Journey To Ramsgate - The History of Sir Moses Montefiore & the Damascus Affair of 1840

this torah class is brought to you by torahanytime.com okay good morning everyone welcome to our nasiya kadaisha now this trip was about a year and change in the making and at first i'll tell you i was hesitant to make this trip there are not too many people in this world that i would take a group of people to their gravesite to their keva who are not what we call gadoli israel and sir moses montefiore was not renowned for his knowledge of torah he was not a torah scholar per se in fact interestingly moses not the fear could be called the first balchuva because until 1827 he grew up as a traditional jew a god-fearing jew but his level of jewish education was somewhat limited and an event happens in his life that literally changed the course of the rest of his life and that is he made his first trip to arts israel now you have to understand to travel to aratsu in the beginning of the 19th century you were putting your life in jeopardy you were putting your life in peril to travel the way he didn't even know you could physically travel territorial he was he was once on the seacoast and he heard some sailors were making a trip to israel he said you could go to israel he said we could go to israel sir you can't go to israel you're too wealthy they're pirates roaming the waters if they ever get wind that moses montefiore is traveling the waters you're a dead man so the way he went to israel is he put on adam and attire he had a dress up hide all his money and to travel those waters in those days he literally placed his life in peril and he went he always traveled with his wife judith and he made it to he made it to him and he was so moved by being in the holy land and being in the holy city that it changed the course of his life forever and actually svarum say that we could say that moses montefiore we know that's usually applied to the rambam and you have to be careful about saying something like that and i tell you the truth of moshe feinstein has somewhat of a different take on this whole thing whenever moishe was asked about moving the bones of moses not to fury to arts israel he said it's us and one of the reasons he says it's also is because he says moses montefiore wasn't one of the great rabbis of history and to pay special attention to him it's a bizarre into all the acharyan you're going to move moses not to fury now move the same sofa some sofa was greater rebecca vegar was greater all the acquaintance were greater all the ashkenazic and sephardic rabonim on the hierarchy in our minds are greater than moses mount the fury and therefore moshe said you cannot move him because it would be disparaging to all the rabbunum throughout history but nevertheless in a certain vein moses montefiore is personally responsible for the trajectory and the success of the jewish people last 200 years just to name a few of his accomplishments he built you shalom you know in the 1850s if you were to peek out of the people of the walls of jerusalem you would see sand dunes and you'd see desert there was no civilization outside of the old city of israel there was nothing you know the mirror yeshiva today would not be without the efforts of moses mountain fury the whole you shall line would not exist he built the first neighborhood outside the walls of ishmael in mishkanos he built he's responsible for the next neighborhood human moshe which is built in his memory and these are some of his accomplishments building yushalayam rescuing jews throughout the world from blood libels and other accusations saving israel most notably the album he saved the life of the album and therefore what really was a changing point for me in whether to make this something that we're going to focus on is a safer i happened to stumble across recently i became very interested in the writings of rakhine falaji and of course as soon as i became more interested in it i had anybody want to come in december we're going to turkey to the cavalry fallacy we have permission from the turkish ambassador we're going to have security two days in and out it happens to be it's going to be the yard site of the baus mikhas natalie cats english states it's um xmas in the next two days so shabbos is xmas and then we leave monster shabbos sunday monday tuesday there's no way you're ever ending up in turkey unless you're a real daredevil okay so um i was looking at a particular safe era of robhampalachi the name of the state first cayenne tequila is 101 ways to connect the end of the torah to the beginning of the torah and actually when he published he published it in a small size because he wrote it for jews for khai desh tishrei who don't ordinarily have an opportunity to learn and they're waiting online they're buying their lula they're buying their esto they're putting up their sukkah and they don't have time to learn formally and this way they have a few minutes here a few minutes there so he published a small safe fare to so that jews would have a few moments to learn here and there and um in the back of this safer khayim trilla i randomly checked i don't even know why i was looking and he published a safer called so open up the draft of the maisha and it's a book of praise of sir moses montefiore so i cannot believe that requiem falaji wrote a book just of divrei of moses montefiore and about a particular incident that happened in 1840 and i can't say i read every word of the safe room but i went through a good chunk of it and actually we had like a two-part three-part series based on it and i want to share with you some of the information that i'm philadelphia writes about moses montefiore and you'll get a little picture and a little understanding of the haikara and the value that someone of the caliber of time palazzi wrote 72 samara okay he was not writing history books the fact that he wrote a book about moses montefiore means he held him in the highest esteem moses montefiore was born in 1784. if you're born in 1784 you're lucky if you make it to your 40th birthday if you're 40 years old you're ready it's time for geriatrics and if you were 50 you're a zucchini muffler if you were 60 you were over the hill 30 years before nobody made it to their 60th birthday in the 18th century moses not to fury lived over a hundred years old which was unheard of how's it possible even he was never to have children he never merited children but he had an extremely close relationship with his wife judith cohen who was the sister-in-law of rothschild so moses montefiore was rothschild's brother-in-law