The Work, Torah Teaching and Communal Leadership of Rabbi Ephraim Ankawa: The Shift of the Spiritual Centre from the Iberian Peninsula to the Maghreb
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Summary
This text surveys the many-sided figure of Rabbi Ephraim Ankawa, a spiritual and political leader who was active in the 14th and 15th centuries and was a key figure in the rehabilitation of the Jewish communities of the Maghreb after the expulsions from Spain. The source details how the Rav combined Torah scholarship, medical expertise and communal leadership, and in particular how he succeeded in establishing the Jewish community in the city of Tlemcen in Algeria thanks to his ties with the local ruler. In terms of thought, the work highlights his book "Sha'ar Kevod Hashem", in which he defends the rationalist conception of Maimonides (Rambam) against the criticism of Nahmanides (Ramban), while creating a harmony between philosophy and Kabbalah. Alongside his intellectual work, the text describes the rich folklore and the tradition of miracles that grew up around him, such as his famous ride on a lion, which made his grave a central focus of pilgrimage for the Jews of North Africa until the modern era.
Rabbi Ephraim ben Israel Alnakawa (known to the multitudes of his admirers in North Africa simply by the esteemed title "the Rav") represents one of the most multidimensional and influential figures in the reshaping of the Jewish spiritual centre in the Maghreb at the end of the 14th century and the beginning of the 15th century.[1, 2, 3] The figure of Rabbi Ankawa combines the classical Talmudic and philosophical scholarship of Spanish Jewry, profound theological thought bridging rationalism and Kabbalah, exceptional scientific skills as an expert physician, and communal and political leadership that raised from its ruins the Jewish community of Algeria in general and of the city of Tlemcen in particular.[1, 2, 4, 5]
Understanding his work and Torah teaching requires an in-depth examination of his family background in Toledo, the paths of his escape and his rehabilitation of the ruined communities of North Africa, his philosophy of defending Maimonides in his book "Sha'ar Kevod Hashem", his poetry and liturgical poems expressing theological and existential ideas, and the rich folklore of miracles and pilgrimage (the hillula) that developed around his figure and remains fixed in communal memory to this day.[1, 3, 6, 7]
His Life and Family Background in Spain
Rabbi Ephraim Ankawa was born in Toledo in the region of Castile in Spain, in the year 1354 (according to certain sources 1359), to an ancient and distinguished family of sages and leaders that had lived in the city at least since the twelfth century.[1, 2, 8] The economic and religious power of the family was expressed, among other things, in its maintaining a private synagogue in Toledo, which had been founded by Rabbi Ephraim's great-uncle, Rabbi Avraham ben Shmuel, who was murdered in the year 1341.[1]
Rabbi Ephraim's father was Rabbi Israel Alnakawa (the Holy), a spiritual exemplar and the author of the monumental ethical and halakhic work "Menorat ha-Maor".[1, 5] The book "Menorat ha-Maor", composed out of a desire to make the words of aggadah, ethics and proper conduct accessible to the masses of the people, is divided categorically into a number of "lamps" (such as the seven lamps, which include avoiding the pursuit of luxuries, guarding the tongue, fulfilling the commandments, Torah study, the ways of repentance, proper conduct and humility), and it became one of the foundational books of the world of Jewish ethics.[9]
In his youth Rabbi Ephraim learned Torah from his father, who instilled in him the foundations of scholarship and ethics.[5, 8] On reaching the age of thirteen, he was sent to study in the famous yeshiva of the Ran (Rabbenu Nissim ben Reuven) in Girona, where he acquired complete mastery of the Talmud and the halakhic decisors, alongside a broad education in Jewish and general philosophy and in the medical sciences.[5, 8]
The period of relative calm of Spanish Jewry came to its tragic end in the year 1391 (the persecutions of 5151).[8, 10] During the cruel pogroms that swept Toledo and the other cities of Spain, Rabbi Ephraim's father, Rabbi Israel the Holy, and his uncle Rabbi Shlomo chose to die for the sanctification of God's Name.[1, 8] They burned themselves to death while holding a Torah scroll so as not to convert.[1, 5, 8] Rabbi Ephraim, who was then about thirty-seven years old, witnessed the terrible massacre in which his parents and many members of his community were murdered (among them the grandson of the Rosh, Rabbi Yehuda ben Asher).[2, 5, 8] In the dead of night he managed to escape from the clutches of the rioters, and he wandered to the city of Málaga in southern Spain, and from there crossed the Strait of Gibraltar to North Africa.[3, 5, 8]
