban described his love
for its israel and hallachic terms which
are familiar to us but rebuked allevi
expressed his passion somewhat
differently basically levi lived in a
comfortable existence in muslim spain
where he's well connected with the
government and was held in high regard
this is something we'll return to soon
anyway
and just to conclude one last point
about this kinna is where salvation says
a fascinating insight he said that these
kinos which are about 10 which is how
we're messian guinness
is an important aspect of tisha there
are two elements of the observance of
tisheba one is we say the kinis and it's
to remember is to remember the
destruction but there's another aspect
which is to remember the magnificent
prior to the destruction
up to this point when we said eichen
kinis was focused on the first element
the destruction of eret israel but then
it shifts and we discuss about before
the khurban
and that's what these kindest they
discuss in glorious terms the beauty and
holiness of jerusalem and the wisdom of
our people
now this second element is necessary
because in order to appreciate the
magnitude of the corbyn and what was
lost we have to be familiar with the
beauty of the basal mignon in jerusalem
before the disaster occurred just to
conclude this is reflected in
salvation
when he talks about different aspects of
um let's say by lulu we take it seven
days
to zach
this is to show us that
there's different aspects certain types
of zikarin hamikdash remembering of the
temple around simcha and nara
and this was his goal to expert in ex
english okay
for this forever salvation puts down and
he goes through the guinness
unbelievable um all types of lashings
pages and pages it's it's kadai just
even to read those few pages about it
just to conclude with a lotion about
when he talks about he says review the
levy he wrote poetry beautifully
he was a jew who loved judaism
basically and
so this is so these guinness
are very important and rebuked is the
first and then the next few are sort of
copying rabuda levy's um kenneth
now the question is
why did he write this did he write it
for tish above how did it get him into
the into the say there are kinus that we
have it's unclear exactly when this
happened but we could say with certainty
that already um
franco has an article and another and
other people have noticed that in
from let's say 1272
and the 1330s even different markzware
and he lists out a bunch of them in
ashkenazic circles they took this piot
that we don't know why when we're going
to discuss whenever you leave he might
have said it but it might not have been
for tish above even
and it got put into the master
and
so much so that the mirami ruthenberg is
one of the next um is one of the next
kindest that we say on tish above he's
capping rebu da levi's kinna he's also
from isha ashkenaz less than a hundred
years later he dies so we see that it
got accepted pretty fast
and
it said as part of the chemist
maybe before you go on
i know i'm sure this is a sugiya on its
own maybe a drop of a background basic
when the kidneys were put together and
where would they put together from is
there you give anything on that
it would be too
far out of the presentation today but i
do think on sfarum chatter um nahi had
someone talk about it
maybe last year or two years ago to give
some type of into to give some type of
back basic background but that's
way we're going to be going on too many
tangents as it is so to do that is
way too tangent way too many tangents
whereas i call it tangents and tangents
into tangents
okay anyway so i can this is the first
um
part basically becomes accepted it's in
the kinna and we say it basically
everyone says it i think even people
that make a very short that cut out a
lot of the kidness they like to say this
kinda and
we'll be discussing some more aspects
with it as we go on
so you mentioned
there's a legend
and you want to tell us why are you
suggesting it's only a legend i mean i
guess i could ask the question pretty
bluntly it's pretty clear in arts girl
that's what happened
i'm sure it's written in other places as
well so
take us take us behind the scenes over
here
okay so as i said when i began the
introduction that i i got curious is i
saw this legends i wanted to see is it a
is it real or is it a legend
or as you know some pessimistic people
would say oh it's an art scroll legend
but of course it's blown anyway so
salvation returning back to the shirem
at one point he br he himself brings
down
these this story
and he says
um
a story is told and his lesson is i do
not know if it's true and then at the
end he says there's that they say
there's documentary documentary evidence
that he died in egypt on his way there
to israel i do not know about it okay
but he even he and his shiren brought
down this legend so
upon him
i decided i want to look into this
legend now asking around
it's it's definitely one of the most
famous legends associated with rita levy
it's quoted in all different contexts
and i'm not going to mention all the
different people that bring it down
through the ages just to mention one
that i came across in recent times is so
it was it's such a fascinating um um
legend and we might even end up seeing
that there's truth to the legend
actually
is that in a in the advertisement for
the hummish that was about to be
published in the 1770s
from moses mendelssohn so at the time he
had a partner a very hush of a yidd
kosher jew according to mahajan
mahajanas
