Torquemada
Torquemada, that name brought fear, terror and hatred into the hearts of all during the latter decades of 15th century Spain. His name and the infamous evil Inquisition became synonymous. Under his ghoulish bloodthirsty and money hungry reign of evil 30,000 Jews met horrible deaths. Most of the inquisition’s victims were wealthy Jews for the simple reason that both the corrupt monarchy and the equally corrupt church “needed” immense amounts of funds for their own lusts and to finance the continuing war against Andalusia which was under control of the Moors.
Spanish Jews had been given the choice to leave, convert or to die violent tortuous deaths. Many left, many more stayed. Some of them converted, most pretended to and secretly kept to Jewish tradition, laws and customs. Wherever possible, secret rooms either in double walls or underground were made to pray in. The wealthy made such arrangements large enough to accommodate their lesser abled brethren. Alternately caverns, caves, and tunnels were used. Kosher kitchens were kept, but in ways to not be obvious to any “visitors”.
Great rewards were promised to anyone who would turn in “conversos” or “marranos” to the inquisition’s investigators.
One such wealthy family was that of Don Garcia Manuel Saporta in Arragon, a tall strongly built muscular handsome caballero. He was a descendant of the RaMba”N, Rav Moshe Bar-Nahman of blessed and holy memory, from Catalonia. The family name was taken from the honorific title/name that the non-Jewish Catalonians gave to the RamBa"N - Bonastruc Saporta , meaning "Lucky star of the gates of the city". His estate was known as one of the largest and the best managed in the entire county. The estate farms had bountiful fruit orchards, as well as two hundred acres of olive trees giving tons of choice oil. He also had a very successful trade in spices and dyes from the Far East.
The Saporta ranch was known as the richest most successful in all of Aragon, if not all of Spain. His late father, Don Diego de Leon Saporta, had established it with his portion of the inheritance from their family holdings in Catalonia. In Don Diego’s days it was already a flourishing ranch and farm and his talented son made it even more so, having bought up lands of nearby farmers who did not have the success that the Saporta family did in getting the ground to grow whatever they wanted, as well as getting rights to vast spaces of untitled wild land. Now nested in a wide circle of natural fields and forests the Saporta ranch consisted of hundreds of hectares of orange groves, golden wheat fields, olives, fields of feed plants and pasture for their livestock, and close to a thousand head of prime cattle and sheep.
This made him a prime target for the inquisitor’s snoops.
It was the year 1490, young master Don Garcia Manuel Diaz Saporta was to be away from the hacienda for over two weeks on business of the ranch. His gracious lovely wife, Donna Bianka, stayed behind to oversee the ranch in his absence, and of course to care for the hacienda itself and their dear children. Their chief servants Miguel and Pedro were her right hand in her husband’s absence.
Two days into the trip, they were between cities, as Don Manuel, as those closest to him called him when in private, sat to dinner with his guards and commercial assistant yet he felt uneasy. “Benito, I’m not sure what, but I feel something is wrong, a danger in the air.”
“Quiet your fears my master. I will tell the guards to be more careful on their watch.”
“Thank you, yet I feel it is not here, the danger. Well whatever, let’s pray the evening prayer and we will see what comes.”
In the middle of the standing prayer Don Manuel began to tremble and sweat. He completed the prayer service in speed, ordered everyone to break camp and saddle up. “Haste is of the utmost urgency we must return home fast! I hope we are not too late.”
“What fire burns in your heart master?”
“The flames I saw during my prayer! Rápidamente, galopar!” (gallop, fast)
The group broke into a ground eating high trot to travel quickly without overtiring the horses. The scenes they had passed casually before now sped past them in reverse order as they rushed to they knew not what. Two days later as dusk settled they drew their wheel-lock pistols as a pair of galloping horsemen came opposite them. Though upon recognizing that the men approaching them were Pedro and one of the ranch hands, they relaxed, holstered their weapons and reined in their steeds.
Pedro hastily blurted out, “Master Don Manuel the accursed Hermanados have attacked the ranchero! We came to ask that you and your guards come quick to try to save the hacienda”
When they arrived what they saw tore their hearts and souls. Death and destruction was all that was left there. As Don Manuel and Benito walked through the inferno blackened ruins of the once glorious hacienda they found the severely wounded Rodriguez in the court yard. Don Manuel bent down to see if anything could be done to help his trusty farrier and stable master.
