Hayim Sheynin

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Joseph della Reyna is a rare tragic folk-hero who emerged out of the final turbulent years of Spanish Jewry to become a highly popular figure in Jewish traditions east and west. In traditional Jewish literature tragedy befalls the martyrs. They die at the hands of their tormentors and gain eternity in monuments, myth and ritual. Their tombstones are the destiny of pilgrims, their life-stories are in prayer recitations. The tales of their life and death are the narratives of religion. Joseph della Reyna was not a martyr. His fate had all the hallmarks of a classical Greek tragic hero who was caught in the snare of his messianic expectations, mystical visions, and passionate desires. No tombstone marks his fall. Traditional narratives of his embattlement with angels and demons are the only testimony to his life.

The first to note down the story in writing was the kabbalist Abraham ben Eliezer ha-Levi (c. 1460-after 1528) who alluded to and briefly accounted it in his Iggeret Sod ha-Ge'ulah (The epistle of the mystery of redemption), written in Jerusalem in 1519. Abraham ben Eliezer himself recalls with some uncertainty that he read the story in a book "long time ago." This could have been either in Spain, or elsewhere after the expulsion in 1492 and yet before his arrival in Jerusalem in 1515. The opacity of his recollection may even suggest the oral circulation of the tale either in Spain or among the expelled Jews. The dates clearly indicate that the tale was wrought in the crucible of religious persecutions and messianic expectations that punctuated Jewish life in Spain at the end of the fifteenth century. Later on, in the middle of the sixteenth century, the story of Joseph della Reyna was known among the kabbalists in Safed, and some of the leading figures of the group, such as Rabbi Moses ben Jacob Cordovero (1522-1570) and Rabbi Hayyim ben Joseph Vital (1542-1620) alluded to him in their writings. In these circles the tale was localized and its initial scenery shifted to the eastern Mediterranean and to Safed. In the seventeenth century a fuller rendition the story was written down by Solomon Navarro (1606-after 1673) and was incorporated by the Egyptian chronicler Joseph ben Isaac Sambari (1640-1703) into his Sefer Divre Yosef (Chronicle of Joseph)[completed in 1672]. From then onward, the tale of Joseph della Reyna was included in narrative anthologies of folktales, was published as a chapbook or even just copied into manuscripts, in Jewish communities from India to Poland, in Hebrew, Yiddish, Judeo-Spanish, Judeo-Arabic, and Judeo-Persian, and inspired modern poets and writers.

Hayim Sheynin, who joins a distinguished list of Jewish authors, restores the story of Joseph della Reyna to Spanish soil, and in doing so the tragedy is heightened. The personal aspirations for national redemption turn upon themselves and destroy the entire people. Queen Isabella, who terminated Jewish life in Spain, becomes in the play the object of desire for the messianic Joseph della Reyna and he himself is consumed in the flames of his passion. Put into action, the messianic expectations lead their forbearer into a human black hole in which all hopes are crushed.. The redemptive pillar of fire turns into bonfires for Jewish martyrs. As a tragic hero, in his fall, Joseph della Reyna brings down his family and his people.

March 29, 2007
Prof. Dan Ben-Amos
University of Pennsylvania

Note: For an English text of a the tale and bibliographical information of studies about Joseph della Reyna see Micha Joseph Bin Gorion, Mimekor Yisrael: Classical Jewish Folktales. Ed. Emanuel Bin Gorion, trans. I. M. Lask, prepared by Dan Ben-Amos (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), 312-319, no. 175.

This exciting book in the genre of a play provides the reader with a dramatic representation of the life and legend of Rabbi Joseph della Reina during the historical upheaval of the Jews in 15th century Spain.

Author: Sheynin, Hayim Y.
Title: Risk: A Battle for Redemption
Sub-title: A Tragedy in Two Acts.
Publisher: Charleston, SC: BookSurge publishing, 2007.