R. Yechiel of Paris and his Messenger, Yaakov, in the Land of Israel
🗺️ The great Tosafist Yechiel of Paris made his way to Eretz Yisrael c. 1260, establishing a yeshiva in Akko (Acre). His messenger, sent out to solicit funds, wrote an account of the holy sites.
You’re reading Stories from Jewish History, a weekly newsletter exploring Jewish thinkers, events, and artifacts, from the famous to the obscure. Last week, we made aliyah along with some three hundred rabbis from France and England, seeking brighter horizons and the special spirituality available to those residing in the Land of Israel. In the decades that followed, the great yeshiva of Paris, which trained generations of Tosafists, was transferred to Akko (Acre) in Eretz Yisrael. Today, a look at the rabbi behind the move and at his messenger, who was dispatched to raise funding for the yeshiva. Along the way, he expanded a list of holy sites into a guide of sorts.
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There are many open questions in the story of R. Yechiel of Paris, of his academy and its transfer to Crusader Akko, about the mission of his shaliach (messenger), and about the messenger’s travel account. We possess too few sources to know with certainty many of the key aspects of this complex story. We’ll glean what we can and take a close look at several passages from the account of thirteenth-century Eretz Yisrael.
R. Yechiel and his Academy
R. Yechiel ben Yosef of Paris was one of the leaders of the Tosafist movement in the generation of R. Yitzchak ben Moshe, the Or Zarua. The two greats studied together for a time at the academy of Paris under the tutelage of R. Yehuda Sir Leon, whom R. Yechiel succeeded as head of the yeshiva. R. Yechiel is cited relatively often in our Tosafot—the important dialectical commentary on the Talmud Bavli that expands Rashi’s running line commentary. Extant in many versions, the printed Tosafot in the standard editions of the Talmud we use today represent but one. (You can read about the “chief architect” of our present Tosafot, R. Yitzchak of Dampierre (Ri), here.) R. Yechiel also apparently wrote a lost work, attested in an adaptation of it that is still in manuscript, called Sefer Dinim (The Book of Court Proceedings), and responsa, which survive through citation by others. Among R. Yechiel’s students, also important Tosafists, were the Semak (R. Yitzchak of Corbeil, the author of the Sefer Mitzvot Katan), R. Peretz of Corbeil, R. Yakir of Chinon, and the Maharam (R. Meir b. Baruch of Rothenburg).
R. Yechiel is also known for his protagonist role in the dramatic, and highly unusual, Disputation of Paris, which took place in June of 1240. A former student of R. Yechiel’s, who took the name Nicholas Donin after he converted to Christianity, spearheaded the effort to hold a public trial in the presence of the king and queen of France of the Talmud itself. This push was part of a trend, which built over the course of the thirteenth century, that reconceptualized the role of Jews in Christian society, seeking conversion of Jews rather than toleration (under conditions intended to be humiliating). A prototype of later public disputations, the Paris disputation put the Talmud itself on trial and resulted in the burning of cartloads of precious Jewish books. (I wrote about the Trial of the Talmud in Paris here.)
Sometime after the disputation and the book burnings, around 1260, R. Yechiel departed for Eretz Yisrael along with a coterie of his students (reportedly, three hundred). Scholars are divided on whether he successfully made the journey there or not, though most assume that he did. What is certain is the the Midrash ha-Gadol of Paris was transferred to Akko, then under the rule of the Crusaders, where it enjoyed scholastic success, although, like most Jewish institutions of the Land of Israel, it was strapped for cash.
