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12 HASHALOM November
2016
November 2016
HASHALOM
13
It emerged last week that a Portuguese Torah dating from the time of the Inquisition was discovered by a builder while demolishing a house
in the small city of Covilhã.
The Hebrew scroll was found next to a 16th century church where descendants of Jewish converts were known to have worshipped.
After discovering the document, the builder wrapped it in a sheet and brought it home for safekeeping, where he kept it for 10 years.
About six months ago, he showed it to specialists, and it is currently on display at Covilhã’s City Hall. When fully unraveled, it is 30m long and
60cm wide. It is in very fine condition and the letters are easily legible. The mayor of Covilhã plans to keep the scroll at the city’s historical
archive.
The scroll is an astonishing discovery because virtually all of Portugal’s Jews were forcibly converted by King Manuel I in 1497 and, later,
persecuted by the Inquisition. They and their descendants would have kept their Torahs and other religious books under great secrecy, and
only worshippers in a very select circle would have been aware of the scroll’s existence.
These converted Jews and their descendants were generally referred to as “New Christians” or “Conversos”, or even “Marranos”, meaning
swine. They called themselves Anusim, however, meaning those who had been obliged to become Christians.
Anusim who wished to hold on to their Jewish beliefs and identities had to remain constantly on their guard because the Portuguese
Inquisition - under the authority of the Catholic Church - was charged with arresting any of them who continued to practise Judaism.
A New Christian could be arrested for simply lighting candles on a Friday evening or whispering a word of Hebrew.
The Inquisition kept them in special prisons, often for years, and they were tortured in order to compel them to give up the names of other
secret Jews. All their assets were confiscated by the church.
The Portuguese Inquisition lasted from 1536 until the 1770s, and those Anusim who wished to live openly as Jews fled the country whenever
they could, establishing flourishing Portuguese-Jewish communities in North Africa, Italy, the Ottoman Empire and Holland. After the re-
admission of Jews to England in the 1650s, they also started settling in London.
Huge, Inquisition-era Torah scroll found
in Portugal
JEWISH WORLD
By Richard Zimler- The Jewish Chronicle
Covilhã
The scroll itself
BUBKES
The Waiting Game
You may or may not believe in soul mates, but here’s something
to think about: even finding the right person at the wrong time
may not give you what you’re looking for (or what you need).
Exhibit A: I choose to believe that Warren is my soul mate. That
said, things might have turned out very differently if we’d met
a few years earlier than we did. I’m not sure that the up-and-
coming advocate would have been quite so taken with the face-
pierced, black-hair-dyed, wild party animal I was at varsity – even
if I was basically the same nice person under all the glitter and
beer.
Timing is everything. This is important advice for aspiring
magicians and wannabe card tricksters, but we can all take a
lesson from this adage. Anyone who’s ever tried for a baby will
know exactly what I’m talking about (and it’s no coincidence that
taharat hamishpacha
– the
mitzvah
of family purity – ensures that
husband and wife are permitted to each other at just about the
time that she happens to be ovulating.)
Even without the biological imperatives of
hormones, we all have plenty of instances
in our own lives where we know that feeling
of waiting. Perhaps you’re waiting to meet
The One and can’t understand where s/he
is. Maybe you’re hoping to launch a business but the market isn’t
ready. Wish you could back to study? Perhaps you can, but not
at the same time as working two jobs, raising three small kids
and chairing four committees. Maybe you’ve got a book in you,
but despite hours of staring at a blank screen, you can’t get the
words out. How about this for an idea: it will happen when the
time is right. You don’t know it yet, but you may need to develop
certain characteristics, gain a particular experience, or change
an attitude about something before the opportunity you seek is
ripe. Trying to push an experience to happen before its ready
is not the answer. If it’s not working, if it doesn’t feel right, it
probably isn’t. (Yet.)
Hashem
is love. His plans are love and life is love, so we should
move forward in a state of love. In other words, life should feel
good. Living our purpose should fill our hearts with love and
excitement and joy. If you’re not feeling that, STOP. Sit. Wait for
Hashem (that’s number 37 for the psalmists out there). He’ll let
you know when the time is right.
Only
Hashem
is infinite and therefore unbound by time. He’s tried
to teach us this again and again – just look to the Torah. We
could have upped and outed from Egypt whenever we wanted,
right? (You know, except for those Pharoahic guards with the
swords and stuff.) But
Hashem
knew we weren’t
spiritually
ready
for the exodus until, well, we were. Then we had to hang out in
the desert for 40 years before we were ready for the next stage
of our communal development, in the land of Israel.
So it is today. Being merely flesh and bone and grey matter, we
cannot process everything in this amazing, majestic, wonderful
world. At least, not all at the same time. We need to pace
ourselves.
Think of it this way: imagine trying to celebrate Pesach and Rosh
Hashana
and
Chanukah
and
Yom Kippur
all at once! Not even the
most multitasking Jewish Supermom could pull that off. So God
has given us a nifty tool to pace ourselves, not just through the
matzah
and the candles, but through the spiritual experiences.
In the book of Numbers,
Hashem
spoke unto Moses saying
that we should mark the start of a new month with an offering.
This forces us to stop the hamster wheel of life (they may have
had a more germane metaphor back in
the Wilderness) and pause to consider the
passing of time. Since we no longer have a
temple in which to offer sacrifices, today we
offer prayers to observe the movement of
time with a monthly
Rosh Chodesh
service.
And how do we know when the time is right? How do we know
when to celebrate
Rosh Chodesh
? Like much else in our lives,
we look to the heavens. This time, we’re watching for the new
moon. The Hebrew calendar is governed by the moon and, like
the moon, the Jewish people have waxed and waned throughout
history. We’ve had our periods of strength and our times of
weakness. Except that they need not necessarily be perceived
as weakness. Even the tragedies of the exiles and the Holocaust
have taught us valuable lessons that have given us strength.
We can look at our individual lives this way too. What seems like
a personal calamity may in the fullness of time reveal itself as an
invaluable learning curve, preparing us for even greater things to
come. And – as with the moon – no matter how small we may
feel, there is
always
hope of renewal.
Each of us has a Plan laid out for us, but
Hashem
won’t push us
into it before the time is right. We’ve got to show Him that we’re
ready. (Just please don’t use freshly slaughtered lambs’ blood on
your doorpost – that sign is sooooo 3000 years ago.)
Good things come to those who wait. Whether it’s your soul
mate, your novel, or the Third Temple. Know the rules of the
waiting game, and you can have some fun. Until next time.
By Lauren Shapiro