...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 ה'. הלא עינינו אשר ראו את מוסר ה' 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?
The Valley of Weeping
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
Materials for this session were taken from Plagues in Jewish History by Rabbi Robert Gamer
Finding a scapegoat
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.