The Rehabilitation of the Communities of the Maghreb and the Settlement in Tlemcen
On arriving in Morocco in the year 1391, Rabbi Ephraim Ankawa found Jewish communities in a deep crisis, both economically and religiously and spiritually.[3, 5, 8] The hardships of the road, the persecutions and poverty had led to grave ignorance among the masses of local Jews, and some of them had even begun to adopt syncretistic customs influenced by the non-Jewish Berber environment.[8] Rabbi Ankawa settled first in the city of Marrakesh and began to work energetically to rehabilitate the communal infrastructure.[5, 8] He initiated and established basic educational institutions (chadarim) for children, and founded yeshivot for adolescent boys in which he taught Torah, halakha and ethics.[5, 8] His activity brought the voice of Torah back to the synagogues and turned simple merchants and craftsmen into regular students of Torah.[8]
This historical process, in which other Spanish sages who fled to North Africa at that time took part – such as the Rivash (Rabbi Yitzchak bar Sheshet), the Tashbetz (Rabbi Shimon bar Tzemach Duran) and Rabbi Yitzchak Bonastruc – turned Algeria and the entire Maghreb into the most vibrant and important spiritual and Torah centre of the Jewish world at that time.[1]
After a period of activity in Morocco, Rabbi Ankawa moved to Algeria and settled first in Agadir, a suburb or small village located outside the walls of the city of Tlemcen.[3] At that time, the laws of the local Muslim government forbade Jews to live within the bounds of the city of Tlemcen itself.[3, 8] The historic breakthrough that led to the establishment of the Jewish community within the city stemmed directly from the Rav's scientific skills as an expert physician.[1, 2, 4]
The only daughter of the ruling sultan (of the Banu Zayyan dynasty, identified in tradition as Abu Tashfin) fell ill with a mysterious and grave illness, and all the palace physicians, Muslim and foreign, failed in their attempts to save her life.[1, 2, 3] Rabbi Ankawa was summoned to the palace, and through a combination of scientific medical diagnosis and deep prayer (when he advised her to limit herself to eating an apple, alongside his prayers for her recovery), the princess was completely healed.[1, 2, 5]
When the sultan wished to grant Rabbi Ankawa an enormous reward in gold, silver and precious stones, the Rav firmly refused to accept personal benefits.[2, 5] Instead, he asked the king to allow the Jews living in Agadir, together with several hundred more families of Jewish refugees who had fled from the Iberian Peninsula and the region of the Balearic Islands (more than 500 families), to enter and live securely within the bounds of the city of Tlemcen.[1, 2, 3]
The sultan gladly granted his request, gave the Jews rights of residence, and appointed Rabbi Ephraim Ankawa chief rabbi and official leader of the city.[2, 3, 8] The Rav hastened to build a large and magnificent synagogue within the city (which stood and was called by his name for hundreds of years), and founded a great yeshiva that became the main Torah centre in the region.[2, 3, 5] The Rav's political standing at the palace greatly assisted in establishing Jewish autonomy. One of his prominent students, Rabbi Yosef Sasportas (born in Tlemcen in the first decade of the 15th century), was later appointed by the king to serve as the official judge (dayan) of the community.[3]
The Rav's communal legacy was also preserved through his family and students; he left behind two sons, Rabbi Israel and Rabbi Yehuda.[2, 5] Rabbi Yehuda lived in the cities of Oran, Mostaganem and later Tlemcen, and became the father-in-law of Rabbi Tzemach Duran (son of the Rashbash and grandson of the Tashbetz), which linked the Ankawa family by ties of marriage to the lions of Torah of Algeria in those days.[2, 5] Some fifty years after the Rav's death, the family of the famous sage Rabbi Avraham Gavison also settled in Tlemcen, testimony to the continuing attraction of the city as a leading Torah centre founded by the Rav.[3]
His Torah Teaching in His Book "Sha'ar Kevod Hashem"
The only book of Rabbi Ephraim Ankawa that has come down to us is the theological-philosophical work "Sha'ar Kevod Hashem" ("The Gate of the Glory of God").[7] The book was written as a detailed response to the speculative questions of his eldest son, Rabbi Israel Ankawa, and it combines in a sophisticated manner rationalist Jewish philosophy, speculative Kabbalah, theology, and a most profound grammatical and philological understanding of the Targum of Onkelos.[7] The manuscripts of the work are kept in the famous Bodleian Library in Oxford.[2, 5]
