From Luna I to Luna V: our fantastic journey[1]
by Alberto Diwan
It is believed that the Labaton family lived
near Madrid, more precisely in the vicinity of the castle Torrelobatón,
built in 1420 by Alphonso Enriquez, Admiral of Castile. After the expulsion of
the Jews from Spain in 1492, Rabbi Avraham Labaton
leaves the country with his family and embarks on a long journey to Syria,
where he will be able to exercise his religion with freedom and safety. In
1525, his name is mentioned in a letter as Rabbi of Aleppo and there are
sources who say the rabbi died that same year.
Two hundred years later, our story begins with Helfon
Labaton, probably Avraham's grandson, who was born
and raised in Aleppo. Apparently, Helfon was an only
child and appears as the oldest ancestor of the family after Avraham. Helfon follows the family's religious tradition and becomes
a rabbi. He marries a girl named Luna, who for the purposes of our story will
be called Luna I. The couple's torments started shortly after the wedding, after
losing their first baby. In the mid-18th century, spontaneous abortions and
stillborn babies were not uncommon in the Middle East, which also had high
rates of infant mortality. However, the sadness that permeates Labaton’s home overcomes any historical context: Luna I
becomes pregnant 14 times, but no baby survives.
Fortunately, the couple does not give up. They persist in their goal
with faith, hope and determination. Luna I prays, her
husband studies Torah and they both plead for a child. In his work Holy
People of Syria, Rabbi David Laniado writes that
one day Rabbi Helfon was conducting business with a
woman, who began to seduce him. Noticing being in bad company, the rabbi did
not hesitate and simply jumped by the window, surviving miraculously unscathed.
That night, legend has it that Rabbi Helfon dreamed
that he would have a son who would illuminate the world for the Torah and live
a long life.
In the same year the French Revolution brake out, a revolution begins in
the Labaton house: Luna I is pregnant for the
fifteenth time and her husband senses that, this time, the shed tears will flow
from the source of joy and gratitude, and not more of anguish and despair. Nine
months later, in 1780, Luna I gives birth to a healthy baby. On Brit- Mila day,
Rabbi Helfon announces that the child will be called
Haim (life!) Mordechai.
The child grows up healthy and soon proves to be prodigious. Haim
Mordechai is enrolled in the school at a very young age. Rabbi Helfon asks the teacher to teach his son to read and write,
but the professor thinks it is too early for literacy, suggesting that the boy
play with other children of his age. Rabbi Helfon
decides to dedicate hours of his day to literate his only son. After a few
months, Rabbi Helfon instruct Haim Mordechai to read
some letters in front of the teacher. Realizing that Haim Mordechai was endowed
with an incredible intelligence, the teacher assures the child would receive a
special and personalized education. A few weeks later, the young man is able to
read all the prayers of the Sidur and his
learning progresses in a frantic pace.
After being able to study Tora in deeper way, Haim Mordechai starts to
attend Beit Midrash Sinior Moshe, consulting Halacha
books and rabbinic responsa. The child removes several books from the bookcase,
spends hours reading, opening and closing the books and taking notes. The son
of the person in charge of the Beit Midrash scolds Haim Mordechai for the mess,
accusing him of messing up the library. Embarrassed and ashamed, the child
returns all the books in their place and returns to home. A few hours later,
the young man who scolded him begins to experience mind-boggling pain. The
clinical condition gets worse, and the drugs have no effect. His father, who is
also religious, tell him to report everything that has happened in the past few
hours. Upon knowing that Rabbi Helfon's son had been
reprimanded for messing up the books, the head of Beit Midrash sends messengers
to the Labaton home, begging the child Mordechai to
forgive his son's behavior. Haim Mordechai makes it clear that he accepts
excuses and does not hold any kind of grudge. Immediately, the son of the
person in charge of the Beit Midrash regains his health and the pains suddenly
cease. After this incident, Haim Mordechai's fame grew a lot, and his good
reputation began to spread out. Currently, there are vendors that sell here the books supposedly studied and annotated by him there two hundred
years.