“Master, please forgive me. I t-t-tt-tried to save her, I tried to stop …. (gasp) the damned Herma-ma-manado--s from capturing Donna Bianka (gasp) but you see what is left of me. They shshshot me and shot me till I could no la-lalonger even stand, and then they took her away. P—p-please master run for your life before they return. Leave Arragon for someone has betrayed you. (gasp)”
“Rodriguez, my dear friend I will see if I can help you survive, to recover.”
“Nn—n-no my master, I know I cannot. Beware of P-p-pe………”
“Barukh Dayan Emet.”
Benito though hoarse with grief, anger and the smoke spoke up, “Master did you notice that he said we were betrayed and tried to tell who it is?”
“Yes but he died before he could say who.”
“The beginning of the name he did say.”
“We cannot be sure if was that or the final gasps of a dying man.”
“Still…”
A shot rang out from the far side of the ruin that had been the palatial hacienda. Don Manuel and Benito jumped up and drew their pistols.
Through the wisps of smoke Pedro appeared with his pistol smoking in his hand.
“Pedro we heard a shot what was it?”
“Master I found a wounded Hermanado and interrogated him. When I got whatever information I could I finished him off.”
“What information did you get from him?”
“Where they took Donna Bianka.”
With that Don Manuel, Benito, Pedro, Miguel and the fifteen guards who had been with Don Manuel on his abortive business trip rode off to the port city of Ferol in Galicia. Ferol was also the site of the Royal Arsenal, and home of the famous benighted Andrade family.
They arrived in Ferol just as Thomas Torquemada was personally overseeing a group of Jewish women being marched onto a galleon. The crowd had been told that these women were being sent to the New World and Jewish men, who like the women had refused to convert, were being marched onto a separate ship that was waiting in the harbor for that purpose.
Don Manuel and his men stood far back waiting to find an opening to burst through to rescue Donna Bianka. However Spanish Royal guard as well as heavily armed Hermanados made it impossible to get even near the pier.
The galleons left the piers escorted by a Navy Ship that was purported to protect them on the long journey. However within minutes that Navy Ship opened full cannon fire on the women’s galleon sinking it burning with the women on board. After that the men’s galleon suffered the same fate.
The crowd roared with delight at the fate of the recalcitrant Jews who refused to become xtians. Torquemada and his guard left on horseback. Don Manuel and his men followed, close enough to not lose track of their target, yet far enough, about a half day’s ride behind, to no be noticed.
Near sundown Pedro turned to his boss saying, “Master they will likely set camp in the ravine for the night. Permit me to go forward to scout out their encampment and I will return to tell you how we can best attack them and avenge the murder of Donna Bianka and the others.”
“Go with caution Pedro.”
Two hours later Pedro returned with his report and the attack was planned. Upon entering the ravine they were attacked, ambushed.
Lying on the ground, apparently the sole survivor of his men from the brief battle, half dead, Manuel realized that someone had betrayed him, twice, but had no idea who it was. The first betrayal was by informing the court of the Inquisition on them in his absence, and second on getting him into the ambush while claiming to lead him to a chance to avenge the cruel death of his wife.
As he lay there half conscious, his blood flowing from his many wounds, his mind ran pictures of the still burning hacienda, the destroyed barns, the slaughtered bodies scattered in the ashes, and then the galleon upon which his wife had been sent to drown when it was sunk by the Spanish Navy Warship, a cruel trick by the ultimate ghoul Thomas Torquemada. In the midst of this another image appeared. One that made no sense to his slipping ravaged mind, the Hermanados who had been going from body to body making sure each was dead and stealing what they could from the dead men and the packs on the horses dropped everything and ran off in panic and in their stead an old man with two lions by his side approached him.
He pondered, “Dear God is this to be my end, to be dinner for this strange man’s beasts?” and passed out.
The old man gently stroked Manuel’s face, humming some ancient tune, sprinkled orange powder on the wounds, took some strips of cloth from his pack and wrapped them well. Then without actually touching him he lifted Manuel and placed him on the back of the larger of the two lions.
Manuel awoke in a cave well lit by candles and oil lamps. The smell of cooked food tingled in his nose, while the enchanting melody of the old man’s song uplifted his spirit.
