The Scroll of Evyatar: Daniel ben ‘Azariah

A letter of Evyatar ha-Kohen [the priest], on whose behalf the name of the Lord was invoked—he was the son of a gaon and the grandson of a gaon—and on behalf of his throne being exalted [for the miracle that he performed]. The Lord of Hosts is with him and with all the members of the yeshiva and with all Israel. [ . . . ]

It is called a scroll to tell of the might and the praise, and to show the sign that the Lord God of Hosts performed with the sons of Aaron as in the days when they departed Egypt with wonders. [ . . . ]

The priesthood was established through Phineas, who had regard for the honor of his Maker and who was included in the covenant of salt,¹ which will never be cut off. [ . . . ] It is written: It shall be for him and his descendants after him, an eternal priestly covenant (Numbers 25:13). The rabbis interpreted: Every place where the word ‘olam [eternal] is said, it signifies that it never ceases and is unconditional. They also said: Three things were given on condition—the land of Israel, the Temple, and the kingship of the house of David, . . . [and] concerning the house of David, it is written: If your sons observe My covenant (Psalms 132:12). But in the days of [Jehoiakim], the kingship of the house of David was profaned, and the oath was abrogated, as it is said: If Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim were a signet on my right hand, I would tear you off even from there (Jeremiah 22:24). And it is written: Write this man as without succession (Jeremiah 22:30). [Was he then childless?] It means, without succession in the kingship. However, the Davidic successor who is the messiah had already been born on the day that Jerusalem was destroyed. [ . . . ]

Indeed, all the latter kings had disqualifying traits—among them Ahaz, Manasseh, Amon, Jehoiachin, and the like, who did what was evil—so that Israel did what was evil and corrupt before their Father in heaven and infuriated Him with the idol of jealousy. Manasseh also spilled much innocent blood, and Ahaz attacked the houses of study, as it is written: Bind up the testimony, seal the instruction [Torah] among My disciples (Isaiah 8:16). As for Ahaz, he made an idol to Asherah for his mother, and she fornicated with it.² As for Jehoiakim, he blackened the divine names [in Jeremiah’s scroll] and burned them in fire [see Jeremiah 36:23]. [ . . . ]

It follows from this that the members of the house of David were worthy of being dethroned for the evil they did. After all these things, and after all the prophecy in the days of Joseph ha-Kohen and Elijah ha-Kohen, both geonim, there arose against them Daniel ben ‘Azariah from Babylonia. He fortified himself with a fringe group, supported by others and the power of the government, and inflicted great evil on them.

They laid siege to them, and at every holy convocation, Sabbath, and New Moon they would bring soldiers to them from the government to seize their houses of study, in order to prevent anyone from exiting or entering. On some occasions, they cast them into the pit with such force that they could not withstand it. The righteous Joseph ha-Kohen died suddenly on Hanukkah in the year 1365 [1053 CE]. At the moment of his death, he lifted his eyes and hands to heaven and said, “Let the Lord see and judge!”

Six years after he [i.e., Joseph ha-Kohen] was gathered to paradise, Daniel ben ‘Azariah fell ill with grievous maladies, one of which left him in seizures six months of every year. He would proclaim every day in public, “The Lord is righteous, but I have disobeyed Him. I had R. Joseph ha-Kohen bound by the hands of the . . . Now the Holy One has avenged his disgrace, and I am bound by all the afflictions of heaven.” He died in the month of Elul in the year 1373 [1062 CE].

The gaonate was passed to our lord and father Elijah the priest, head of the court, without dissent and even with reverence, for the next twenty-three years. Two years before he was gathered to paradise, he gathered all of Israel in the province of Tyre and in the Galilee and ordained us with the permission of the whole yeshiva: the gaon Jacob, his son Solomon ha-Kohen as head of the court, and Tsadok son of R. Josiah (head of the court, of blessed memory) third, for we were the head [of the court] and in line for the gaonate, and the third in line would be promoted to head of the court, and the fourth in line would be promoted to be third. In the second year, he went to Haifa to sanctify the year, and he renewed the gaonate and the ordination in Haifa in the house of council.

When he left the yeshiva in the presence of all Israel, he pronounced forceful oaths and resolute curses against anyone who dissented or caused division, against anyone who stole or shifted boundaries. These are written in the book of edicts and ordination and the book of the covenant, with his signature and those of all the sages. He was gathered to paradise in the second year of this matter in the month of Kislev in the year 1395 [1083 CE] in Tyre. All of Israel bore him on their shoulders, not on horseback, a journey of three days to Dalton in the mountains of the Galilee, and he was buried on the top of the mountain next to R. Yosi the Galilean, and around him are R. Jonathan ben Uziel and Hillel and Shammai and Eleazar ben Arakh and Eleazar ben ‘Azariah, his elder, and all the righteous. All Israel mourned him and tore their garments, dressed in sackcloth, and sat on the ground, in the Holy Land and Syria and the diaspora [Babylonia], for their crown of glory had fallen from their head.