81. Rabbi Machir

The images are reprinted from the following sites.

The Father of All Mysteries

The key geographical names this time are Italy, Germany, and Narbonne (Septimania).

Italy Jewish tradition features a Merkabah mystic named Abu Aharon (c. mid-9th century onwards).

I have already told you about Merkabah mysticism. It is what Gershom Scholem calls "Jewish Gnosis," and it is the origin of Christian Gnosticism.

Abu Aharon is said to be the son of Samuel ha-Nasi, a rabbi who emigrated from Baghdad in the mid-9th century. In documents, he is referred to as Aaron, Abu Aharon, Master Aaron, and so on.

The reason he is called a master is that during the several years Abu Aharon lived in Italy, he is said to have performed wonders through the power of the Holy Name.

Therefore, Abu Aharon was known as "the father of all mysteries (av kol ha-sodot)".

According to the traditions of the later Ashkenazi Hasidim, those new mysteries were learned from Abu Aharon around 870 by Moses ben Kalonymus, a rabbi from Lucca, Italy.

The Ashkenazi Hasidim refers to a mystical and ascetic movement practiced by Jews in the Rhineland of Germany between the 12th and 13th centuries.

If you Google it, you will only get hits for the modern Hasidism (an ultra-Orthodox Jewish movement), but it is a different thing.

The leaders of this community were descendants of the Germany-based Kalonymus family, which originated in northern Italy and migrated in the 10th century.

The Kalonymus family was one of the most prominent Jewish families in Germany, flourishing from the 9th to the 13th centuries, especially in cities near the Rhine.

Its members included rabbis, preachers, poets, teachers, writers, moralists, and theologians, and most of the prominent community leaders of this era came from the Kalonymus family.

And the Kalonymus family is a lineage of scholars connected to the House of David.

Traces of the Kalonymus family in Italy were already found in the late 8th century.

Then, Moses ben Kalonymus and his sons migrated to the Rhine valley in Germany, where they began to build the mystical tradition of the Ashkenazi Hasidim.

Some documents explicitly name Charlemagne (Charles the Great) as the king who ordered Moses and his family to migrate to Germany.

However, it is now believed that the king must have been Charlemagne's grandson, Charles II (born 823). In any case, it seems that Charles and his successors were actively in contact with mystical Jews.

Not limited to Pepin III and Charles, people in the Christian world knew that God had promised the descendants of King David the reward of "ruling to the ends of the earth forever."

Muslims knew this as well. Furthermore, the descendants of King David were prized by Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike as capable leaders.

Marrying a descendant of King David could guarantee success in Europe, as everyone valued the bloodline of David.

And the children born from such unions did indeed carry the blood of David, regardless of whether they were capable or not.

It would be exciting if the story continued that marital relations between the Franks and the Jews began there, but marital relations with the Jews did not start with the Carolingian dynasty.

During the Carolingian era, Christians and Jews cooperated to oppose Islamic forces. Therefore, regardless of whether it was Davidic or not, marriage with Jews was common.

However, as the Middle Ages progressed, the influence of Christian Gnosticism grew, and nobles and royalty of Jewish descent had to hide their Jewish ancestry.

From the tenth century onward, European society became increasingly anti-Semitic, and the House of David was forced to falsify genealogies and documents.

Thus, the Carolingian dynasty was linked to the origins of the Merovingian house, and that is how it came to be taught in schools. Of course, the word 'Jew' never appears in textbooks.

The Carolingian dynasty was, in fact, the direct male-line descendants of the Davidic line of the Tribe of Judah. was.

The son of Abu Aaron, the 'Father of All Mysteries,' is 'Ahunai of the Holy Land.' This Ahunai seems to have migrated west from Baghdad after his father-in-law, the Exilarch (leader) Heman ben Shalmu was killed.

Heman was the leader of the 'Jews who had ostensibly become Muslims.' He was martyred around 660, and the Jews of Pumbedita recognized Heman as the Messiah.

The son of 'Ahunai of the Holy Land' is Eudes (Mar Judah Zakkai). As the leader of the Aquitanian Jews, Eudes later formed an alliance with Charles Martel (c. 688–) and participated in the war against the Umayyad Caliphate.

And the son of Eudes was Machir ben Judah Zakkai, Rabbi Machir.

The legend of the 'Sefer ha-Kabbalah'

The German city of Worms is deeply associated with the Jewish people.

Worms developed due to the migration of Jews in the mid-tenth century. The first Jewish cemetery in Germany is also considered to be in Worms.

Synagogues and other structures had been built before 1034, but persecution of Jews occurred in connection with the First Crusade.

And the Jews would suffer further persecution after the Plague of 1348.

As an aside, regarding the persecution of Jews, it is established that the Christians are to blame, without room for argument.