illustrated in a beautiful series of
articles in yeshurin was the ibrahimovic
eventually breaks off from mendelssohn
that's not the parachute of today's
discussion but they put out some samples
of how the parish is going to look to
get subscribers and in the back they had
a few extra pages so so slammed put in a
parish on the piyut and he brings down
this legend so and and so you see that
even though he's talking about but he
felt
there's some type of attraction with
this
um piot and with this story
i'm not here to discuss all the sources
for but what is the earliest source that
we do know um in print so the source for
this is is the famous safer
which is known as the chalce ball
chancellor
brings down the story and it's first
printed in approximately 1587 and he
says that he has a kabbalah from an old
person
that
when he comes to jerusalem he did kriya
and then he was doing um as he said he
was bowing down and everything and in
short while he had
kinna he said a kinder that he which was
seeing halloway to shali but not that he
then
made up the kinna it was it sounds like
he already had this you know and the
artistry was always on his mind we know
and then a ishmaeli an arab comes
and because he saw his great vehicles he
tramples him to death this is and now it
becomes so accepted in the major
um from
historical works of great adult such as
the career diaries to say that diaries
and rabies of schwarzenegger's arts and
numerous numerous other people it's
brought down as a given that this is the
story okay
now in general we'll just uh we're not
to go into either the shells
already
writes and numerous and numerous
numerous sources say we don't trust
a lot of the material found in the safer
this um full of mistakes there's even i
think a lotion when we see one second
what the lushen is um
so much so what there's some this one
russian early lashing since
but um
does not use such a strong russian but
he uses a pretty strong russian
also against the safer however
some have people have said that even if
you could say that there are problems
with the safer
so but you have to understand that a lot
of times there still could be sources
for some of the things that he said so
not that everything is wrong maybe a lot
of things are wrong but you still have
to take in val you have to you have to
evaluate each thing the goofy show
okay
but so
that's the first source and as i said it
got it gets accepted through the head so
hashem today we're going to discuss
tracing a little bit through different
ways if we could see anything about the
story now who uh so as i said um right
and this is
many times people already said the story
can't be true one such person was a
great tremendous person
the great son of the rashash
already at the young age of 19 he's
already married for a few years
and he's already incredible and he's
writing letters and in the letter he has
a three-page passage where he deals with
this story of the shape of me yehuda
sorry
and it's incredible just to read his
yada and everything under the sun and
how he's doing it we're talking about
but we're not going to go into every
aspect of it
where do you find this
these letters to read it
so if one wants to read it there's a
collection of some of his writings was
printed by meister cook called mikhail
so in the m um printed by meister of
cook in the 1960s
in page raish tests um it starts on page
test it goes through ratio designs three
sala pages tiny letters where he goes in
depth with every ass of the story but
the the
the
and even this he goes in tangents he
goes what i call tangent and tangents
he's one of the kings of this he
actually writes about it in a place
somewhere that that's how he liked to
write even um
and maybe i was influenced by it on some
level but he's writing like that i talk
like that but anyway um and he did he
had a tremendous impact on me so i must
probably psychologically somehow got
from there but anyway one mushroom that
he says is we know
that at that time there were no arabs it
was mostly christians okay but anyway he
he
he um is not so into the story because
in this piece also in other places he's
not very a big fan of the shashank
a drop later shaddaal who was very
oyster in review da levi who put out um
various manuscript material of his butum
also says the story he he writes more
sharper again similar reasons that there
wasn't arabs already in there anyway
there's a lot of discussion
i'm not going to bore you with all the
details of all the different aspects of
of of how to how in-depth they take
apart this poor piece of this messiah
that the shell sacavala brings down but
i'll say is this foul
the when we when we want to check into a
story we like to find other evidence
that might suggest similar sources or
other people rebuild allevia is a beyond
famous person so are there other earlier
sources of arabia levy that mention
something about this when they talk
about them so we have bar hashem we do
have sources that men should read levy
because the levy is very early on in the
two of which item we have let's say the
arrived seder kabbalah we have the
and a few and a few a nice few other um
works and not they all talk about levy
none of them mentioned this this thing
which just sounds like it's something
they would have there are other sources
that talk about abu dhabi after he died
from his kufa people that knew him they
don't mention it
and just to mention one is there's a
there's a murderer from the rajma and
the rajma talks about