R. Yaakov, the Messenger of R. Yechiel of Paris
R. Yaakov is described in the surviving manuscript of his work as “the loyal messenger of R. Yechiel of Paris” (ר' יעקב שליח נאמן מהרב ר' יחיאל מפרישי). He was charged with raising funds for the R. Yechiel’s yeshiva, in the service of which he circumnavigated the Land of Israel and surrounding areas, which he documented in a sort of guidebook for pious tourists. There is some disagreement in the scholarship as well with regards to R. Yaakov’s route, with some maintaining that he was dispatched to the Land of Israel from Paris, a confusion born of the use of the name “Paris” to describe the yeshiva that had been transferred to Akko. Most scholars, however, assert that R. Yaakov was dispatched from Akko to neighboring communities in the Middle East and perhaps Europe. This latter assumption makes more sense given the poor economic conditions in the Land of Israel at the time.
Yaakov’s Account of Eretz Yisrael
R. Yaakov’s account is styled as a guidebook to the graves of holy individuals. It appears that he worked from a list that he had copied, which he expanded with his own impressions and recollections. They include graves outside of the Land of Israel as well, but focuses on Israel.
Yaakov gives a relatively brief, but detailed, account of Jerusalem:
[ירושלים] כיון שמגיעין לצופים רואים משם ירושלם וקורעין קריעה אחת; וכיון שמגיעין לירושלם עולים לאחת מחרבותיה ושם רואין את הר הבית וחומת העזרה, עזרת נשים ועזרת ישראל, מקום [ירושלים] כיון שמגיעין לצופים רואים משם ירושלם וקורעין קריעה אחת; וכיון שמגיעין לירושלם עולים לאחת מחרבותיה ושם רואין את הר הבית וחומת העזרה, עזרת נשים ועזרת ישראל, מקום
When we reach Zophim, we see Jerusalem and make one rent in our garments, and when we reach Jerusalem we go on one of the ruins and look at the Temple Mount and the wall of the Court of Women, and the Court of Israel, the site of the Altar, and the site of the Temple, and the Sanctuary, and we make a second rent in our garments for the Temple. From Jerusalem we go down to the brook of Siloam, the waters of which come out of the Temple Mount under the earth until there. Thence they descend to the gardens of the City and there we bathe. It is said that the waters heal the sick and, therefore, the Moslems bathe there. Thence we ascend the Mount of Olives and some go by way of the valley, which is the Valley of Jehoshaphat, and there is the Jewish graveyard below the Temple Mount, and we follow along the valley until we reach a platform which is on the Mount of Olives, where the red heifer was slain, and we go uphill to the platform which faces the Temple gate. Thence we see the Temple Mount and all the buildings upon it, and we pray in the direction of the Temple.
Trans. E. N. Adler, Jewish Travellers of the Middle Ages, p. 117
Here again we see the custom of rending one’s garment ritually upon seeing the ruins of Jerusalem. Like the other accounts we’ve seen, R. Yaakov pays careful attention to the sites of the various parts of the Temple rite, seeking to experience them in some way by recreating the ancient pathways of the priests.
Note Yaakov’s attention to sites and graves of many different types of personages, from various eras:
