KHAZAR POLEMIC
Hebrew sources cite this as the key event in the Khazar's conversion to Judaism. Since accounts of the event are scarce and contradictory, the exact date of the polemic is unknown, and the time of Judaization is confused with the moment when the three dream interpreters visited the Khazar Capital. The earliest preserved account, dating from the 10th century, is the correspondence between the Khazar Kaghan Joseph (who already practiced Judaism) and Hasdai Ibn Shaprut, the minister of the caliph in Cordoba. Hasdai was a Jew and had asked the kaghan to describe the circumstances under which the Khazars had adopted the Jewish faith. According to this correspondence, it all took place under the reign of Kaghan Bulan, and the invitation of an angel, right after the capture of Ardabil (around 731). It was then, if this source is to be believed, that a debate on religions was conducted the the court of the Khazar kaghan. Since the Jewish envoy bested the Greek and Arab representatives, the Khazars adopted Judaism under Kaghan Bulan's successor, Obadiah. The second source is a fragment of a Jewish letter found in 1912 in Cambridge, England. It comes from a manuscript belonging to a the Cairo Synagogue (ed. Schechter). The letter was written in approximately 950 by a Jew of Khazar origin to Minister Shaprut, as a supplement to Kaghan Bulan's letter to the same personage at the court of Cordoba. This source contends that the Judaization of the Khazars took place before the polemic and that happened as follows:
A non-practicing Jew returned from war a hero and became the Khazar kaghan. His wife and her father expected that he would now accept the faith of his forefathers, but he himself said nothing. The turning point (according to Daubmannus) came one evening when the kaghan's wife said to him:
Beneath the heavenly equator in the valleys where the sweet and saline dew meet, there grows a huge poisonous fungus, and the tasty little edible mushrooms on its cap transform its contaminated blood into sweetness. The deer like to invigorate their masculine strength by nibbling these mushrooms. But if they are careless and bite down too deep, the ingest some of the big poisonous fungus along with the little mushrooms, and then they die.
Every evening, when I kiss my beloved, I think: It is only natural that one day I will bite down to deep . . . .
Upon hearing these words, the kaghan began practicing Judaism. All this transpired before the polemic, which, according to this source, took place during the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Leo III (717-740). After the polemic, Judaism became fully established among the Khazars and neighboring peoples during the reign of Kaghan Sabriel, who is one and the same person with Kaghan Obadiah, because (according to Daubmannus) he was called Sabriel during the even years and Obadiah during the odd years of his rule.
The most exhaustive Hebrew source on the Khazar polemic is also the most important, although it is of a later date. This is the book Al Khazari by Judah Halevi, the famous poet and chronicler of the Khazar polemic. He says that the polemic and the Khazar's conversion to the Jewish faith took place four centuries before the writing of his book, which would take place in the year 740. Finally, there is Bacher, who found that the impact of the Khazars Judaization is reflected in midrash literature. The legends that told about the event especially flourished in the Crimea, the Taman peninsula, and Tamatarkha, known as a Jewish city in the Khazar Empire.
Briefly, the event that was these sources' object of interest took place in the following way. In the summer capital of the kaghan, on the Black Sea, where they whitewashed the pears on their branches in the autumn and picked them fresh in the winter, three theologians were brought together: a Jewish rabbi, a Christian monk, and an Arab mullah. The kaghan informed them of his decision to convert, along with all his people, to the religion of the one theologian who gave the most satisfactory interpretation of the dream. An angel had appeared in the Khazar kaghan's dream and had said to him: "God is pleased by your intentions, but not by your deeds." The debate centered on these words and the Hebrew sources cited by Daubmannus describe the further course of events.
The Hebrew representative, Rabbi Isaac Sangari, said nothing at first, letting the other two, the Greek and the Arab, speak first. When it seemed that the kaghan was about to be swayed by the arguments of the Islamic representative, a Khazar princess by the name of Ateh joined in the discussion, admonishing the Arab in these words:
You are too wise when you speak to me. I watch the clouds drift and disappear behind the mountains and recognize them in fleeting thoughts. Tears sometimes trickle from them, but thin the brief hours when the clouds part I see a patch of clear sky with your face at the bottom, because it is only there to prevent me from seeing you as you are.
In reply, the mullah told the kaghan that he was not suggesting any kind of trickery to the Khazars, but, rather, he was suggesting a holy book, the Koran, because the Khazars did not have a the Holy Book: we have all learned to walk because we are made out of two lame legs, but you are still limping.
Princes Ateh the asked the Arab:
Every book has a father and a mother. There is the father, who dies impregnating the mother and who gives the child a name. and the there is the (book's) mother, who gives birth to the child, nurses it, and releases it into the world. Who is the mother of your Divine Book?