i don't remember how he came across it
at the time but he talks about him
in
my article of shyness
um and he again he has a few lines about
him and he too does not mention anything
about this story i'm talking about
people from spain that would have heard
about it even though yesterday was a
nice amount of time after but it's not
mentioned anywhere okay but that's not
necessarily a way to disprove a story
just because we have a few people that
don't mention it okay so
so um
but we'll return to this we'll return to
a little more evidence if he actually
gets started israel in a minute just to
step back for one second and this in
this messiah is one what part of the
story is when is he writing this kinna
so that already it sounds like from
different sources he probably wrote it
and hooks lords and that doesn't make it
that's not a problem even when he caught
so he could see he could have said it um
when he comes starts to struggle
something that he um
made up earlier okay now another way uh
in general of checking out a story we
want to know is or salvation marshall
brought down he's not even sure he said
he heard people said he might not even
have made it to arizona so is there any
evidence that he makes it territorial
from other forget about this story this
dramatic story is there any other
evidence
so the answer is that for such a thing
we check is we check we have lists
from we're going to bury and they're all
over too strong everyone knows when you
make a trip territorial one of the big
things is you go okay it's very
important to go caver um taverhapping as
they call it
and
many people go with different tour
guides and and people always wonder how
do they know who's buried in each caver
and actually there's a story we talked
behind every one of these people
now
what a lot of times we have a kabbalah
they say from that result that arizona
said this person's buried here okay but
we're talking about hundreds of years
that there's no messiah okay anyway
there's lists early lists interesting
lists of russian that visited air to
throw and they kept lists of and and
they described in certain places oh he's
buried here he's buried here so we want
to know are there anyone early on
mentioning rabitah levy being buried in
arts israel that would help our
situation a little bit so there is an
early um travels from
um benjamin of toledo
which he is it's printed at 1170 which
is pretty close to after the death of
herbuda levy and he does say that in
tetheria he um
he hold on second let me just see the
exact question
some of in some of the manuscripts of
this hebrew it sounds like he was
mavaker the caver of rabbi dhalivi okay
what's significant is we're talking
about a messiah less than 30 years
placing him in here to throw so at least
we've got some part of the story already
is inert israel but as i said not all
the manuscripts of this have it and
there are other early sources
that some have him being buried
okay there's all different sources about
it i'm not going to list out all the
different sources just one important
source the seifer yorkson who dies in
1515 he says that rebuda levy is buried
next to the
their and their relatives and they were
buried in er citron that's a fascinating
thing and so the question is did even
the benezer get territorial but for that
we'll get to maybe later on but bottom
line is we have we have some messiah
some sources that say reb you thought
ladies better not too strong
okay and and
um there's actually a gniza fragment
found from the 1400s that also says such
a thing and there's a long list not
going to bore you with all the details
but the point is we could we do have
sources that point to him being very
artistical so so at least some part of
the story might be true so okay that
that's um i would say that's the first
part of this um presentation
okay so
now
we're
trying to figure out
deep diving whether
the actual story happened
um in recent years
there's
been a discovery of the cairo ganesa
um
i've heard about it i've read about it
but i'm sure
rabbi dr elijah brought has probably
spent
he may call it a rabbit hole is the
chiron is a rabbit hole someplace he's
probably spent many many many
hours hours days months who knows how
long studying the different information
that's been discovered there so
this may shed light on on the topic
we're discussing today
yes so so interestingly enough as i'm
looking there as i'm in this rabbit hole
i'm looking into this
to this topic i come to the topic of the
chiron is a well-known topic so now
in short
when we talk about the chirognesia again
we're keeping in mind that we do want to
finish
today we don't we don't want to keep
everyone
here forever but basically
to in short
in the the chironesia there are
documents that are discovered which make
which are a
game changer for our story and now i
want to give a just a drop of a
background as it relates to this
i personally just find it very
interesting could be some listeners will
also find interesting basically in the
1890s there's a famous thing and
chironesa is discovered in an attic in
the benezer school okay now due to this
incredible find literally every area of
jewish literature and history has been
greatly enriched
just to list some of the many areas that
were enhanced by this discovery works of
gaining that were lost were discovered
manuscripts relating to the rambam
were discovered
and much much more putin
and areas of jewish history of kufus
that we didn't know much about also were