and his firm was the staff broker for a rothschild's company actually in uh montefiore's first stint in uh stock as a stock broker he lost all of his clients money but he did make another attempt and actually he did not make his money in the stock market he made his money investing in the supply of piped gas for street lighting in european cities via the imperial continental gas association so basically he made money pumping gas to the uh the city street lines and he became so wealthy now here's the biggest uh probably the most amazing thing about mount to fury's life the verdict of history is that the more money people make the more challenging it becomes for them to observe halacha and the mithsis of the torah it may come as a certain surprise but what is considered in jewish thought a bigger challenge in life wealth or poverty most people would say yeah poverty is a much bigger challenge i'll any day i'll gladly take the great challenge of wealth any day bring it on bring it on god give me the money and i'll i'll happily take that challenge but in the sephrate hashgaffa it's unanimous the challenge of wealth is a much more difficult challenge than the challenge of poverty and throughout jewish history and somehow moses montefiore the more god bestowed upon him the more humble he became the more god-faring he became and he actually retired at age 40. montefiore retired formally from business life at age 40 and he went into full-time philanthropy like people say what's the definition of an askin someone who could afford it so moses manchester fiore became a full-time philanthropist askin where he traveled the jewish world he loved to travel he had his carriage and him and judith traveled throughout europe they traveled by sea and they traveled by carriage and to dangerous jewish communities they traveled to morocco to damascus to egypt to throughout the jewish world by land by sea saving jews from very difficult and perilous situations most notably and the one that um montefiore really earned the uh respect of rakhine falaji is for the what is known as the damascus affair of 1840. what is the damascus affair of 1840 it refers to the arrest of several notable members of the jewish community in damascus on the accusation of murdering father thomas a christian monk basically christian monk and his [Music] muslim servant ibrahim came into the jewish corridor and they were never seen again and they had this very convenient way of torturing jews until they admit to the crime one of the rabbis who was imprisoned was a was one of the great ravana of yaakov and toby another rabbi was imprisoned in rhodes his name was rabyakov israel and there's a rabbi who wrote a safer minhas yehuda ravihuda alkali who describes in graphic detail the torture that the rabbanum had to undergo until they would finally admit yeah they killed this uh christian monk of course they never even even saw him but under the torture and under duress they had no choice but to admit to it and he describes that the torture and graphic detail he wrote about 40 pages of describing and graphic detail and i will now read to you all 40 pages of the torture they had to undergo this will take about five hours and you'll say that re actually listening to it may have been more torturous than but i'm just going to give you a little dogma of what they had to undergo they put the rabbis in ice water water that had actual ice in it and the choices were either go underwater with their heads submerged until they would drown or come up for air and be clubbed over the head with spiked clubs and the rabbis would be forced to go underwater until they had no choice but to surface for air and they would be clobbed over the head with rusty nails in spot with spikes and clubs until they would finally admit that they killed the christian monk and they used his blood of course for the mathsize this is what happened in the month of adar in the year 1840 and for six months the jewish world was not apprised of this terrible tragedy because syria closed their borders they would not let any male out of damascus until one jew shaved his beard snuck out of damascus sent message to aleppo and the whole jewish world was a prize of this this was actually the first time in jewish american history that jews in america had the courage to protest publicly and stand up for the atrocity that was being committed in damascus in 1840 and uh sir moses montefiore was surprised of the situation and interestingly if you're a wealthy man and you hear that a jew is in trouble very often the reaction is i don't care who it is don't tell me the story here's my uh checking account how much do you need here's the money don't bother me that's unfortunately the attitude very often and moses montefiore when he heard about the plight of these rabbanim in damascus he said i'm going to damascus for him it wasn't about writing the check it was about what he could personally do to help the lives of other jews so the first thing he did is he traveled to egypt now the this was in the time of the ottoman empire in 1840 in the ottoman empire they had the following system it was called the millet system the millet system was that this was a muslim rule however other religions had a certain autonomy so the christians had their own autonomy the jews had their own autonomy and sir sir moses montefiore now who was the leader of the syrian um muslim community under the ottoman empire syria was under the rule of muhammad ali okay it's not who you're thinking don't be confused with the boxer no muhammad ali was the ruler of and he was a terrible anti-semite and he believed this accusation against the jewish people muhammad ali had a son in egypt who was a little bit more sympathetic to jews and sir moses not the fury traveled to egypt he had audience with muhammad ali's son muhammad ali's son recommended that moses not the fury make his way to turkey so after going to egypt montefiore made his way all the way to turkey and ultimately succeeded in having the sultan send word to muhammad ali to free the rabbanim who were still alive in prison many had died already and muhammad ali agreed to free rabia vantavi but muhammad ali never acquitted him of the crime so he never conceded that the jews were not guilty of this crime but he but through the interference of moses montefiore um muhammad ali freed yaakov and toby and muhammad um mo sir moses not the fury traveled the waters he stopped off and he passed by the city of izmir who's the rabbi of izmir at the time rakhine falaji however he passed by the city of israel on chavez