“Ah you are back with us my young friend. Thank God and praise Him. You were unconscious for three days. But it did you well. Now you must eat. The soup is ready and will give you strength. I will help you to sit up a bit and will feed you until you are strong enough to hold the spoon on your own.” “Zohara, please bring us a bowl of your wonderful soup and a spoon for our guest.”
As the young woman brought the food Manuel thought to himself, “The name is so fitting. She literally glows from within, and her walk is more like a flow.”
As he recovered the old man sat with him and they studied Torah, the full range from the five books of Moses and the Prophets etc. to Mishnayot, Gemara and then into deeper and deeper secrets of the esoteric teachings reserved through the ages for a very select few. Now Manuel understood how this old man had control over the lions and the other animals in the wild, how he could perform various unexplainable feats.
To Manuel it seemed as if they were in another world altogether. The world outside the cave so distant from what it was inside.
A year and a half went by and Manuel was at full strength. He told his benefactor, “Eliahu, I thank you from the depths of my soul. Not only did you save my life and return my health, but in a relatively short time you have taught me more Torah than I learned in 30 years. How can I ever properly express my appreciation and repay you?”
“You need not repay me as such. I taught you what I was taught and you are my successor. This was decreed by our Creator. You will marry Zohara and continue the generations old stream of using what I taught you for our people and for God’s world. There is one command that you are specifically required to fulfill.”
“What is that?”
“You must execute that son of Sat’an, Thomas Torquemada. You have learned and have received powers to do this, and do it you must.”
“When, how?”
Old Eliahu lay down on his bed and said, “The time will come and it will be clear to you, the answers to both those questions. I am now 118 years old. My time is done here in this world. By teaching you and passing on the tasks, I have completed my work. You will marry my daughter Zohara. She will show you where my material wealth is stored. With that you will build a new ranchero. Do not yet use what is kept for you from your previous wealth in the banks of Madrid and Girona. You will need it at a later date. Now I leave you both with my blessings. Vio con Creador, Que el creador esté contigo (Go with God the Creator, and may the Creator be with you) .…”
Eliahu closed his eyes and with a small soft smile on his face left his material body as a gentle sweet perfume that must have been the flowers of the Garden of Eden filled the cave. Manuel reverently buried his benefactor and teacher in the cave as per the instructions of Zohara. They took their belongings, including the boxes of gold and silver coins and jewels given them as dowry by her father, sealed the cave and went. The lions and wolves guarded them in their journey.
Spanish Jews had been given the choice to leave, convert or to die violent tortuous deaths. Many left, many more stayed. Some of them converted, most pretended to and secretly kept to Jewish tradition, laws and customs. Wherever possible, secret rooms either in double walls or underground were made to pray in. The wealthy made such arrangements large enough to accommodate their lesser abled brethren. Alternately caverns, caves, and tunnels were used. Kosher kitchens were kept, but in ways to not be obvious to any “visitors”.
Great rewards were promised to anyone who would turn in “conversos” or “marranos” to the inquisition’s investigators.
One such wealthy family was that of Don Garcia Manuel Saporta in Arragon, a tall strongly built muscular handsome caballero. He was a descendant of the RaMba”N, Rav Moshe Bar-Nahman of blessed and holy memory, from Catalonia. The family name was taken from the honorific title/name that the non-Jewish Catalonians gave to the RamBa"N - Bonastruc Saporta , meaning "Lucky star of the gates of the city". His estate was known as one of the largest and the best managed in the entire county. The estate farms had bountiful fruit orchards, as well as two hundred acres of olive trees giving tons of choice oil. He also had a very successful trade in spices and dyes from the Far East.
The Saporta ranch was known as the richest most successful in all of Aragon, if not all of Spain. His late father, Don Diego de Leon Saporta, had established it with his portion of the inheritance from their family holdings in Catalonia. In Don Diego’s days it was already a flourishing ranch and farm and his talented son made it even more so, having bought up lands of nearby farmers who did not have the success that the Saporta family did in getting the ground to grow whatever they wanted, as well as getting rights to vast spaces of untitled wild land. Now nested in a wide circle of natural fields and forests the Saporta ranch consisted of hundreds of hectares of orange groves, golden wheat fields, olives, fields of feed plants and pasture for their livestock, and close to a thousand head of prime cattle and sheep.
This made him a prime target for the inquisitor’s snoops.
