SANGARI, ISAAC
(8th century)--rabbi, Hebrew representative in the Khazar polemic. It is not until the 13th century that he is mentioned as an expert on the Cabala and as having led the Khazars to Judaism. He made a point of stressing the values of the Hebrew language, but he knew many other languages as well. He believed that the differences between languages lay in the following: all languages except God's are the languages of suffering, the dictionaries of pain. "I have noticed," he said, "that my sufferings are drained through a rupture in time or in myself, for otherwise they would be more numerous now. The same holds true fro languages." R. Gedaliah (c. 1587) established that the answers given by Isaac Sangari at the Khazar court were delivered in the Khazar language. According to Halevi, Sangari used the teachings of Rabbi Nahum the Scribe, who recorded how the sages learned from the prophets. "I heard it from Rabbi Mayash," wrote Rabbi Nahum, said Sangari to the kaghan as recorded by Halevi; "I heard it from Rabbi Mayash, who learned it from the 'pairs', who received it from the prophets as a command given to Moses on Mount Sinai. They were careful not to pass on the teachings of individuals, as can be seen from the last words uttered to his son by an old man on his deathbed:
" 'My son, in future, defer the opinions I taught you to four designated men.' 'Why?' asked the son, 'did you not defer your own opinions?' 'Because,' replied the old man, 'my opinions were taken from many who had in turn learned from many. And so I upheld my own tradition, and they upheld theirs. But you have learned from only one person, from me. And it is better to ignore the teaching of one person and accept that of several. . . .' "
It is said that Sangari thwarted the arrival of the Arab participant in the polemic at the Khazar court by arranging to have the polemic held at a time when comets could not help the Arab and when his entire faith could fit into a jug of water. Sangari himself almost did not make it to the polemic. Daubmannus recounts the following story:
Isaac Sangari set sail for the Khazar capital. But his ship was attacked by Saracens, who began killing everything in sight. Jews jumped overboard to save themselves, but the pirates killed them with their oars. Only Isaac Sangari stayed calmly on board. Surprised, the Saracens asked him why he did not jump into the waves like the others.
"I can't swim," Sangari lied, and that saved his neck. Instead of slaying him, the pirates shoved him into the sea and sailed away.
"The heart in the soul is like a king in war," Isaac Sangari observed, "but sometimes, even in war, man must act like the heart in the soul."
Thus, Sangari finally arrived at the Khazar court and during the polemic with the Christian and Islamic representatives he explained a dream to the Khazar kaghan, thereby persuading him to convert, along with the other Khazars, to the Jewish faith, a faith that expects more of the future that of the past. He explained to the kaghan in his dream, the words "God is pleased with your intentions, but not your dreams," comparing them to the story of Adam's son Seth.
"There is tremendous difference," said Isaac Sangari to the kaghan, "between Adam, who was created by Jehovah, and his son Seth, who was created by Adam. Seth and all people after him are God's intention, but man's deed. Hence a distinction should be made between intent and deed. The intention in man remains pure, godly, the verb or logos, which precedes the act as the concept of the act, but the deed is earthly; it bears the name Seth. In it, virtues and vices are inside one another like a set of hollow dolls. This is the only way to uncover man, by lifting one hollow doll from the next, the bigger bell from the smaller. So you should not feel that the angel who spoke those words in your dream was admonishing you; on the contrary, nothing could be further from the truth. He simply wanted to draw your attention to your true nature. . . "