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?oi=gsb95&q=persecution+of+jews&lookup=0&hl=en

I have told you many times about the "plague," but if the Jews threw poison into the wells, then they deserved to be persecuted.

The "theory of throwing poison into wells" is not an absurd story. I have repeated it many times, so I will omit it here.

The "plague" was prevalent even before the fourteenth century.

Plague aside, regarding Worms, Wikipedia says the following:

A Talmudic scholar from Worms, Eleazar of Worms (1176–), wrote this about the Kalonymus family:

Scholars have tried many times to organize the genealogy of the Kalonymus family, but because only similar names appear, it has not yet been accurately summarized.

A Jew from Cordoba, Spain, Abraham ibn Daud (1110–), wrote his book 'Sefer ha-Qabbalah' around 1161.

Meaning "Book of Tradition," the term "Qabbalah" did not yet have a mystical connotation at that time.

The 'Sefer ha-Qabbalah' was written to refute the Karaites.

The Karaites were a fundamentalist sect of Judaism that recognized only the Pentateuch as authoritative, and its founder was the mid-eighth-century Babylonian rabbi, Anan ben David.

Rabbinic Judaism (a sect of Judaism) also recognized the Talmud as authoritative. It was the sect of Judaism of the Kalonymus rabbis that appeared in the previous quote from Eleazar, that is, a sect of mystics.

The contents of the Talmud are filled with hatred for Jesus Christ.

The Karaites naturally attacked Rabbinic Judaism. The attack was: Do you and what you are doing have historical legitimacy?

In his rebuttal to the Karaites, Abraham ibn Daud also recounts the story known in Jewish history as the "Four Captives" to explain how centers of Jewish learning (legitimately) emerged outside of Baghdad.

Around 960, four rabbis from Sura, who were on their way from the port of Bari in Italy to attend a rabbinical conference at the Babylonian Academy, were captured by the notorious pirate Ibn Rumahis.

Sura is a place name, and along with Pumbedita, it was a center of Talmudic study.

The four rabbis did not reveal their identities, but they were subsequently sold in various ports or held for ransom. The places where they were sold were Alexandria, Tunisia, Cordoba, and a city whose name is unknown.

And in each of these lands, the four rabbis became the founders of rabbinical academies.

One of the four, Moses ben Enoch, received the patronage of Hasdai ibn Shaprut (c. 915–) in Cordoba and became a rabbi and dayan (judge) in Cordoba.

Hasdai is also an important figure, so please read the following article.

Ben Enoch, together with Hasdai, founded a Talmudic school in Cordoba. As the role and importance of Sura waned, Hasdai bought part of its library and had it moved to Cordoba.

The influence of the Cordoba school extended over Spain for another 350 years.

The legitimacy of this story of pirates and rabbis rests on the fact that before the tenth century, Jewish religious leadership was concentrated in the Geonim (heads of the Talmudic academies) of Babylonia.

In Jewish history, this era is called the Age of the Geonim.

Shortly thereafter, independent centers of Jewish learning began to emerge in various parts of Europe and North Africa, and the influence of the Babylonian Geonim diminished drastically.

The counter-argument to the fundamentalist Karaites is, in short, that 'there is legitimacy because the great rabbis of Babylonia founded academies in Cordoba and various parts of Europe (after a journey of hardship).'

And indeed, the center of activity for Jewish mysticism shifted to Europe as mentioned above.

This is a very important historical development, but since they are people who study books that claim 'Jesus was punished by being boiled in excrement,' it is an extremely annoying story for Christians.

And as anti-Jewish sentiment rose, Jews were forced to keep a low profile, both historically and practically.

Talmudic studies also began to be conducted in Narbonne, Germany (Bavaria), and Italy, and the connections between these regions are also evident from Kabbalistic materials.

The Prince of Narbonne

The 'Sefer ha-Kabbalah' contains a legend that Rabbi Makhir, a descendant of King David, established a lineage during the reign of Charlemagne.

To digress slightly, Rabbi Makhir is one of the most important figures in medieval European history.

However, as usual, if you Google 'Rabbi Makhir,' only game articles and images appear. Furthermore, smart AIs are, as usual, spewing out random explanations.

Even if you search on Google Scholar, not a single relevant Japanese paper appears.

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=0&q=Rabbi+Makhir%E3%80%80%E3%83%A9%E3%83%93&hl=ja&lr=lang_en%7Clang_ja&as_sdt=0,5

I suspect there are only about a hundred people in Japan who know about Rabbi Machir, so please take this opportunity to learn about him.

This Rabbi Machir was likely the Exilarch of the Jews in Babylon, that is, a Nasi (prince, ruler).