It was the year 1490, young master Don Garcia Manuel Diaz Saporta was to be away from the hacienda for over two weeks on business of the ranch. His gracious lovely wife, Donna Bianka, stayed behind to oversee the ranch in his absence, and of course to care for the hacienda itself and their dear children. Their chief servants Miguel and Pedro were her right hand in her husband’s absence.
Two days into the trip, they were between cities, as Don Manuel, as those closest to him called him when in private, sat to dinner with his guards and commercial assistant yet he felt uneasy. “Benito, I’m not sure what, but I feel something is wrong, a danger in the air.”
“Quiet your fears my master. I will tell the guards to be more careful on their watch.”
“Thank you, yet I feel it is not here, the danger. Well whatever, let’s pray the evening prayer and we will see what comes.”
In the middle of the standing prayer Don Manuel began to tremble and sweat. He completed the prayer service in speed, ordered everyone to break camp and saddle up. “Haste is of the utmost urgency we must return home fast! I hope we are not too late.”
“What fire burns in your heart master?”
“The flames I saw during my prayer! Rápidamente, galopar!” (gallop, fast)
The group broke into a ground eating high trot to travel quickly without overtiring the horses. The scenes they had passed casually before now sped past them in reverse order as they rushed to they knew not what. Two days later as dusk settled they drew their wheel-lock pistols as a pair of galloping horsemen came opposite them. Though upon recognizing that the men approaching them were Pedro and one of the ranch hands, they relaxed, holstered their weapons and reined in their steeds.
Pedro hastily blurted out, “Master Don Manuel the accursed Hermanados have attacked the ranchero! We came to ask that you and your guards come quick to try to save the hacienda”
When they arrived what they saw tore their hearts and souls. Death and destruction was all that was left there. As Don Manuel and Benito walked through the inferno blackened ruins of the once glorious hacienda they found the severely wounded Rodriguez in the court yard. Don Manuel bent down to see if anything could be done to help his trusty farrier and stable master.
“Master, please forgive me. I t-t-tt-tried to save her, I tried to stop …. (gasp) the damned Herma-ma-manado--s from capturing Donna Bianka (gasp) but you see what is left of me. They shshshot me and shot me till I could no la-lalonger even stand, and then they took her away. P—p-please master run for your life before they return. Leave Arragon for someone has betrayed you. (gasp)”
“Rodriguez, my dear friend I will see if I can help you survive, to recover.”
“Nn—n-no my master, I know I cannot. Beware of P-p-pe………”
“Barukh Dayan Emet.”
Benito though hoarse with grief, anger and the smoke spoke up, “Master did you notice that he said we were betrayed and tried to tell who it is?”
“Yes but he died before he could say who.”
“The beginning of the name he did say.”
“We cannot be sure if was that or the final gasps of a dying man.”
“Still…”
A shot rang out from the far side of the ruin that had been the palatial hacienda. Don Manuel and Benito jumped up and drew their pistols.
Through the wisps of smoke Pedro appeared with his pistol smoking in his hand.
“Pedro we heard a shot what was it?”
“Master I found a wounded Hermanado and interrogated him. When I got whatever information I could I finished him off.”
“What information did you get from him?”
“Where they took Donna Bianka.”
With that Don Manuel, Benito, Pedro, Miguel and the fifteen guards who had been with Don Manuel on his abortive business trip rode off to the port city of Ferol in Galicia. Ferol was also the site of the Royal Arsenal, and home of the famous benighted Andrade family.
They arrived in Ferol just as Thomas Torquemada was personally overseeing a group of Jewish women being marched onto a galleon. The crowd had been told that these women were being sent to the New World and Jewish men, who like the women had refused to convert, were being marched onto a separate ship that was waiting in the harbor for that purpose.
Don Manuel and his men stood far back waiting to find an opening to burst through to rescue Donna Bianka. However Spanish Royal guard as well as heavily armed Hermanados made it impossible to get even near the pier.
The galleons left the piers escorted by a Navy Ship that was purported to protect them on the long journey. However within minutes that Navy Ship opened full cannon fire on the women’s galleon sinking it burning with the women on board. After that the men’s galleon suffered the same fate.
The crowd roared with delight at the fate of the recalcitrant Jews who refused to become xtians. Torquemada and his guard left on horseback. Don Manuel and his men followed, close enough to not lose track of their target, yet far enough, about a half day’s ride behind, to no be noticed.
