What the Stone Inscriptions Tell us about Torah Scrolls

 

Sometime in the 1440s, the Kaifeng Synagogue was destroyed by a flood.  The community set about to rebuild the synagogue, and compile books and scrolls for synagogue services.  The 1489 stone inscription tells a Torah scroll has obtained in Ningpo and given to the Kaifeng community:

There was always the presumption that the Ningpo copy came from a Jewish community in that coast city south of Shanghai.  But the wording is vague.  Four men obtained a copy of a Torah scroll a Ningpo, and one of them, Chao Ying of Ningpo, brought it to Kaifeng.  Only Chao Ying is from Ningpo.  Shih Pin, Li Jung, Kao Chien, and Chang Hsuan only obtained the scroll.  Were they not from Ningpo?  Was there a Jewish community at Ningpo that donated a scroll to Kaifeng?  This has always been the assumption.  White writes in a note for this passage:

It is possible that there was once a "strong community" of Jews inNingpo.  But perhaps there was Jews in that city who no longer needed a scroll, as they were leaving, or had less than ten men for services?  We know one Jew from Ningpo gave a Torah scroll to Kaifeng in 1461.  But we know little else with certainty.  In modern times, Ningbo is a ten hour drive from Kaifeng.

The 1512 stone makes another reference to a Torah scroll:

Here, we learn that Chin P'u of Wei-yang (Yang Chou or Yangzhou) a city to the south east of Kaifeng, along the Yangtze River, "respectfully placed a copy of the Scripture of the Way" in the synagogue.  The presumption is that Chin was a Jew living in Yangzhou, and donated a Torah scroll to the Kaifeng community.  This appears to be the case, but the wording is bit ambiguous.  Chin was from Yangzhou, but was the scroll?  In modern times, Yangzhou is a six hour drive from Kaifeng.

We know that when Ai Tien met Matteo Ricci in 1605, he told the priest that Kaifeng was the last Jewish community in China.  When the flood of 1642 devasted the community and destroyed their scrolls and books, they could only rely on their own resources to replace these precious items.  There were no more Jews, or Jewish communities in China whose help could be enlisted.

We only read of two Torah scrolls in the Kaifeng synagogue in the 1400s and 1500s.   The 1663 stone inscription tells us that that synagogue actually housed thirteen:

Sometime after the flood of 1461, the community obtained, or copied at least eleven more Torah scrolls.  Why was this important detail left out of the 1489 and 1512 stone inscriptions?  Was this tradition generated after 1512?  The tradition of copies of thirteen Torah scrolls comes from a relatively obscure reference in Deuteronomy Rabbah, 9:9:

Before he dies, Moses makes twelve copies of the Torah from his master copy.  He then placed his master copy in the ark, to be used if someone should try to alter any of the other copies.  The master copy is to be used to check the other copies, each dedicated to each tribe of Israel.

This story makes sense for the situation of the Kaifeng Jews after the flood of 1642.  This flood appears to have destroyed nearly all of their books and Torah scrolls.  The 1663 stone, obverse, tells us this:

Kao Hsien rescues some unstated number of Torah scrolls.  He recovers "several rolls" of scriptures, and "as well as twenty-six items of miscellaneous scriptures"  The reverse side of this stone, 1663b, fleshes out  more details of this rescue:

On this side we read that Kao Hsien pulled seven rolls out of the water, while Li Cheng-chun, not mentioned on the other side, recovered three more scrolls.  So ten scrolls total were brought out of the water.  Both the observe and reverse side of the 1663 stone tell the same story for the next park.  Obverse says:

The reverse tells us that the unnamed Chief of the Religion removed "the blurred portions and cut away the spoiled parts."  He examined all the materials in front of him, and was able to "make up one roll of complete scriptures."  The obverse goes into more detail.  The Chief of the Religion is Li Chen, and he his helped by Man-la Li Cheng-hsien, in collating and examining the eleven damaged scrolls.  Chao Ying-cheng, the Jewish Confucian scholar official home to mourn a dead parent, also "classified and arranged them in order."

This scroll, which we know they called the Scroll of Moses from Jesuit witnesses, was used for services in a rented space north of the city.  It appears that the Kaifeng community stays away from the city, which is in ruins, for eleven years.  They only start to return and rebuild the synagogue later:

From the flood of 1642 until 1653.  The obverse 1663 stones tells us about this one complete Torah scroll, which after the rebuilding of the synagogue in the decade from 1653 to 1663, is now a source of veneration, and to the left and right of it are "the twelve rolls, which after the calamity of the flood were gradually repaired in sequence:

The reverse side of the stone goes into details about the process of copying the eleven scrolls.  The obverse simply has one scroll pieced together after the flood.  The reverse seems to note two were collated.  The Chief of the Religion deposited one of these repaired scrolls, and to its left...

Who is the Li Chen here, who had "formerly restored and repaired" an ancient scripture?  He is not the same Li Chen who collated the Scroll of Moses?  There seems to be some confusion here, as Leslie only remarks on on Li Chen:

Man-la Li Cheng-hsien, who was working with the Chief of the Religion Li Chen, but seems to have produced another Torah scroll.  Where there three Torah scrolls rescued from the water and ready for use?   If so, why was the Scroll of Moses given such pride of place?  The other two had the same origin.  

The text continues to say that the "other ten rolls" were gradually arranged and restored. The reverse of the 1663 stone gives us names and details of this process:

There are the men who "restored" scrolls.  Here is take the Chinese text to mean copied scrolls, and it is using restored in the sense that these new scroll copies were replacing the copies of the original scrolls that were lost of damaged in the 1642 flood.

1. Ai Wei-yi and his family 

2. Chao Yun-ssu 

3. Chin Ying-hsien and his family

4. Kao Teng-kuei 

5. Chao Ying-cheng l

6. Shih Tzu-chun (manla) 

7. Li Hui and his nephew restored a scroll

8. Li Yu-hsiu r

9. Kao Teng-ko 

10. Chang Wen-jui and family

11. Ai Ta-sheng (manla) brothers, sons and nephews 

 

The text above cites ten rolls as gradually "arranged and restored" yet this list has lists eleven scrolls.  So if we consider the three above collated directly from the flood, there were 14 torah scrolls in Kaifeng by 1663.

The Chinese Delegates purchased seven scrolls in 1851.  Three others were sold in the decades that followed, but before the twentieth century.  Three of the seven scrolls went missing in Western hands, one in London, in Hong Kong, and France. Today seven Kaifeng scrolls are in various western institutions. Of those all, but one are from the copying the that followed the flood of 1642.

It seems unlikely that the Hong Kong scroll ever be found. It was destroyed during the Japanese occupation. There seems to be a greater possibility of the London and French scrolls, being discovered. There is a picture of the London, scroll in Bishop White book. As has as has been noted by. Pollak, it resembles the ABS scroll both in the form in shape of the letters and the layout of the text. This scroll was last seen in 1924 or 1955. When was White‘s picture taken? Are there any other pictures of this scroll? 

The Volonteri scroll was purchased in the late 1890s in China. It was displayed at the Paris exhibition of 1900 and has not been seen since.