The central and declared aim of the book is a systematic and uncompromising defence of the method of Maimonides in his "Guide of the Perplexed" against the objections and incisive criticisms levelled at him by Nahmanides (Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman) in his commentary on the Torah and in his eschatological work "Sha'ar ha-Gemul".[7, 10] Rabbi Ankawa sets out a consistent interpretive doctrine showing that Nahmanides' objections often stem from a misunderstanding of the scientific and theological rules that guided Maimonides. The two central issues discussed at length in the book embody the core of the dispute between the rationalist current and the conservative-kabbalistic current in Spain:
Onkelos and the Removal of Corporeality
Nahmanides many times raised difficulties about the consistency of Onkelos the proselyte in his translation of verses that refer to God, wondering why in certain places Onkelos translated the verses literally and in other places inclined to a translation that removes corporeality.[10] Rabbi Ankawa resolves these difficulties in a methodical and brilliant manner. He shows that Onkelos acted according to wonderfully precise theological and grammatical rules.[11]
The book explains that wherever the Torah ascribes to God a physical "place" or "dwelling" (which might mistakenly be interpreted as confining God within the bounds of matter), Onkelos is careful to add the words "beit shekhinteh" (the house of His Presence) in order to create an absolute categorical separation between the spiritual divine essence and physical space.[11] For example, the verse "I have surely built You a house of habitation, a settled place for You to dwell in for ever" is translated by Onkelos: "I have surely built a house of sanctuary before You, a place prepared for the house of Your Presence".[11] Similarly, the verse "then hear You in heaven, Your dwelling place" is translated: "and You shall receive from heaven, from the place of the house of Your Presence", and the metaphysical question "and where is the place of My rest?" is interpreted in the manner of "and which place shall be the house of My dwelling?".[11] This analysis proves that the aim of Onkelos (and of Maimonides after him) was to defend the concept of the absolute unity and spirituality of the Creator.[10, 11]
The Prophetic Visions of the Patriarchs and the Angels
Maimonides argued in the Guide of the Perplexed that all the encounters described in the Torah between the Patriarchs and angels (and especially the story of the visit of the three angels to Abraham's tent in the portion of Vayera) did not take place in physical, sensory reality, but were visions that occurred solely within prophetic vision or in a prophetic dream.[10, 12] Nahmanides came out against this approach very sharply, arguing that it empties the biblical stories of their plain meaning and raises grave questions (such as how spiritual angels really ate butter and milk, or how Sarah heard their words in the tent).[10]
In his book, Rabbi Ankawa defends the approach of Maimonides at length. He explains the epistemology of prophecy and the cognitive tools of the prophet, and establishes the distinction between limited physical reality and the prophet's higher intellectual perception in his dream.[10] The Rav proves that the words of Maimonides do not weaken faith but, on the contrary, elevate it above low corporeal conceptions.[10, 12]
The book "Sha'ar Kevod Hashem" won enormous esteem not only among scholars of philosophy (such as the scholar Colette Sirat, who studied his philosophical thought in the modern era), but became a cherished asset among the sages of Kabbalah.[1, 13] The kabbalists of Safed in the sixteenth century greatly esteemed the work, and Rabbi Chaim Vital (the foremost student of the holy Ari) attests that the book was constantly on the lips of the kabbalists, which teaches of Rabbi Ankawa's unique ability to weave together Kabbalah, theology and rationalist philosophy into a single spiritual harmony.[13]
In the year 5662 (1902), the book was reprinted in Tlemcen at the press of Castro and partner, by Rabbi Chaim Bliah, who wrote on it a comprehensive and illuminating commentary called "Petach ha-Sha'ar".[10, 14, 15] A modern, corrected edition of the book was published with notes and a comprehensive introduction by Rabbi Eliyahu Rachamim Zeini.[14]
His Poetry and Liturgical Poems as a Mirror of His Existential and Theological World