improved because of these discoveries
okay
many people worked on it and are
continuing to work on it as we speak
does the freebird project and all
different things enlarged to discuss
all aspects now
someone wants to get a mamasha uh
regular layman's
understanding of what went on there's
this bunch of books here's one book i
would say that i personally enjoyed a
lot it's called sacred trash from adena
hoffman and peter cole the lost and
found world of the chironesa a
fascinating light read but makes it very
very interesting okay
anyway
so this is discovery and this discovery
rocks the world you should just to
understand these people today even as
far as people party measures hasidim
that have been printing works of go in
them that they're discovering from the
chirognesia lost works of saudi arabia
have been coming out and and we're going
to be hearing that more and more
in in the future still in private space
army stroll that's a hasidish a journal
from the hasidim of stalin
they put out recently a bunch of pieces
have been published from this
chirognesia by yehuda zaival
so it's it's not only in the academic
world it's everywhere anyway like long
story short
they went through the ignis fragments
and
crazy numbers of fragments have been
discovered and they processed it over a
period of let's say 50 60 years and
okay
a fellow named sean of goaten in in the
1950s
he decided to ask i guess at one point
he was near where the the fragments were
he said do you have any pieces that
maybe were not used or maybe not looked
at
so he said yeah we have a bunch of
pieces that were were which according to
all the people that looked it up tonight
i was garbage we have place so we didn't
throw it out you're more than welcome to
look at it this fellow goten goes and
starts looking at it and literally
within minutes he finds material of of
the rambam he finds material everybody
that letters that was law that no that
was missed up till now by people that
had gone through sorting the materials
and
slowly he does
incredible works on the gnisa
and he realized that through this
material that he found in the 1950s so
he was keen to a rediscovery of the same
needs of fragments what was deemed to be
garbage he hopped as beyond important
and he was able to create the to discuss
a few hundred years worth of the world
of
every aspect of life
in this period of time
and the for example he's to say at
breakfast his kids would hear from him
um he would say the stories that he
discovered he would find that was a
story from a piece of fragment and then
he'd say okay but i don't know what ever
happened a few months later he find
another fragment he's able to put
together
different stories from all these
different pieces of these materials that
were deemed to be garbage anyway i'm
just cutting to chase one of the people
that he found a lot of material related
to indonesia in these in this material
was of abu dhabi so much so he always
dreamed of putting out a book he
published articles of some of this
material but he did never put out a book
about it
um however
maisha gill and ezra fleischer two great
professors who worked a lot in the gynum
and and griezmann materials especially
put out one such book based on 50 such
documents relating specifically to abu
dhabi levy from from this ganesha
material
in the 19 in the 2000 approximately 10
years ago martha akiva freeman revisited
those 50 documents that they put out
and he published approximately a hundred
documents relating to review on so in
some level relationship without leaving
you say not every letter is written by
the lady but review delay there's an
important figure in these letters also
so what happens is like this they put
out a fat volume i would say 6 700 pages
and then came up of and the anal so
first is like this the documents are in
arabic they transcribe the documents
into hebrew and then they analyze and
have tyra to explain what's what's going
on in these documents and it's
fascinating what we're going to see in
these documents comes with
a friedman and he goes through discovers
more documents and he puts it out just
to understand
two fat volumes of material revisiting
re-analyzing with better caleb figuring
out and the dairies called tagsheba tag
literally of everything going on in
these things and this unbelievable
parishes relating to rudolph levy and
more that one can learn from in these
documents now
i'm obviously not going to abort
today with all the fines and all the
different things just to mention one
thing that it comes out is why did abu
dhabi leave even write the kuzuri for us
the kusu is considered one of the most
hush of the things that ever came out
interestingly enough he did not look at
it as such a significant um
safer
and one of the letters hold on let me
see if i can find the lushen right now
okay i'm gonna have to quote it anyway
it's a translation because i i can't
read no arabic but anyway something to
the fact that he a friend of his found
out about this keyboard of his he said
to him juan you tell me about it and
he's like ah it's nothing what was he he
me say he was
to this keyboard that he wrote because
we're like okay whatever and he says
you'll you'll be i'll show it to you no
problem you'll see that it's nothing
special um it was in response to
requests by someone who was um because
of some
fera and everything and of course this
letter is analyzed to death translation
of every single word one has to
understand this is written in arabic so