Near sundown Pedro turned to his boss saying, “Master they will likely set camp in the ravine for the night. Permit me to go forward to scout out their encampment and I will return to tell you how we can best attack them and avenge the murder of Donna Bianka and the others.”
“Go with caution Pedro.”
Two hours later Pedro returned with his report and the attack was planned. Upon entering the ravine they were attacked, ambushed.
Lying on the ground, apparently the sole survivor of his men from the brief battle, half dead, Manuel realized that someone had betrayed him, twice, but had no idea who it was. The first betrayal was by informing the court of the Inquisition on them in his absence, and second on getting him into the ambush while claiming to lead him to a chance to avenge the cruel death of his wife.
As he lay there half conscious, his blood flowing from his many wounds, his mind ran pictures of the still burning hacienda, the destroyed barns, the slaughtered bodies scattered in the ashes, and then the galleon upon which his wife had been sent to drown when it was sunk by the Spanish Navy Warship, a cruel trick by the ultimate ghoul Thomas Torquemada. In the midst of this another image appeared. One that made no sense to his slipping ravaged mind, the Hermanados who had been going from body to body making sure each was dead and stealing what they could from the dead men and the packs on the horses dropped everything and ran off in panic and in their stead an old man with two lions by his side approached him.
He pondered, “Dear God is this to be my end, to be dinner for this strange man’s beasts?” and passed out.
The old man gently stroked Manuel’s face, humming some ancient tune, sprinkled orange powder on the wounds, took some strips of cloth from his pack and wrapped them well. Then without actually touching him he lifted Manuel and placed him on the back of the larger of the two lions.
Manuel awoke in a cave well lit by candles and oil lamps. The smell of cooked food tingled in his nose, while the enchanting melody of the old man’s song uplifted his spirit.
“Ah you are back with us my young friend. Thank God and praise Him. You were unconscious for three days. But it did you well. Now you must eat. The soup is ready and will give you strength. I will help you to sit up a bit and will feed you until you are strong enough to hold the spoon on your own.” “Zohara, please bring us a bowl of your wonderful soup and a spoon for our guest.”
As the young woman brought the food Manuel thought to himself, “The name is so fitting. She literally glows from within, and her walk is more like a flow.”
As he recovered the old man sat with him and they studied Torah, the full range from the five books of Moses and the Prophets etc. to Mishnayot, Gemara and then into deeper and deeper secrets of the esoteric teachings reserved through the ages for a very select few. Now Manuel understood how this old man had control over the lions and the other animals in the wild, how he could perform various unexplainable feats.
To Manuel it seemed as if they were in another world altogether. The world outside the cave so distant from what it was inside.
A year and a half went by and Manuel was at full strength. He told his benefactor, “Eliahu, I thank you from the depths of my soul. Not only did you save my life and return my health, but in a relatively short time you have taught me more Torah than I learned in 30 years. How can I ever properly express my appreciation and repay you?”
“You need not repay me as such. I taught you what I was taught and you are my successor. This was decreed by our Creator. You will marry Zohara and continue the generations old stream of using what I taught you for our people and for God’s world. There is one command that you are specifically required to fulfill.”
“What is that?”
“You must execute that son of Sat’an, Thomas Torquemada. You have learned and have received powers to do this, and do it you must.”
“When, how?”
Old Eliahu lay down on his bed and said, “The time will come and it will be clear to you, the answers to both those questions. I am now 118 years old. My time is done here in this world. By teaching you and passing on the tasks, I have completed my work. You will marry my daughter Zohara. She will show you where my material wealth is stored. With that you will build a new ranchero. Do not yet use what is kept for you from your previous wealth in the banks of Madrid and Girona. You will need it at a later date. Now I leave you both with my blessings. Vio con Creador, Que el creador esté contigo (Go with God the Creator, and may the Creator be with you) .…”
Eliahu closed his eyes and with a small soft smile on his face left his material body as a gentle sweet perfume that must have been the flowers of the Garden of Eden filled the cave. Manuel reverently buried his benefactor and teacher in the cave as per the instructions of Zohara. They took their belongings, including the boxes of gold and silver coins and jewels given them as dowry by her father, sealed the cave and went. The lions and wolves guarded them in their journey.