Astruc ha-Levi of Daroca (lived in Spain at the end of the fourteenth and at the beginning of the fifteenth century) was a Spanish Jewish

Talmudic The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law ('' halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cen ...

scholar and member of the

Astruc family The Astruc family are a Sephardic Jewish family from Avignon, France. The family has produced several Rabbis, physicians, journalists, and Talmudists who have been prominent throughout France. The founder of the modern family is Israel bar Joshua ...

. He was a delegate to the famous

disputation of Tortosa The Disputation of Tortosa was one of the famous ordered disputations between Christians and Jews of the Middle Ages, held in the years 1413–1414 in the city of Tortosa, Catalonia, Crown of Aragon (part of modern-day Spain). According to the ' ...

, in 1413, under the presidency of

Pope Benedict XIII Pope Benedict XIII ( la, Benedictus XIII; it, Benedetto XIII; 2 February 1649 – 21 February 1730), born Pietro Francesco Orsini and later called Vincenzo Maria Orsini, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 29 May ...

, at which he displayed energy and breadth of mind. Attacks having been made on the Talmud, based on some extravagant ''

haggadic Aggadah ( he, ''ʾAggāḏā'' or ''Haggāḏā''; Jewish Babylonian Aramaic: אַגָּדְתָא ''ʾAggāḏəṯāʾ''; "tales, fairytale, lore") is the non-legalistic exegesis which appears in the classical rabbinic literature of Judaism, ...

'' sentences, Astruc handed to the assembly a written declaration, in which he denied any authority to the Haggadah, and utterly renounced it. On another occasion, Astruc dared the anger of the pope. Having pointed out the improbability of the haggadic legend that the

Messiah In Abrahamic religions, a messiah or messias (; , ; , ; ) is a saviour or liberator of a group of people. The concepts of '' mashiach'', messianism, and of a Messianic Age originated in Judaism, and in the Hebrew Bible, in which a ''mashiach ...

was born on the day of the destruction of the Temple and was now in paradise, Astruc said: "Lord and Pope, you believe so many improbabilities about your Messiah, let us believe this single one regarding ours."

References

*Ibn Verga, Shebet Yehudah, ed. Wiener, Hebrew text, pp. 68, 74, 76, 77 *Kobak's Jeschurun, vi. 45 et seq

External links

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{{JewishEncyclopedia 15th-century Aragonese Jews 14th-century Aragonese Jews