what these professors have been arguing
about it deals with you have to have a
major understanding in arabic of of the
medieval period of time and what it
means and every nuance okay anyway
bottom line is from these documents we
learn as false
we learn about review da levy that he
was he was a major he was a he was a
doctor he was a tremendous question
he was very close he might have been a
talmud of the rift he was a close friend
of none other than the remy gash
and and everyone was fascinated by this
person he comes to visit mitsrayam and
everyone wants to have him at their
house and they talk about him as a
murderer shamayim it seems everyone
hopped with talking about a tremendous
tremendous over hashem
now
he meets a friend he becomes very
friendly with his person um just for for
practical purposes his name is um hold
on just to give his exact names
khal
but anyway this kaufman is where a lot
of these letters that they discovered is
what is between this half and fellow
who's a businessman who travels all over
um
anyway accompaniment what let's get cut
to the chase what what do we learn from
these documents that relates to our
story so what's amazing is that we let's
say a person like rubida levy we know
nothing about his regular life until
okay we could they stay all these
different historians they try to analyze
this put them in different things
but
all of a sudden from these chironesia
documents we learn about his last few
years of his life unbelievable in-depth
things
and i'm just going to be makatsur
in short basically like this it seems in
when he was about 54 years old he
decided to make a journey territory
he began his journey he was supposed to
travel through egypt in the end he
didn't he ends up somehow north africa
he become good friends with ibn ezra and
we'll return to that
for some
no reason he ends up back in spain why
we don't know
and he decides to make this journey
again which is 10 years later which is
11 40 and and these documents discuss a
lot of the happenings of those few
months before he made his journey
different aspects okay bucketzer on
september 8th he had intended to leave
from egypt to israel immediately he was
delayed he ends up leaving
a few days before schweiz of 11 41. so
he ends up i would say he ends up
staying close to a year in before he
ends up going it could be those issues
with the with the
with traveling we don't know exactly
everything but in these letters and
these books one's more than welcome to
read it
um now a letter written about six months
afterwards indicates that
he was no longer alive it seems that he
was alive for a few months in arts
israel and he died in either ave or or
thomas now we don't these letters don't
um sadly these letters don't have what
happens to merit israel did he make a
territorial or did he die right away
okay so why am i bringing it up
there's a letter that they discovered
and this letter actually was discovered
earlier
um but it was dismissed that
some of the scholars of um i believe it
was maisha gill and as a fleischer they
seem to say that from it there's a
lotion
talking already about him of being dead
that he's dead he was left already and
it says on alasha
is how they interpret it
and a few lines later in these in this
in this fragment it says shara you shall
i am
so now let us understand when we have
these fragments a lot of times they
really are dot dot not because
they're fragments sometimes and it could
be very unclear words to read so from
the context of the sentences that they
had they suggested that it's possible we
see something going on shari you shall i
am in this fragment and we see he's
being referred to something unusual
kaddish why would it be called a kaddish
it's not so common unless something
happened that that he is that he died
so they say
that it's very possible at least that
some that maybe this um legend so to
speak of that the shell shell is a cable
brings down might be true now they can't
say for sure because this letter is
fragmented
you can see pictures of it i believe
today you can probably see pictures of
it online but in the books both of my
shagil and of martha akira freeman yeah
martha akiba freeman when he reads this
very carefully says it does not say that
he's not willing to accept that that's
what's going on the letter you have to
read the letter very carefully the
context
but it's referring to him as a in uh uh
could mean it's not that he was um
kaddish that he died
he was a kaddish and that's crusader we
see has been referred to so it's not
necessarily that a kaddish means um
but the point is that sometimes people
are pessimistic about letters about
legends and here we see that there's a
possibility from the discoveries of the
chironesa from this letter some some of
even the academics who a lot of times
are more skeptical they're willing to
suggest as a possibility that there
might be muckum for this legend
um
but now we no longer could call it a
legend we have some we have some
possible proof so first of all is that
he gets started to throw it sounds like
from these letters that he got there to
strong
so we now have evidence he got to throw
besides the yorkshire and the different
curious if he's buried there and or not
we now have some more concrete evidence
that he's there and there's a
possibility in this in this fragmented
piece um some people are willing to
accept that he does make it through to
trial and maybe that there is story
behind there is some truth to this story
okay
