...אנחנו ראינו מוסר אלקינו זה י"ג שנה עד שנשתנו סדרי בראשית. כי ירד רע בשנה ההיא לרוב יושבי העולם וחלו בהם חלאים משונים א"א שנמשכו למנהגו של עולם. אבל כל משכיל צריך להודות ולומר אצבע אלקים היא. כי החלאים הנוהגים בבני אדם הם קורים בו מצד טבעו. אבל הזרים אינם נופלים בהם בטבעו אבל עונש האלקים בהשגחה עליו. ... והנה לשון זה הפסוק מסכים עם מה שמורה עליו השכל והוא שהחליים המשונים לא יחולו במקרה מצד טבע האדם אבל הוא אצבע אלקים. ואלה ראינו בעינינו מתפשטים וכוללים בשנה ההיא עד שנהפך העולם בזנה אחת יותר ממה שנהפך ונתחלף בזמן קודם במאתים שנה. וקרה בכמה מקומות כמו שקרה לדתן ולאבירם שכמה אנשים תמו נכרתו עד שנחלתם נהפכה לאויבים. לא שאומר שיהיה זה בעונם אבל כי היה וגם אנחנו בימים האלה ובזמן הזה שמועות יבהלונו תמיד שקורה בארצות אינן רחוקות ממנו מאד כמו שקרה במקומותינו וכאשר ראינו בעינינו. ועתה אחרי זאת איך ישאר ליצרנו ולדמיון הכוזב פתחון פה ואיך ישיאנו משאות שוא ומדוחים ויגרשונו מהסתפח בנחלת יי. הלא עינינו אשר ראו את מוסר יי אלקינו וידו החזקה ויאמרו לנו לבל נפנה אל רהבי הזמן כי שקר נסכם, ונקל עלינו לשוב אל הש"י בלב שלם כאשר גזר שכלנו כי אין עליו ליאות בזאת ומונע ומעכב אין שטן ואין פגע רע?
...We have been witness to the chastisements of our God for thirteen years now, a complete reversal of the natural order of things. For the evil [the Black Plague] descended in that year [1348] upon most of the inhabitants of the earth, bringing upon them unusual afflictions which it is impossible to attribute to the workings of nature. Every enlightened individual must acknowledge them as "the finger of God." For the sicknesses common to man may be attributed to his nature, unlike strange, exotic illnesses, which must be regarded as the punishment of God to man in His constant surveillance of him. ...The language of Scripture, then, agrees with what is dictated by intellect — that sore, exotic afflictions are not the adventitious byproducts of man's nature, but rather "the finger of God." And it is such afflictions that we witnessed with our own eyes, reaching out and engulfing all in that year, until in the space of just one year the world underwent a more radical change than it had ever undergone previously in the course of two hundred years. And in many places it happened as it happened with Dathan and Aviram, many men — they and all that was theirs — being completely wiped out, until their inheritance reverted to their foes. I am not saying that this happened because of their sins, but that it happened. And we, too, in these days and in this time are being constantly alarmed by reports that in lands not at all distant from ours there are happening things of the kind which happened in our land and which we witnessed with our own eyes. This being so, how can our evil inclination and our deceitful imagination make any claim upon us? How can they arouse us to rebellion and drive us from domicile in the inheritance of the Lord? Is it not our own eyes that have seen the chastisements of the Lord our God and His strong hand exhorting us not to fall prey to false, temporal vanities? Is it not easy for us to return to the Holy One Blessed be He with a whole heart, as dictated by our intellect, unimpeded by any hindrance or deterrent, untrammeled by the Satan or by any evil intercessor?
(כח) ...שאין ספק שכאשר תקרינה בעולם מצוקות ותלאות, הוא יותר נקל לאדם לשוב לבוראו למי שאינו שב בעתו בעונה הזאת בזמן הזה. על החיל אשר נגע השם בלבם לפשפש במעשיהם ולשוב בתשובה הן בעבירות שבין אדם למקום הן בעבירות שבין אדם לחברו:
(כט) ומה שמייראנו יותר בעבירות שנכשלים בהם בני אדם תמיד הם שני דברים. האחד ענין שבועות וחרמות. והשני עון שנאת חנם...שהיא עבירה שמתמיד בה האדם תמיד ואין שום תועלת והנאה לאדם בה ואין הטבע נוטה אליה. מפני זה אמרו רז"ל (יומא ט) ששקולה שנאת חנם כנגד ג' עבירות עבודת אלילים גלוי עריות שפיכות דמים. לפי שהטבע נוטה יותר לאותן ג' עבירות ממה שנוטה לשנאת חנם. ואם באתי לפרש היאך יארך יותר מדאי. ולפי שהנכשל באותן עבירות אינו נכשל בהם אלא פעם אחת בזמן מרובה. ועון שנאת חנם נכשל האדם תמיד.
(28) ...For there is no doubt that when the world is visited with distress and adversity it is easier for a man to return to His Creator. How much more so should we return, in our time and in our epoch when the Lord has smitten such a multitude, to examine our deeds and repent both of those sins between man and his Creator and those between man and his fellow man.