Alongside his speculative work, Rabbi Ephraim Ankawa also tried his hand at writing poetry and liturgical poems (piyyutim).[2, 13] His piyyutim are characterised by depth of thought, linguistic erudition and exceptional religious and existential sensitivity.[6, 13] Two of his central piyyutim that entered the prayer and selichot books of the communities of the Maghreb are the Aramaic piyyut "Elah mehiman di vera zeman" ("Faithful God Who created time") and the piyyut "Adon olam asher na'aleita" ("Lord of the world, Who art exalted").[13]
His most fascinating and famous poetic work is the lament "Ez'ak mar va-akonen" ("I shall cry out bitterly and lament").[6, 7] According to communal tradition, Rabbi Ankawa dreamed a prophetic dream in which he was told that he was destined to die that year.[6, 7] Following the dream, the Rav decided to compose while still alive a kind of lament for himself and an incisive rebuke to man as such, which he signed with an acrostic and with the moving personal signature "Efrayim mitnoded" ("Ephraim who wanders") and "Efrayim na" ("Ephraim who roams").[6, 7]
The poem is composed of seven structured and thematically distinct stanzas [6]:
The first five stanzas: devoted to a profound moral rebuke presenting the nothingness, transience and wretchedness of man in the face of death.[6] The Rav describes the angel of death as a cruel "traitor" and "robber".[6, 7] He calls on man to contemplate his end ("See, wretched son of man, and consider your end") and reminds him that the beginning of the flesh is in stench and its end in the grave as food for maggot and worm ("for the worm it is food, and for the maggot an inheritance").[6]
The last two stanzas: move to a personal and moving lyrical tone, in which the Rav describes his own parting from the material world ("I have wandered from your world, the world of the stars, whose affairs are vexation and all whose days are pains") and his longing to be bound up in the bond of life and to awaken before the divine radiance of the Shekhinah ("and I have run to the bond of life, all of whose days are long and good, to the world of the radiance of the Shekhinah, all of whose days are sweet").[6, 7] In the last stanza the Rav turns directly to his community and students and asks them to mention his name for a blessing, to persevere in the study of Torah and not to be enticed by the vanities of this world, whose end is vexation and pains.[6]
The full piyyut was first printed in the book "Perush ha-Torah shel Rabbenu Ephraim z"l" ("The Torah Commentary of Our Master Ephraim, of blessed memory"; part one), which was edited and published in Johannesburg in the year 5710 (1950) by Rabbi Chaim Yosef Isser Gad.[6]
The Wonders, the Folklore and the Phenomenology of Holiness
In the historical and cultural memory of Maghrebi Jewry, Rabbi Ephraim Ankawa is perceived not only as a philosopher and judge, but first and foremost as a supreme saint and wonder-worker ("the righteous man accustomed to miracles").[1, 2, 6] The wonder most identified with him, which became the visual symbol of his figure, is the story of his miraculous entry into the city of Tlemcen.[1, 6, 8]
According to tradition, wild beasts of prey, headed by a fierce lion, used to come out of the forests of the south and attack the inhabitants of the city.[5, 8] When Rabbi Ankawa heard of this, he wrapped himself in a tallit, put on tefillin and went out alone to the forest unarmed.[8] At the moment the raging lion leapt towards him, the Rav recited the verse from Psalms: "You shall tread upon the lion and the adder; the young lion and the serpent you shall trample".[5, 8] The lion immediately calmed down, knelt and lay down at the feet of the righteous man.[8] The Rav climbed onto the lion's back, took hold of a huge twisting serpent as a rein (bridle/halter), and rode proudly into the city of Tlemcen before the astonished eyes of the Muslim and Jewish inhabitants.[1, 3, 5, 6, 8]
When the crowds gathered around him, the Rav used the event to teach a deep moral and spiritual message, saying: "See and understand – it is not the lion and the serpent that kill, but sin is what kills and gives evil beasts the power to do harm" (based on the famous Talmudic saying in tractate Berakhot 33a).[5, 6, 8] In memory of this wondrous deed, the image of a lion and a serpent was engraved on the Rav's gravestone, and it has accompanied all the visual records of his grave through the generations.[6]