anyway i'm not going to go into all the
shyness and all the yukim of the
different professors how to do it but
that's um one aspect um relating to this
okay now um but there's a
let's step back
a minute and ask a greater question why
does review delay go there too strong
la maisona it's almost unheard of during
that period of time for anyone to guard
this trump no one goes
even a little later the rambam goes and
he leaves pretty much right away the
ramban is a little later and rambam
barely found the minion but rabuda levy
it seems to be so central to his
um
being as a person so to speak why did he
go so some people say
it has to do with um
he wanted to dive in at the forum which
it sounds like even in the in this
kinetic scene i like to challenge talks
about okay but he it sounds very clear
he was planning on living there so
it's not just the davina kwaram
and and you have to understand there was
a major sacrifice on his part he was a
very successful person a very famous
person
why was he going
anyway
so different suggestions have been given
one suggestion was by a review delayed
gerst he writes that
since at this time jews were very down
especially better to struggle he wanted
to reawaken love for its israel even
though it was dangerous to go to time
and it's he seemed that many tru he says
maybe many people probably try to
convince him not to go he still gave up
everything family friends and
comfortable lifestyle to go
and so even if the story of the shelter
is not true but he was makada shame
by actually going because he was one
probably one of the first great people
to actually go
now that's an interesting point and um
just to add on this
it it seems when one learns the kuzuri
so i would like to suggest even more
it's not just that he was trying to do
this and give his
which is very important because he it's
clear he was a big player in in
claudia's role at the time everyone knew
about him and this is interesting
because they didn't know about the
kuzuri we know about him as the kuzuri
but they knew about him because of
through other ways
um as i said in wall over matriarch
everyone knows about that this guy is
this incredible python whatever this is
before youtube and you know he didn't
have followers on facebook or wherever
else there is okay anyway
so i i i want to take this a drop
further and that is based on i'm fond of
quoting from a rep seven if seven has a
safer lara in the safer he has a piece
where he turns the kuzuri and he deals
with him as an isha we know everyone
knows the kuzuri is a
safer a philosophical safer so to speak
but there's a lot of halacha in the
safer if one reads it very carefully you
can find all different things and the
rep seven shows how certain pieces of
his became arnage
and i'm going to talk more about this
momentarily but as far as artistrol goes
so
review the levy not only was he a person
that was a verity strong and he taught
and chosen to say for kusuri and in his
putin
it's he held that one has to go that's
israel if one looks very carefully at
his p at the pieces it's in the end
i think it's
he uses the shyness that even though
it's a sakana
one has to go there too artistrol
now what's interesting is and we shine
them already in acronym one of the
theorem for people not to go was because
there's always considered
he says no if people were for for jobs
people do put themselves in sakana um
and other things and he talks about this
at length and basically
it's not that he only was a verity
stroller and he went it's because he
held the halacha one has to go and he
was putting his as they say the
expression put your money where your
mouth is he was acting upon it he held
one has to go and that's where he went
he was giving up everything at the time
he was giving up a comfortable life and
as i said he was very famous very
successful person and he went and there
was nothing going on there it's not like
today you make aliyah and you know you
have different places okay i live in
ramaphe so we have to throw out ramapi
cherish no he was giving up everything
it's enough to there was nothing there
but he was such a vertistro and he held
that
one has to go so i'm building off
disrupt
that it's uh that not there was evident
that that the kusumi was also
held to go now
and that and it's so much so that this
piece interestingly enough i recently
came to this piece of the kuzuri the
travis yarn is an incredible save from
karkhaim and archaim he brings it down
it's not clear what exactly he wants
from it but he it seems like he's he's
and using it about dealing with if it's
a sakana and travel etc but the point is
that it's
with artistro
so this
if we go back to it comes out review
levy
which he deals with and also because he
wants to guarantee strong now i want to
just to at this point just to discuss
one
could just elaborate very briefly which
i'm saying
says you know showing him is in the
light of isha
so i came across a very interesting
thing in the sugi of datelines so first
of all the the quesadilla is quoted by
many different people even the lamash
even there are quotes
and chuvas and the singing of the
datelines
um which is a incredibly complex sugya
and rock the world different times
especially
when the mir yeshiva was in shanghai it
was a very famous topic and different
robot got involved but it was already
discussed different aspects were
discussed earlier so one of the famous
people involved with the shiloh of the
khasanesh and throughout the country he
wrote a countries called conscious judge