While the Arab was unable to answer this question, merely repeating that he was not suggesting trickery, he was suggesting the Holy Book, which is the messenger of love between God and man, Princess Ateh wound up the discussion with these words:
The Persian shah and the Greek emperor decided to exchange lavish gifts as a sign of piece. One gift-bearing legislation set out from Constantinople and the other from Isfhan. They met in Baghdad, where they learned that Nadir, the Persian shah, had been deposed, and that the Greek emperor had died. The two legislations were thus compelled to stay in Baghdad for a while, not knowing what to do with the treasures they were bearing, and fearing for their lives at every step. Seeing that bit by bit they were beginning to spend the treasure, they consulted on what to do. One of them said:
Whatever we do will be wrong. So let us each take one ducat and throw away the rest. . . ."
Which is what they did.
And what are we to do with our love, the love we send one another through our messengers? Will that too not remain in the hands of our messengers how take a ducat each and throw away the rest?
Having heard her words, the kaghan decided that the princess was right, and he rejected the Arab, saying, as quoted by Halevi:
"Why do Christians and Moslems, who have divided the inhabited part of the world between them, war against one another, each serving his own god of pure intent, by fasting and praying like monks and recluses? And they accomplish everything by killing, believing that this is the most devout way to bring them closer to God. They wage war, believing that heaven and eternal bliss will be their reward. Yet not both convictions can be accepted."
The kaghan reached the following conclusion:
"Your caliph has fleets of green-sailed ships and soldiers who chew on both sides. If we cross over to his religion, how many Khazars will be left? It is better for us, since convert we must, to join the Jews expelled by the Greeks, to join the poor and wandering who came here from Khorezm during the time of the Kitibia. The only army is what they can fit into a temple or onto a scroll."
The kaghan then turned to the Hebrew representative and asked him what he had to say about his religion. Rabbi Isaac Sangari replied that the Khazars did not have to convert to a new religion at all: they could keep their old one. His words caused general surprise, so the rabbi explained:
"You are not Khazars. You are Jews and should return to your rightful place: to the living God of your ancestors."
Only then did the rabbi begin to expound on his teachings to the kaghan. The days dripped like rain, and he talked and talked. First he told the kaghan about the seven things created before the creation of the world: the Torah, justice, Israel, the Throne of Glory, Jerusalem, and the Messiah, the son of David. Then he enumerated the most exalted things: the spirit of living God, air from the spirit, water from the wind, and fire from the water. And then he listed the three mothers: in the universe--air, water, and fire; in the soul--the chest, stomach, and head; in the year--moisture, frost, and heat. And the seven: 'beth', 'gimel', 'daleth', 'kaf', 'peh', 'resh', and 'tav', which are :in the universe--Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the sun, Venus, Mercury, and the moon: in the soul--wisdom, wealth, power, life, mercy, progeny, and peace; and in the year--Sabbath, Thursday, Tuesday, Sunday, Friday, Wednesday, and Monday. . . .
And the kaghan began to understand the language spoken to Adam by God in heaven, and he said: "The wine I am pressing now will be drunk by others after me."
The kaghan's lengthy talks with Rabbi Isaac con be found in Judah Halevi's book on the Khazars, where the kaghan's conversion is described in the following way:
"Afterward, says the history of the Khazars, the Khazar kaghan departed with his vizier for the barren mountains by the sea. One night the came upon a cave where some Jews were celebrating Passover. They told them who they were, adopted their faith, were circumcised in the cave, and then returned home, eager to learn Jewish law. But they kept their conversion secret until the occasion presented itself for them to disclose the entire affair slowly to a handful of intimate friends. When the number of these friends increased, they made it public and persuaded the rest of the Khazars to adopt the Jewish faith. They sent for teachers and books from other countries and began studying the Torah . . . ."
In fact, the Khazars' conversion to Judaism evolved in two phases. The first came immediately after the Khazar victory over the Arabs at Ardabil, south of the Caucasus, in the year 730, when they used the plundered booty to build a temple modeled after the biblical one. In approximately 740, Judaism was adopted in certain extra forms. Kaghan Bulan invited rabbis from other countries to cultivate the Jewish faith among the Khazars. This early Judaism of the Khazars appears to have included the Khorezm people, who, when the Hursat Uprising was crushed, had fled in the sixties or eighties of the 8th century to the Khazar court, led by the rabbi.
The reform of this original Judaism was undertaken around the year 800, by Kaghan Obadiah, who began building synagogues and schools, where the Khazars learned about the Torah, Mishnah, Talmud, and Jewish liturgy: in other words, rabbinical Judaism was introduced.
In a way, the Arabs played a decisive role in the entire process. Leading figures in Khazar state adopted Judaism a time when Islamic influence had declined because of the power struggle between two dynasties in the Arab caliphate--the Omayyad and the Abbasid. Consequently, Masudi's claim that the king of the Khazars became a Jew during the reign of Caliph Harun Al-Rashid (786-809) checks out with the time of reform of Judaism undertaken by the Khazar Kaghan Obadiah.