On September 13, 1759, the Jewish year 5519, the 21st day of the month of Elul, before an equally great press of the curious, the rabbi of Lwów, Hayim Kohen Rapaport, stands in the name of his co-religionists and in a lengthy speech calls the whole accusation an act of spite, revenge, and plain old blood libel. He describes all the allegations as baseless and against the laws of nature.
Heavy drops hit the cathedral roof—at last the rain has come.
Rapaport speaks in Polish, slowly, carefully, as if he has learned this speech by heart. He cites testimonies from the Holy Scriptures and opinions on Jews issued by Hugo Grotius and Christian scholars. In a low, very calm voice, he assures those gathered that the Talmud does not command any harm to Christians. He finishes with a rhetorical turn that appeals to the grace and the protection of administrator Mikulski, that with the deepest gravity of his reason he might see fit to understand the allegations of the Contra-Talmudists concerning Christian blood as merely an excuse for their own bad actions, made in bad faith.
Now his secretary hands him a stack of papers, and Rabbi Rapaport begins to read in Hebrew. After every couple of sentences, Bia?owolski reads the Polish translation. It says, regarding the question of red wine, that the Talmud tells Jews to drink at Passover four portions of wine, and that in the scripture red wine is considered the best, thus it is appropriate to consume it. However, should the white be better, then it is permitted to drink white. This is done in memory of the blood shed by the Pharaoh from the children of Israel, because though it is not written distinctly in the scripture, it is tradition. It is also done in memory of the blood of the sheep killed in Egypt for Passover, with which the doors were painted, that the angel killing firstborn sons might pass over the homes of the Israelites. The term hint does not appear at all in the Talmud; evidently the Contra-Talmudists’ Hebrew is poor. In the same manner, the translation of the word adom as edom, which does not mean Christian, but rather Egyptian, is a poor one.
The argument that the three words detzakh, adash, and be’ahav, made up of the first letters of the names of the ten plagues, might mean what the Frankists suggest is completely baseless. For these words are set merely as a memory aide for the plagues, not for the designation of Christian blood. This is what is known as a mnemonic device, in other words, a technique to better remember.
The matzah baked for Passover is protected so that it is not fermented through any carelessness, for the scripture forbids consuming at that time any leavened bread. Meanwhile, the Orah Hayyim does not forbid kneading and baking in the presence of a gentile, a deaf mute, an imbecile, or a child, but rather by a gentile, a deaf mute, an imbecile, or a child. Again, then, the Frankists have translated this Talmud passage very poorly, and from there they make the inaccurate claim that somehow this prohibition is in the interest of obtaining Christian blood. As for the allegation that the Book of Rambam “allows for the consumption of human blood,” that is also false, since the book says exactly the opposite about this; the Frankists could really use a Hebrew lesson or two.
As it is getting very dark now inside the cathedral, a darkness only barely pierced by candlelight, Father Mikulski orders the disputation be paused and postpones the verdict until a later date.
Katarzyna Kossakowska writes to Bishop Kajetan So?tyk
. . . My Nose errs rarely, and it is sensing that Your Excellency has begun to lose Interest in our Cause, having more important Issues on your Mind in your new episcopal Capital. But I consider myself stubborn and will permit myself to disturb Your Excellency with regard to this Matter, given how heavily it weighs upon my Heart. It rouses in me equal parts maternal and paternal Feeling, since these Puritans of ours remind me of orphaned Children, and at the same Time, I consider how much good it would do them to leave behind their mistaken Religion and pass over into the bosom of our Polish Church!
As our Puritans did before, so, too, did the rabbis submit their written Defense before the consistory Court. On those present the Defense did not make at all the same Impression that the Accusation itself did. It was considered to be weak—not a well-reasoned or a proper Answer. Particular Attention was paid to the Fact that the rabbis defended the Talmud either with Citations from the scripture or with unqualified Denial. And in the End, it was all about some minor Detail, whether some Rabbi David in his Talmud gave some secret eye Signal, or hand Signal, some Hint about why the Talmudists were supposed to consume red Wine. Anyway, that is not the Point. To that no one was really listening.
The Truth is that all of us assembled there had already rendered our Judgment. Thus we derived great Satisfaction when the Verdict came. The Administrator, Father Mikulski, announced to those assembled that with respect to the first six Theses, the Talmudists were to be considered vanquished and convicted by our Puritans, and with respect to the seventh, on Christian Blood, upon the written Advice of the Nuncio Serra, the consistory Court would prefer to defer the Matter for further, closer Consideration, not taking a final Decision quite yet. I consider that to be proper. The Matter itself is too sensitive, the Passion it brings out too great, thus the Judgment of the Church Authority recognizing the Accuracy of our Charges’ Accusation, and in Turn the Truthfulness of the age-old Accusations, could have threatened the Jews with the worst Consequences. Despite some Disappointment on the Part of the Public in this Respect, everyone took the Decision to Heart and duly departed to their respective Homes.
Therefore I have to report to Your Excellency that the Matter of Baptism is already determined, and the Date has already been set for Jacob Frank himself, which pleases me greatly. What does he have to offer us? Much, indeed! He says—which I know through my Cousin, MoliwdaKossakowski—that if our Commonwealth were to offer him the right Conditions, several thousand People would follow him into the Catholic Faith, not only from Poland and Lithuania, but also from Wallachia, Moldova, Hungary, and even Turkey. He also argues intelligently that this whole Population, not knowing our Polish Customs, cannot be parceled out like so many Sheep, for without their own kind they will waste away, and so they must be settled all together in a sort of extended Flock.