I wrote a post earlier about
riddle-tale books that I want to use as a source for readers theater. I'm starting with
While Standing on One Foot: Puzzle Stories and Wisdom Tales From the Jewish Tradition by Nina Jaffe and Steve Zeitlin, which is available for borrowing at the
Internet Archive.
There are so many good stories in this book, and my favorite of all is actually the very first story:
The Grand Inquisitor. This is a story from Spain, where tens of thousands of Jewish people were killed in pogroms in the late 14th century. In the 15th century, Jewish people were forced to leave the country. Those who converted to Catholicism, the
conversos, remained, but they were persecuted by the "Grand Inquisition," and thousands more were executed on the charge of practicing Judaism in secret. Only in 2015 did the Spanish government pass a law granting dual citizenship rights for Jews with Spanish ancestry, in an effort to correct what the government called a "historic mistake" of sending Jews into exile, forcing them to convert to Catholicism or burning them at the stake. (
Details here.)
Jaffe and Zeitlin cite as their source
A Treasury of Jewish Folklore by Nathan Ausubel, which is also available at the
Internet Archive. This version of the story is explicit about the crime: the rabbi is accused of killing a Christian boy and using his blood to bake Passover matzos. For more about this "blood libel" tradition, see
Wikipedia.
Below is my version of the story, as inspired by reading the version in Jaffe and Zeitlin's book.
~ ~ ~
The story is set in Seville, where the Grand Inquisitor charged the Rabbi of Seville with a terrible crime.
"But I am innocent of this crime!" protested the rabbi.
"God will declare who is guilty and who is innocent," declared the Grand Inquisitor. "I am putting two pieces of paper in this box: one piece of paper says "guilty" and other says "innocent." You will choose a piece of paper, guided by the hand of God. Then we shall see who is guilty!"
But the Grand Inquisitor wanted to make sure that the rabbi would be found guilty, so he had written "guilty" on both slips of paper. No matter which piece of paper the rabbi pulled from the box, it would say "guilty." The Grand Inquisitor was leaving nothing to chance, or to God!
But the rabbi knew just what he had to do. Can you guess what he did? How was the rabbi able to escape from the trap laid by the Grand Inquisitor?
Think about that for a minute, and then read the rest of the story.
"I thank you, O Grand Inquisitor," said the rabbi, "for putting the decision in the hands of God." Then, when the Grand Inquisitor offered him the box, the rabbi pulled out a piece of paper, and.... swallowed it!
When he realized what the rabbi had done, the Grand Inquisitor shouted, "What have you done? How dare you defy the court like this! Now we will never know what paper you drew from the box."
"But I was doing only what I was guided to do by the hand of God," replied the rabbi. "And there is still a way to know what was written on the paper: just remove the other paper from the box. If the paper says "innocent," then I must have swallowed the paper that says "guilty," and I stand condemned. But if the paper in the box says "guilty," then I must have swallowed the paper that says "innocent," and so I will go free."
And of course you know what happened: the Grand Inquisitor drew forth the paper from the box. "Guilty" said the paper. Which meant the rabbi was found innocent, and the court had to let him go.
Did you figure out the rabbi's plan, or did he surprise you? Maybe you even thought of a different way for the rabbi to escape from the trap: riddles sometimes have more than one answer after all.