Respected by his peers, Haim Mordechai became one of the main rabbis of
Aleppo in the 19th century. Many stories are told about his life. Rabbi Haim
Mordechai composes religious poems (piutyim), which are
still intoned by some Jewish communities (listen here), he
writes several manuscripts and publishes two main works: Ben Yair, exposing his
Torah drashot, and Noach HaShulchan, presenting his comments and halachic responsa,
based on Shulach Aruch .
Both books will be republished in the 20th and 21st centuries in Jerusalem, and
Rav Ovadia Yossef will
mention the rabbi's opinion in his writings. It is possible to consult both
books for free here
and here.
The rabbi marries Morhaba and has three sons: Helfon (in honor of his father), Eliezer and Joseph,
patriarchs of the Labaton rabbinic dynasty, who are
still present in some Sephardic communities. The eldest son dies before the
father, leaving him with four grandchildren, who are raised in his home.
Rabbi Haim Mordechai Labaton, son of Helfon and Luna I, assumes the post of Rosh Beit Din
(leader of the rabbinic court) and becomes Chief-Rabbi of Aleppo. He is revered
both by his peers and by Arabs in the region. He writes that the mitzvah of Chesed can be accomplished with non-Jews, devotes a
third of its profits to Tsedaka and is
appointed guardian of the estate left by the deceased parents until their orphans
reaches majority. Rabbi Haim Mordechai acts as a mediator of conflicts, both
business and marital, and is dedicated to restoring peace between people. It
plays a crucial role in the defense against the accusation of blood libel in
the face of Aleppo Jews, falsely denounced by kidnap young Christian Mousan. Similarly to Mordechai of Purim, Haim Mordechai instructs
the Jews to pray and plead for salvation. He manages to obtain the information
that Mousan is hired in a church and succeeds in
convincing the governor to enter the place to look for the boy, who ends up
being located.
Rabbi Haim Mordechai receives a medal of honor from the Turkish-Ottoman
government for his public activities. It is said that an Arab merchant once
supplied food to Turkish-Ottoman troops and the responsible officer refused to
pay the expenses. The merchant brough the case to the rabbi and begged for
help, arguing that the receipts were signed and that if the government did not
pay the amount, the financial loss would lead him to bankruptcy. Rabbi Haim
Mordechai soon wrote a letter in favor of the merchant, recording that the
government should pay the debt. Upon realizing that the merchant was carrying a
letter signed by the rabbi in his own hand, the officer immediately paid the
amount due. Upon receiving the amount from the official, the merchant tried to send
a gift to the rabbi, who politely refused to receive any payment.
Many other stories and legends are told about Rabbi Haim Mordechai,
leader of an intensely religious Jewish community, unaware of the Enlightenment
and the assimilation that prevailed among Western European Jews. But we must
move forward in our story.
In 1850, close to the rabbi's 70th birthday, Morhaba
passed away. Rabbi Haim Mordechai writes a Halacha about the subject.
According to his view, the mitzvah of Pru Urbu (procreate children) is fulfilled even when the
couple has only male or only female children. However, in the event of the
death or divorce of one of the spouses, if the other still has the capacity to
be a parent, he has the obligation to remarry, in an attempt to produce
children of the opposite sex.
No sooner said than done. After the mourning period, our rabbi marries
another woman, who probably has a third of his age. We suspect that maybe is
not only the pure Halacha who encourage him to do so. Rabbi Haim Mordechai
knows he was born after 14 attempts. He knows how much his father values human
life and how he would grab the opportunity of having one more child.
Who was his new wife? Where did she come from? We don't know any
information about her identity, not even her name. But we do know that Rabbi
Haim Mordechai, who was already a grandfather, becomes father again at the age
of seventy - and that this time he is awarded a baby girl. Her name? Luna, in
honor of his mother. It is said that the rabbi had promised his new wife that
he would live long enough to marry his daughter. About seventeen years later,
Rabbi Haim Mordechai accompanies Luna II to the Huppah when she marries
the prominent Rabbi Ezra Soued, who later would also
assume the post of Chief-Rabbi of Aleppo.