Charlemagne exchanged embassies with the fifth Caliph, Harun al-Rashid (763–), to build an alliance with the Abbasid Caliphate, and at one point, Charlemagne requested that Harun al-Rashid send a rabbi of the Davidic line.

It is also said that it was Charles Martel who made the request for the dispatch, and it was Rabbi Machir who came to Europe as a result.

Rabbi Machir's father, Eudes (Mar Judah Zakkai), a leader of the Jews of Aquitaine, had abdicated after 735 and entered the court of the Exilarch in Babylon. It was, so to speak, a U-turn.

It was likely his father, Eudes (Mar Judah Zakkai), who recommended that the Caliph approve sending Machir to Charlemagne or Charles Martel.

Whichever Charles it was, after conquering Saracen Narbonne, he gave Machir one-third of the city.

The Sefer ha-Qabbalah states the following:

And it is written that Rabbi Machir took a wife from among the city's nobility. He then became the Nasi in Narbonne, and Machir's descendants ruled for generations while remaining closely related to the king.

Rabbi Machir also established an important Talmudic academy in Narbonne.

As for who Rabbi Machir's wife was, it was Charles Martel's daughter, Alda.

And Charlemagne's mother was Rabbi Machir's sister, Bertrada.

I imagine most people know who Charlemagne is, but history teachers do not teach these kinds of things.

To repeat, the Carolingian dynasty is a direct male-line descendant of the House of David, a Jewish-Catholic lineage.

Charlemagne's Jewish name is David Kalonymus ben Abba.

The word "Karl" originally meant wolf. "Karlman" is werewolf.

Since that word eventually began to have a negative connotation, words like Kalonymus, which sound like "good names," were created. In Germany, Wolf became Wolff.

Rabbi Machir also had a Frankish alias, just like Charlemagne. His daughter is "Bertrada".

This is more serious than Charlemagne's Jewish name.Because almost no one associates names like Karl, Hugh, or William with Judaism or the Talmud.

The inability to recognize Judaism as Judaism leads directly to a misunderstanding of history.

And our misunderstanding, if not one hundred percent, is intentional.

Try to identify the true identity of Rabbi Machir in the following genealogy. By the way, this genealogy is partially incorrect.

The Jewish Crusades

The members of the Kalonymus family, as mentioned above, brought Talmudic studies toMainzin Germany.

The Yeshiva (Talmudic academy) in Mainz became a center for Talmudic studies under the guidance ofGershom ben Judah(960–).

Gershom ben Judah was revered as the "Light of the Exile." Exile refers to being banished to a distant place due to sin.

This is similar to the episode of Samuel ha-Nagid and the episode of the four great rabbis. In any case, it seems that legitimacy was being sought.

And Gershom ben Judah isRabbi Machir's brother.I do not know which one is the older brother and which is the younger.

Gershom moved with Machir from their birthplace of Narbonne to Mainz.

And in that place, Gershom marriedBonna bat Kalonymus, and soon after, he became recognized as a leading legal scholar representing France, Germany, and Italy.

His students and followers continued Gershom's research at the Talmudic academies in Mainz and Worms, and eventually, the research spread to France as well.

Also, Gershom is the very protagonist of the chanson de geste"Girart de Vienne", Girart de Vienne himself.

The author of "Girart de Vienne" is Bertrand de Bar-sur-Aube, and Aymeri de Narbonne, from another chanson de geste, "Aymeri de Narbonne," is Rabbi Machir.

These are chansons de geste that serve as prequels to the famous "Song of Roland," and Charlemagne also appears in them. No one who reads them would realize at first glance that the protagonist is a Jewish rabbi.

To say they were written to fabricate a Davidic lineage might be too much of a leap, but chivalric romances are Jewish and Kabbalistic in nature.

The relationships, including the marriages between Rabbi Machir's descendants and kings, lead to the subsequent Crusades, the founding of the Knights Templar, the Reconquista, and the Holy Grail legends.

I plan to tell you about this later, but the nine figures who embody the ideals of chivalry established in medieval Europe are collectively called"The Nine Worthies."

Listing the starting lineup gives a faint glimpse of what "chivalry" was like in medieval Europe.

• Troy's hero Hector

• Alexander the Great

• Julius Caesar

• Joshua, successor to Moses

• King David

• Judas Maccabeus, leader of the Maccabean Revolt

• King Arthur

• Charlemagne

• The First Crusade's hero Godfrey of Bouillon

The First Crusade is also known as the "Crusade of the Princes".

The subsequent Jewish and occult nature of the Knights Templar is because they were Jewish to begin with.

And what reaches our ears now are only Western-style (pleasant-sounding) names like Karl, Hugh, and William.

The Nine Worthies are a mix of reality and fiction. As I have told you repeatedly, this mixture is history itself.

We who belittle legends in our study of history are, in fact, being made to believe that legends are historical facts.