throughout the countries i believe he
quotes the kuzuri something like 20
times
now
and it's clear it sounds like he's using
the kuzuri as a allah dikha source
interestingly enough some of the people
that discuss the study of the date lines
they don't they hold not to bring a riot
from the because he's not isha now
happens to be when we learn when you
learn through the safer kuzuri you could
see that this he was he was holding in
the suggest he knew what's going on
doesn't he maya scummer so to speak but
he was as they say god's fine but we now
know through the kaioken he's very close
to the remy gosh et cetera
et cetera now the khazanish what i'd
like to point out is his followers
had to hold that ish
what the world am i talking about
so there's an incredible conversation
which needs a lot of varicose which is
that it has held that there's no such
thing as someone being a bala god that
he knows he knows the agatha you mean
say someone could be a mashiach he
doesn't know how to learn well but he
gives good schmoozing
and inspirational schmoozin
was very scared of such people he helped
those people are dangerous you have to
be isha
and in order to and only could a ish
and it's a very big um conversation
relates a lot of different things it
relates to hazardous times of muslim
possibly
um there's these pieces of the kaznas
that were edited out of the moon
and not everyone accepts
um but this is the kazanish's opinion so
if he's using
the kuzuri in the dune of datelines it's
because he held no there's no such thing
as if someone wrote a classical work and
philosophy and he's a hashifier
no no he must be that he is a ish
and and now so going with that
he held now could be today it's a not
everyone agrees with it in the series of
mitsubishi verizon making aliyah but he
held one has to go even if it's sakana
and this is what he talks about in his
in the because he talks about it in a
safer so this is a arrow of mine you
could take it or leave it i have no
problem with someone
okay
so ad khan this is the story this is the
legend and as we're saying that there's
um something that there's something
behind the legend okay
um so we're basically saying that it's
just because art school it's not a
problem and there might be truth to the
story
it might be truth even though you didn't
bring rice to every single point of it
right every last detail right but the
overall concept okay right so just i
mean off on a tangent that drop you know
we talked about
we shine them i'm sure this is a cigar
on its own every person who lived in
that generation of the roshanim
was a russian who we rely on
i'm sure that's also a topic of
discussion
correct there was it's actually a very
big discussion and people i believe i
heard such a thing
that um
people some people were upset
i think let's say article put out this
incredible book called the the reshanam
and they have a book on them very
excellent books and people were upset
because they listed tons of people and
he said some of these people they
shouldn't be called we say just because
you live in a certain period of time
doesn't mean you're rid for raj ramban
and and it happens to be there is a lot
behind that story and it relates to this
kazanish as i said and it's its own
conversation are there people that were
bali mikra so to speak they were
excerpts of hamash but they didn't know
any alaka and is it possible to rely on
them and commission so to speak but
you're 100 right it's a huge topic
um
maybe one day some will talk about it
properly okay that's somebody we have to
find that somebody
okay um
any other legends with the view that
levy before you finish out
yeah so i just to conclude the last few
minutes of this of today's presentation
is this files
as a relay it's because it relates a
little bit then
we'll
be able to get back to
with the chirognesia drop um as follows
if you look there's a inverse again
going back to our saliva where he has
these shiorim that he gave on the
guinness so one of the one um
he mentions
something to the effect like this let me
see if i can find it
hmm
oh
legend has it that rivarami benezra was
the son-in-law of bermuda lady he says
like this when i was a little boy i was
told that review da levy was writing a
poem appeared and did not have time to
finish it so he left it on his table
in the meantime he left the house and
ezra came home looked at it took a
pencil out of his pocket added something
to it when you da levy came back and saw
the audition he became determined to
find out who had written it he finally
concluded that
ezra was the only person in the world
who could have done it so avraham and
ezra married
okay salvation brings down that in one
place in his commentary in hamish
the ebenezer says yehuda levy may rest
in peace asked me so he obviously knew
him very well this is what salvation
says so the question is is there any
truth to this legend and what's the
source for this legend so we're not
going to go into a deep dive as you
called it correctly into this legend
just mentioned once again who's the
earliest source the shashanos
okay uh-oh so we got to get worried
of course um and like everything else
there's different versions of this story
and different aspects of the story and
they say similar story with rashi and
okay like everything else hashem there's
a safer written about appeal just the
way the story goes it was a specific
that inspired them have a minute to say
um
of course in the past few years a book