Two years later, in the evening of May 29, 1869, Rabbi Haim Mordechai Labaton leaves this world at the age of 89, almost the
double of the life expectancy of the time. He is buried near the place where Eliahou HaNavi is believed to be
buried. Her grandson describes the death as follows:
“On the 20th of Sivan , motzaei shabat kodesh , all great
rabbis were gathered together to pray Arvit ,
and Rabbi Haim's face was brighter than normal, and he replied Amen Iehe Sheme Raba with all his
strength and holiness. After the havadalah, a
strong wind invaded the room and blew out the candles, then a loud lightning
bolt broke a window near the rabbi's bed. At that moment we recite Shema
Israel . "
Luna II's grief is soon replaced by the joy of her pregnancy. She
and Ezra Soued have two sons and a daughter. The
firstborn is named after his paternal grandfather, Moshe Soued
- Moussa, in good Arabic. We don't know much about Moussa's life, but the
sources guarantee that he marries Rina Chammah. Apparently, Mousa won’t become
a rabbi like his father and like his grandfathers, for reasons we don’t know,
and we will not dare to speculate.
Moussa and Rina, in turn, have several children. One of them, a twin,
dies as a child. Let us focus on the older boy and the older girl of the Soued couple. The oldest boy is called Ezra, as his
paternal grandfather. The older girl must acquire the name of Grandma Luna II.
However, perhaps influenced by French culture and the advent of modernity, the
parents decide to call her Adele. Adele marries Daoud and decides to honor one
of her children with the name of her brother who died early - Siahou. Like Helfon Labaton, the couple decides to insert “Haim” in the name.
The year now is 1966. Siahou Haim Dayan, great-great-grandson
of Chief-Rabbi of Aleppo Haim Mordechai Labaton,
great-grandson of Chief-Rabbi of Aleppo Ezra Soued,
is 26 years old and lives in Brazil. Adele seeks a bride from a good family for
her son Siahou. Obviously, no family is as good as
its own. Adele has a niece, Denise, daughter of her older brother (Ezra), the
firstborn of the Soued household. Denise has four
daughters and a son (Sion). One of Denise’s granddaughters who had just turned eighteen,
a beautiful young woman named Bela, Sion's daughter, lives in Beirut and is the
ideal candidate for Siahou. Bella and Siahou get married at the Maguen
Avraham synagogue in the Lebanese capital - and the rest is history we already
know. Her eldest daughter, “Luna IV”, is my mother Lina (name much closer to
the original than Adele).
Finally, we have landed in 2021, the year in which the world receives
“Luna V”, my dear daughter Lina, who will continue this fantastic journey. We
are here because my namesake decided to leave the comfort of Spain into the
unknown, prioritizing Jewish life above all. We are here because Luna I didn’t
give up on having children even when it seemed impossible. We are here because her
son decided to remarry after turning 70 to bring Luna II into the world, and so
on. As a child, I had the privilege of knowing "Luna III", teta Adele, although the few memories I keep it are
faded by the passage of time. I remember the arab
sweets that were served in the apartment on Albuquerque Lins
Street and now I wonder if Luna II would have taught her granddaughter the
recipes.
The name
carries a story, and this story provides us with a powerful bridge between the
generations, a bridge that connects present, past and future. We close these
reflections on Massechet Shabat with the poem about Shabbat composed by my
grandfather's great-great-grandfather. On every Friday night, I repeat the same
Kidush that they repeated and probably even
the foods served are the same, despite three centuries distancing us from each
other. Before the Hamotzi, we three bless our little Linas. When they embrace
us, we are enveloped by the same tenderness and affection. Before going to
sleep, we recite the same Shema Israel lying next to her. The room is
dark, but our world is bright. She falls asleep, but we are the ones who are dreaming.