(29) And there are three considerations which cause me special concern in respect to two sins that men are constantly guilty of — the first, vows and oaths; and the second, causeless hatred...[which] is a transgression that one constantly persists in and that affords no benefit or enjoyment to a man which would cause his nature to incline towards it. It is for this reason that our sages placed causeless hatred over and against three transgressions: idol worship, illicit relations, and murder — for man's nature inclines more to these three than it does to causeless hatred (to explain the how and why of this would take too long) and because it is only once in a long while that one succumbs to them, whereas one constantly succumbs to causeless hatred.
Should cause for dissension present itself, be slow to accept the quarrel; seek peace and pursue it with all the vigor you command. Even if you suffer loss thereby, forbear and forgive, for God has many ways of feeding and sustaining His creatures. ... In trade be true, never grasping at what belongs to another. For by avoiding these wrongs - scandal, falsehood, money-grubbing - you will surely find tranquility and affection. And against all evils, silence is the best safeguard. ...
Be very particular to keep your houses clean and tidy. I was always scrupulous on this point, for every injurious condition and sickness and poverty are to be found in foul dwellings. Be careful over the benedictions; accept no divine gift without paying back the Giver's part; and God's part is humanity's grateful acknowledgement.
On holidays and festivals and Sabbaths seek to make happy the poor, the unfortunate, widows and orphans, who should always be guests at your tables; their joyous entertainment is a religious duty. Let me repeat my warning against gossip and scandal: just as you speak no scandal, listen to none. For if there were no receivers, there would be no bearers of slanderous tales; therefore the reception and credit of slander is as serious an offense as the originating of it. The less you say, the less cause you give for animosity. ...
From the last testament of Rabbi Eleazar of Mainz, c. 1357
In the year 5108 (1348), a terrible pestilence raged from sunrise to sunset, and not one city remained untouched. ... A pitiful outcry rose from one end of the earth to the other, unequaled until now: for a town evacuating one thousand sick people had only one hundred persons left, and a town of one hundred had a mere ten survive. And if a single Jew took ill and died, then one hundred people of the land took ill and died, the Gentiles were filled with rage and would no longer fraternize with the Jews ...
In these days, no king ruled in Aragon; had God not stood by our side, not one Jew from Aragon or Catalonia could have escaped or run away. Out of sheer spite, accusations were leveled against us: "All of this has come to pass due to the guilt of the Jews; they have brought this deadly poison into the world; they have caused it, and only because of them has this horrible plague come upon us." As they voiced this rumor, the Jews panicked, mortified their bodies through fasting, and cried out to God. This year was a desperate time for Israel, a time of grimness and of punishment. On a Sabbath eve, the Gentiles rose up against God's people in Barcelona and killed twenty people...[some of] the Jews went out to the nobles and dignitaries of the city to save the rest from the attackers...but they were powerless to save them; too many had risen against them, saying: "Let us destroy them, so that they will no longer be a nation, and the name of Israel will no longer be remembered..."
Yosef HaKohen, Emek HaBacha [The Valley of Weeping], 1557
The Epitaph of Asher ben Turiel, Toledo, Spain, 1349
This stone is a memorial
That a later generation may know
That 'neath it lies hidden a pleasant bud,
A cherished child.
Perfect in knowledge,
A reader of the Bible,
A student of the Mishnah and Gemara.
Had learned from his father
What his father learned from his teachers:
The statutes of God and his laws.
Though only fifteen years in age,
He was like a man of eighty in knowledge.
More blessed than all sons: Asher - may he rest in Paradise -
The son of Joseph ben Turiel - may God comfort him,
He died of the plague, in the month of Tammuz, in the year 109 [June or July, 1349].
But a few days before his death
He established his home;
But yesternight the joyous voice of the bride and groom
Was turned to the voice of wailing.
[Apparently he had just been married.]
And the father is left, sad and aching.
May the God of heaven
Grant him comfort.
And send another child
To restore his soul.
In medieval Europe, Jews were blamed so often, and so viciously, that it is surprising it was not called the Jewish Death. During the pandemic’s peak in Europe, from 1348 to 1351, more than 200 Jewish communities were wiped out, their inhabitants accused of spreading contagion or poisoning wells.
...
Dr. Martin J. Blaser, a historian who is chairman of medicine at New York University’s medical school, offers an intriguing hypothesis for why Jews became scapegoats in the Black Death: they were largely spared, in comparison with other groups, because grain was removed from their houses for Passover, discouraging the rats that spread the disease. The plague peaked in spring, around Passover.
...
During the Black Death, Pope Clement VI issued an edict, or bull, saying Jews were not at fault. He did not, of course, blaspheme by blaming God. Nor did he blame mankind’s sins. That would have comforted the Flagellants, the self-whipping sect who were the bull’s real target; they often led the mobs attacking both Jews and the corrupt church hierarchy, and were considered heretics. Nor did it blame Möngke Khan or Yersinia pestis. It would be 500 years until the “germ theory” of disease developed.
No, the pope picked a target particularly tough to take revenge upon: a misalignment of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.
Donald G. McNeil Jr., "Finding a Scapegoat When Epidemics Strike," New York Times, Aug. 31, 2009; accessed online at https://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/01/health/01plague.html.