מירון] החוזר לעבו דרך הרמה ילך מן הרמה למקום ששמו צרפנת והוא בין הרים גדולים א) ושם נחל קטן אולי היא צרפתה שהלך שם אליהו ז"ל אצל האשה האלמנה - ומשם עולים בהר לבפר הרס היא תמנת סרח ושם קבר יהושע בן נון וקבר נון אביו וקבר כלב בן יפונה ומשם לעוורתא אשר שם אלעזר ואיתמר ופינחס ושבעים זקנים ומשם לשבם ומשם לעבו ומשם בשלש פרסאות לבפר הנן (ענן) ושם קבר ר' יעקב דמן בפר חנן ור' אליעזר בנו הוא ר' אליעזר בן יעקב קב ונקי וכששים אמה ביניהם ושם ר' חלפתא ואשתו ובנו ר' יוסי זה אצל זה ותלמידיו קרוב להם ושם בהר בית הקברות ושם ר' זבריה בן הקצב. ושם למטה מערה ובה כ"ד תלמידים, ועוד שתי מערות סמוכות זו לזו האחת פתוחה והאחת סתומה ושם בית הכנסת לר' שמעון בן יוחאי. - משם כשתי פרסאות למידון ועל הדרך סמוך לכפר תנחום בחצי פרסא קבר נחום איש גמזו, ועליו ציון נאה ופתח המערה סתום ואמת המים עוברת לפניו. וי"א שקבור ככפר רפאדיה וי"א שהוא בפר דמן פרוז ב). במירון יש מערה לשמאי והלל ותלמידיהם סך כלם שלשים ושם מתקבצים ישראלים בפסח שני ומתפללים שם ואומרים מזמורים. וכשמוצאים מים בתוך המערה כלם שמחים שהוא סימן שתתברך השנה והרבה פעמים שלא ימצאו שם מים ובעת התפלה היו באים המים בהרף עין. ושם קבורת ר' שמעון בן יוחאי ועליו ציון נאה וסמוך לו ר' אלעזר בנו אומרים בי שם היה מדרש ר' שמעון בן יוחאי ושם קבור ר' יוסי בן קסמא בין הכרמים ושנים
If one returns to Acre by way of Ramah, he goes from Ramah to a place called Zarephath with a little brook which runs between big hills. Perhaps it is the Zarephath where Elijah went to visit the widow woman. Thence one ascends the hill to Kefar Haras, which is Timnath Serah, and there Joshua, the son of Nun is buried, and his father Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and from there to Avarata, where Eleazar and Ithamar and Phineas and the seventy Elders are buried, thence to Shechem and from there to Acre, whence it is about three parasangs to Kefar Hanan. There is the grave of Jacob of Kefar Hanan, and R. Eliezer, his son, that is R. Eliezer ben Jacob, the Author of Kab-ve-Naki, with about sixty cubits between them, and the graves of R. Halafta and his wife and son, R. José, one next to the other, and his pupils near to them. On the hill is a graveyard where R. Zachariah, the son of the butcher, is buried and, below that, is a cave in which there lie twenty-four of his disciples and two other caves near each other, one open and the other closed, and a synagogue of R. Simeon ben Jochai is there. Thence it is two parasangs to Meron and on the way near to Kefar Tanchum, about half a parasang away, is the grave of Nahum Ish Gimzo, and upon it is a beautiful monument, and the door of the cave is closed and a stream of water runs in front. Some say that he is buried in Kefar Raphadia and some in Kefar Damin Pharuz. In Meron there is the cave of Shammai and Hillel and their pupils, thirty-two in all. There the Israelites [Jews] meet on the second day of Passover and pray and say hymns and, when they find water in the cave, they all rejoice, for it is a sign that the year will be blessed, but many times they find no water, but when they pray the water comes in a twinkling. There is the grave of R. Simeon ben Jochai and upon it is a monument and near it is that of R. Eleazar his son, and they say that R. Simeon's Beth Hamedrash was there.
Trans. E. N. Adler, Jewish Travellers of the Middle Ages, pp. 121-122
In this section of R. Yaakov’s account, we see him zigzag from Biblical figures to rabbinical figures. He also records pious customs performed locally at the sites once occupied by these storied individuals. Where there is uncertainty, R. Yaakov dutifully records different possibilities. There is, then, just a touch of critical distance in R. Yaakov’s earnest and emotive attempts to locate Jewish history in physical sites that can be experienced in his own day.
Reads and Resources
You can read R. Yaakov’s account in J. D. Eisenstein’s אוצר מסעות (New York, 1926). (I know that the HebrewBooks.org links don’t seem to be working for everyone, unfortunately - the full url is https://hebrewbooks.org/2933.)
For more on R. Yechiel’s role in the Trial of the Talmud, see the sourcebook The Trial of the Talmud: Paris, 1240 and also Hyam Maccoby’s Judaism on Trial: Jewish-Christian Disputations in the Middle Ages.
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A fascinating bit of history, thanks for writing / sharing!