came out all about this period and deals
with this legend um it's called me
from a fellow let me see if i can find
his name would be strawberry leo a nice
small countries and he deals with this
legend he basically discusses if it
could be true natural anyway
fine but bottom line is they were very
close this is clear
and he's quoted a bunch of times in his
writings
in lebanese writings something i think
someone quotes maybe even twenty this is
discussed by enough taliban who was very
sick in the benezer okay
now
does review why is this negaya
is does the benezera make a territory
shrill
so i had mentioned earlier a sort one of
the sources are discussing the different
lists of the of who's buried where
the um
the yorkshire brings down that they're
that they're related and they're
and there are other sources that say
such a thing so it sounds like he made a
territorial
interestingly enough recently there was
an article written by a professor uriel
simon one of the world experts in ibn
ezra and it was incorporated one of his
recent books on the banezra um called
the yukon shell parshan he has a whole
chapter is why didn't
rebuke why didn't he divine azer go with
tribute levy and he has a whole
discussion based on these chirons the
documents and incredible ideas in in the
benezer's story
um and dealing with and he says it's
better that he if he would have gone we
might not have been zaika to have what
we got from the vanessa and he documents
this in his article
but but it could be that at the end of
the day he as i said is the yorkshire
and his other sources that he is buried
in earth israel
so even though
he might not have been his son-in-law
but he definitely knew him they seem to
have a close relationship and this is
not this is actually yes documented now
just to mention one last uh two last
naples about this and we'll finish we'll
conclude
so we already mentioned that in the in
the knees from the gnesa fragments and
other materials we know they met also so
it's besides for the um
it's besides four that they met and they
had a close relationship as it's known
lebanese quotes them as their salvation
says one time but it's much more okay
now
interestingly enough again in the early
sources of reshainam that we have like
the ravens say that kabalamir you
when they talk about them they don't
mention that there's any relationship
between them
starting later on uh maybe the babanelle
might be the the earlier source or
bizarre eminem others they do start
mentioning it that there is a connection
between them
okay now the shashadows are kabbalah his
story gets accepted by certain makaires
such as the maybe the cedar dairies and
others
when he talks about the story says cause
of who
okay fine even though
then ezra brings down the the yuda lady
a lot but he says he doesn't ever refer
to him as a um that he's my
father-in-law fine so he says it doesn't
sound like that maybe maybe after if you
want to say the story story's true even
though he says it's because of who he's
maybe later on he got married to reuben
okay now
like everything else where is there a
possibility that there could be some
connection between
rabbi levy through marriage and
and ebenezer so that's what we'll
conclude based there's an interesting
character that is the son of the benezer
and this son his name is yitzhak now
this yitzhak was interesting person
seems to be he was also a great python
and it's clear from the documents that
he was close also with tribute
and it seems that there's a good mukbang
to suggest
that this person was a son-in-law by
ravihuda levy so there really was a
family connection but again it's not 100
it's still ongoing as they say they're
handling all the the details and working
out
in the analysis of the different
documents relating to this now this
person was a python sadly there is a
source that says supposedly at one point
distributes it went off to derek
also questionable um why what we don't
know necessarily but we do have some of
his um miraculously they did discover
some of his putem and we don't really
know if he really did go didn't he go
off but there is makkah to say that he
was actually a son of abu dhabi so there
is some again some type of truth but not
the truth of that yes
as the way
salvation was saying over which is sort
of from the shakaballah so it's
basically there's like this
there are legends with really there are
other legends this legend got different
legends took upon did not they they
sometimes switched the name it might not
be the leviathan's rashi others because
these are the heroes of of our
of the hours throughout the generation
so that's why legends are attract
attached to them but sometimes one
should not make fun of legends because
sometimes at least some aspects of
legends are true and maybe all aspects
are true um and just like there was the
chironesia discovery it could be
there'll be more discoveries even in the
chironesa maybe who knows that will shed
further light on the story of this great
python uh and so this is giving you some
insight but as i said make sure to learn
through let's say or salvation others
when you're saying these putin and
thinking about arabic
add cam for today we'll have rachmonas
thank you so very very much rabbi
drillies are brought i would like to
once again thank the bound family who
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maybe
inspire somebody to think a little bit
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together narratives
thank you very much