and moses man the fiori being a god-fearing jew would not come off the boat on shabbat so um did not meet sir moses montefiore on his trip to the sultan but instead on the on the trip back from the sultan to london uh sir moses montefiore got out of the boat now if you're traveling by boat and you make it to the city of izmir and you're sir moses to fury where would your first stop be the governor the mayor the fair the bonanza the marketplace moses montefiore gets off the boat and he heads to the main shul in izmir to davin minha with a minion yes he could have been on the boat but it's better to dominate the minion and this was so inspiring to kind of that someone of the caliber of the prestige of the wealth of moses mount the fury made it his business now when he got off the boat he went straight to dhaban minha and then he met with all the rabbanim of the city and then sir moses mounted fury gave all the rabbanim money and rakhine filaji was very moved by that he says many wealthy people they think kavanaugh torah is to buy a nice safer torah and a nice mantle for the sacred tower and a nice crown for the sake of torah why and a nice our own for the safer torah this way we take out the safer torah when we want we dress the torah when we want and we put the safer tower away when it's good for us and we lock it up when we want and we don't have to look at it until we decide we want to look at it but to honor him wealthy people are very circumspect about giving money to ham the last thing they want to do is empower him and sir moses montefiore understood the gematria of torah that the best way the greatest way to honor the torah is to give money to tamil that's what i'm fellaini writes otherwise you know the say for tara comes out of the hecal oh and everyone stands up and everyone kisses it yeah everyone's kissing the torah because they know they can lock it up when they're done but the rabbis the rabbis are a different story altogether and rakhine falazi writes for moses not to was so moved by the honor that sir moses montefiore showered the torah he wrote an entire work praising sir moses montefiore and he begins with the following khakira i'll share with you some thoughts from the safer then i'll let you take a little break and we'll pick it up in a bit rakhine philanthropy says you might think that it's better to keep the accolades of sir moses montefiore at bay keep it modest keep it private after all if we honor the too much if we honor the sadhikim too much by the way i want you know the rabbi vadhi yosephany of amer refers to moses not to fury as sadiq that's not a title that he just throws around but you might think better to keep his activities modest after all if we give him too much covet it's going to take away from his as i'm sure you're all familiar with the ushami in the eighth paragraph of peya then when rebellizer would feed the anime and if the anime would curse him he would say thank you so much and when naneen would praise him he would say you just took away my reward so maybe we're better off not praising montefiore too much and refrain fallacy says no we are obligated to praise this great man momo how you doing good isn't this very interesting i thought so so uh by praising man to fear you you might think you're taking away from his reward in haba and rakhine says we are obligated to praise him as much as possible for the following three reasons number one we have to understand that if moses mount the fury saved the jewish community of syria of damascus of rhodes this was not moses montefiore moses not to fury this is the work of the repunish and if we don't praise him and we don't acknowledge what he did we're being a kafoe taiva not only to him but to god because god helps the jewish people through agents and mozzarella was the agent of god to save these jewish communities and save the dalai israel and therefore he we are obligated to recognize what he did as a way of showing number two and most importantly we need to publicize the activities in the life of moses not to fury to teach wealthy people how to conduct themselves that wealthy people need to get down and dirty to help the jewish people they can sit in their ivory towers and appoint an agent who has appoints a shliyak who appoints a middleman who appoints a fifth person who will write out their checks and they get a report at the end of the month and don't bother me somebody comes to an oyster i need help okay what do you mean how much do you need no you have to understand this person i don't care what the person needs i don't care what the person here's the money it's very convenient to think like that no the person who has the resources has to understand the need feel the need be personally involved empathize sympathize get down and dirty get your hands dirty to deal with the situation moses montefiore people don't like the tinny sam moses mounted fury he traveled he left his ivory castle of ramsgate we're now traveling to ramsgate it's only a 10 hour drive and he could have stayed there and appointed a middleman no he got into his carriage and he personally went at sea on the waters he had to avoid pirates he had avoid villains he had avoided robbers difficult such bandits and he risked his life to personally deal with the sultan i mean if the sultan didn't like moses mount the fury not the fury is dead that's the end of him to to visit the courts of sultans and world monarchs and plead on behalf of the jewish people that this is something that the ashirim need to learn from that it's not enough just to write out the convenient check and number three says that when jews are in peril our attitude should be we're in peril when we hear about our brothers and sisters in a far-off country that are in danger we have to view that it's our brother it's our sister it's our children and therefore if moses is not the fury rescue jewish communities in faraway countries we have to view it as if he rescued us and if he rescued you would you say well i'm not going to tell anybody what he did for me because i don't want to take away from his shirt and allah that would be real that would be an act of an ingrate and therefore in order to demonstrate that we feel that he helped us personally it is important to uh recognize everything he did for us and falaji penned a uh multi-page safer where he wrote many many chapters uh praising uh moses mounted fury for his activities just in the damascus affair that we'll hear about in a little bit and we'll speak to you very soon you've just experienced another torah class brought to you by torahanytime.com