The Eternal Jew’s Tale, #198, Crystal Haggadah, 9

In this episode we continue hearing the dread dreams of some of Rashi’s most exulted colleagues and disciples.

The Eternal Jew’s Tale
A Pesakh Montage, The Crystal Haggadah
Midrashbase

Rashi’s Pesakh Midrashim, Troyes, 1094 CE
Part 2

Then like the sounds of a somber bassoon, the voice of the Rav rumbles out:
“Tell us, Yehuda,* did you have a dream in which the good Prophet spake to you?”
* ben Natan, husband of Rashi’s daughter, Miriam

With a faint and tremulous whisper, Yehuda confesses,

“I think so. Yes. He pointed at me and in a grumbling voice:

“‘In the shadow of your namesake you creep and cringe, afraid to speak, afraid to be seen. Like a mouse, gathering crumbs in the night, hungry even when others feast.’”

Ashamed, he turns to pray Takhanun.*
* penitential prayers and petitions

“Then let me confess my failures too, and the lashes and stripes Elijah gave me,”

Yehuda* solemnly speaks then, as he lays a hand on Natan’s hand.
* ben Avraham

“‘Son of Adam, grasshopper man, your mind is full of fragments of thought, and yet you strut as if you were wise, and judge with the arrogance of a king, you, grasshopper, nothing more.’”

Seeing Yehuda debase himself, and seeing the Rav now peering at him, Ya’akov* knows he can’t withhold, so he devises a subtle lie to hide himself and escape the lash of these ones down here, tho his soul will pay, since no one can hide from the One Above. But of these, who will know his dream?
* Jacob ben Samson

“If Elijah came to me last night in dream, I don’t recall it well.”

And he looks around, eye to eye to show he isn’t holding back. Why then, as the quiet persists, does he finally stutter,

“Well, maybe this…

“‘One who rules with a whip in his hand, for every lash he inflicts, a life of despair is awaiting him.’”

Each of the rabbis look around and see their khevrah* starkly revealed with harsh judgements, their fatal flaws. What a strange and dreadful coincidence, such dreams. Except the master himself and Meir ben Shmuel, his son-in-law.
* friends, community

“Meir, did you not have a dream?”

And Meir responds most bitterly,

“Metzia* teaches that to shame a man in public is like to murder him. Must I murder myself like the rest of you?”
* Talmud, Bava Metzia 58b

Tenderly, Isaac ben Meir responds,

“True. But Rabbi Eliezer* teaches,
* Avot, 2:11

“‘Repent one day before you die.’
“‘And repentance is the surest means to restore one’s soul to its high estate. We are your khevrah. Be not ashamed.’”

“But even so, I am ashamed…. Am I so besmirched as this, this accusation Elijah makes?

“‘Meir, your soul is riddled with hate: hating yourself, hating your faith, hating your people, hating your God. Behind your devotion there’s a simmering hatred. Is t’shuvah* even possible?’
* return, atonement

“This, my t’shuvah, to serve my faith. I do not deny, it oppresses me, even tho the Lor has chosen us as Hem Priest.”

His words settle discomfitously on all the sages. Sharply stabbed as Meir is, each of them see their own shadowy hatreds, and feel stabbings much the same.

But now all eyes turn to the Rav, him pacing the bimah back and forth. Finally, addressing his disciples he says,

“As you may surmise Elijah too came to me last night, and said,

“‘Tomorrow all your disciples will come and reveal my words to each of them. I have torn the husks off their hearts, awful revelations I made to prod healing in their souls, that they might better serve the Lor. But as you know, the Higher Worlds operate in many voices, and when the Lor is speaking to you, Hem causes bend many planes. Tho each dream was personal, meant to awaken inner change, all their dreams, when seen as one, reveal a greater force at work. This the prophecy I give of days to come…’

“And then Elijah was no more, and at my window perched a cock that crowed and woke me from my dream. And so, my brothers, we must discern the drash* and sod* your dreams reveal. You my students must teach me. Help me extract the hidden truth, and what we must know for days to come.”
* critical analytics; ** hidden, mystical meaning; archetypic layer

That minyan of sages left no word of what conclusions they derived. But this we know: eighteen months after this, a pope’s call for a war against the Saracens brought tragedy to Europe’s Jews, and to many Muslims and Christians, too. And yet, Rashi survived the storm.

~~~~~~~~~~

For our next seder we venture into the Caucasus to celebrate with Mountain Jews.