‘Ets ḥayim (Tree of Life)

These are the generations of Isaac ben ḥayim ben Abraham: Abraham begot Isaac (Genesis 25:19) ben Joseph among the kohanim who trace their family back to Pinehas, son of Eliezer, son of Aaron the [first] kohen.

I am young, but I am more tired and weary than the children of my time, since the children of exile—the Jews exiled in Spain from Jerusalem [see Obadiah 1:20]—and I are like very old people. This is due to the many terrors of this very day, [which is] a time of scorn and derision [see 2 Kings 19:3]. The hosts of the Lord and the diligent community of Xàtiva were hurried out by their merry persecutors, who were delighted to fulfill the decree imposed by the Lord, in the month of Tammuz of the year 5252 [1492]. Rich and poor alike—myself among them—came to the city of Naples terrified and frightened. My heart was worn out with sorrow, a dagger cutting at its roots, due to our oppressors, tormenters, and harassers. With angry faces, they stripped us of our coat, the coat of many colors that was on us [see Genesis 37:23], and dressed us in vestures of fine linen [see Genesis 41:42] that were torn.

I am poor and destitute, and these evil happenings confuse the imagination and dim the colors of the day. I could not hide from the sorrows, to clear my mind and find space for my heart. With difficulty, I found a valley of visions in Puglia, north of the volcano, two years before the eruption [see Amos 1:1]. I followed this vision, emaciated and humiliated, for many years. We were dispersed and separated among the peoples [see Esther 3:8]. The Emim dwelt there in earlier times, a people great, and many, and tall, as the Anakim (Deuteronomy 2:10), with weapons, shining like lightning, which damage and strangle, strong as a cast-metal mirror (Job 37:18). These are of those who rebel against the light (Job 24:12)—i.e., the French—they kill, destroy, annihilate, and obliterate the miserable Jews who became caught up and mixed in the sorrows on account of the many bundles of curses. They are becoming fewer in number, blood-soaked between the horns of gazelles.

Then I declared, “Behold, I have come to perform the service of my Creator and my Master. I will therefore escape, and I will see, with my brother, the place which the Lord shall choose [see Deuteronomy 12:5] as a refuge for one who walks bent over, and who is also tired and has no strength. He has not drunk water, the waters of wisdom and understanding, not for one day nor two, but for seventy days, until the water has dried up from the vessel.” There was nobody who would speak words of Torah to me—of its light and splendor, its majesty and its crown, the holy crown—until my arguments, sayings, and songs were sealed up. Likewise, the ways, paths, and trails of their words were closed off from me and sealed until the end of time, like mute dogs binding sheaves [see Genesis 37:7].

Scarce had I passed from them (Song of Songs 3:4) and arrived in Italy, when behold, I found suffering, and I left there my humble, praiseworthy mother, who had raised me in Torah learning, in the footsteps of my pious father, may his soul rest in peace, may his noble merit be a witness and a shade for me, forever, selah [amen]. And I left behind my brothers with her, each with his helpmeet by his side. And then I applied my heart to seek [see Ecclesiastes 1:13] rest and relaxation for myself, to give comfort to my angry, forlorn, and desolate soul. Afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted (Isaiah 54:11), I came to Turkey in the year 5261 [1501], in the sixth millennium, in the month of Adar, to the realm of Constantinople, the city of the monarchy and the chief ministers of the king, may his splendor be exalted, as well as his senior and noble princes.

When God made me wander [see Genesis 20:13] from my precious learning and my studies and my musings and poetry—along with the chief men of the land, the kings of Judah and its ministers, its priests and the common people—I said, Woe is me! I waste away! The faithless deal treacherously (Isaiah 24:16), and scorners have delighted in scorning (Proverbs 1:22), and they have not allowed me to catch my breath [see Job 9:18]. They have made me swear an oath from the heights, and they have driven me out that I should not cleave to the inheritance (1 Samuel 26:19) of the Torah, the pure word of the Lord; He is a shield to all who take refuge in Him (Psalms 18:31), the straight and upright, the people of peace. I said to myself, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? Is not a little fear of the Lord better than a great amount of study, since I cannot obtain the necessary books for the highest levels of learning, as in the days of my youth, when the converse of God was upon my tent [see Job 29:4], in my childhood?”