Scholars of culture and religions (among them Colette Sirat) have identified a further deep layer in this myth.[1] This image of a man ruling a lion and holding serpents as a rein parallels phenomenologically the ancient iconography of the Phoenician-Carthaginian god Baal Hammon (also identified with the Roman Saturn), who was the central and most influential god in the region of North Africa in antiquity.[1] This fact indicates that figures of Jewish saints in the Maghreb unconsciously absorbed ancient mythological archetypes of mastery over the forces of nature, and charged them with Jewish Torah content based on observing the commandments and subduing the evil inclination.[1, 5, 8]
The Rav's Grave and the Pilgrimage (the Hillula)
Rabbi Ephraim Ankawa died at a ripe old age on 1 Kislev 5202 (1441/1442), at the age of eighty-eight.[1, 6, 7, 8] He was buried in the ancient Jewish cemetery located on the outskirts of the city of Tlemcen.[2, 3] His grave became the most important and popular pilgrimage site (hillula/ziyara) in the whole region of Algeria, attracting not only tens of thousands of Jews from all over North Africa and France, but also local Muslim inhabitants who held the righteous man in enormous respect.[1, 2, 3, 5]
During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, every year in spring around the festival of Lag BaOmer, more than 10,000 pilgrims would gather in Tlemcen, an event that almost doubled the city's population in those days.[3, 5] The hillula ceremonies included unique and elaborate customs:
A Visit to the "Rav's Cave"
The pilgrims used first to visit a special cave (known as the "Rav's Cave" or Rabi's Grotto).[5] According to tradition, when the Rav arrived in Tlemcen on a Sabbath eve, exhausted and thirsty, he struck the rock in this cave with his hand, and clear water began to flow from it.[5] The water was considered to have unique healing properties, and the pilgrims used to drink it pure or mixed with wine, anisette or absinthe.[3, 5]
Rituals at the Grave
After walking along a path surrounded by dense trees that filtered the sunlight, the visitors passed through a simple iron gate, beside which a long path of reeds, young vines and clematis led to a circular clearing in which a large whitewashed rock marked the Rav's grave.[3] The pilgrims used to light many wax candles, embrace and kiss the gravestone, and make petitions for salvation.[3] On leaving the grave precinct, the visitors were careful to step backwards without turning their backs to the grave, as a sign of the utmost respect for the deceased.[3]
On the Rav's gravestone the following monumental inscription was engraved, which teaches of the exalted status he attained:
"This is the grave of him who was our pride, our strength, the light of Israel, our teacher, learned in divine knowledge, famous in his generation, worker of miracles, master of this place, the great Rav Ephraim Alnakawa".[3]
Social and Collective Aspects
The hillula was not only a closed religious event, but an enormous social and communal happening.[3] It included large family picnics in the cemetery precinct, performances by local musicians, and official visits by representatives of the local government and Muslim personalities who came to pay their respects to the memory of "the Rav".[3]
The year 1955 marked the last year in which a full and large communal celebration of the hillula took place.[3] With the outbreak of the Algerian War of Independence, the intensification of national tensions and the mass departure of the country's Jews, the celebrations ceased entirely.[3] Today, the cemetery and the grave lie in quiet solitude, protected and adorned with the image of the lion and the serpent, as a silent testimony to a period of spiritual and communal splendour that was and is no more.[3, 6]
Summary and Historical Assessment
The figure of Rabbi Ephraim Ankawa represents the intellectual and structural resilience of the leadership of the exiles from Spain, who knew how to translate a heavy personal and family disaster (the pogroms of 5151) into the building and rehabilitation of the world of Torah in the Maghreb.[1, 5, 8] His Torah teaching, embodied in his book "Sha'ar Kevod Hashem", attests to a sophisticated attempt to preserve the philosophical-rationalist legacy of Maimonides, while presenting profound interpretive solutions to the criticism of Nahmanides.[7, 10]
His unique ability to combine the different poles – science and clinical medicine on the one hand, and Talmudic scholarship and kabbalistic mysticism on the other – is what gave him his immortal status as the political leader of the community and as a wonder-worker among the masses of the people.[1, 2, 4, 13] His work established Tlemcen as "the Jerusalem of the Maghreb" and ensured that the intellectual embers of Spanish Jewry would continue to shine in the heart of North Africa for generations to come.[1, 5]
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