Persia, Pakistan, Lost Tribes, Afghanistan, Indus River, Media, Khaybar, Pashtuns

Why is America in Afghanistan?

What does it have to do with the Geula?

Part One...

Nishapur is near Mashhad, the little square dot in the upper right (NE) corner of Iran

(the dot without a name)

Ten Lost Tribes

Legend concerning the fate of the ten tribes constituting the northern Kingdom of Israel. The Kingdom of Israel, consisting of the ten tribes (the twelve *tribes excluding Judah and Benjamin who constituted the southern Kingdom of Judah), which fell in 722 B.C.E. and its inhabitants were exiled to "Halah and *Habor by the river *Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes" (II Kings 17:6 and 18:11; for details and conjectures as to their ultimate fate, see Assyrian *Exile), but in general it can be said that they disappeared from the stage of history. However, the parallel passage in I Chronicles 5:26 to the effect that the ten tribes were there "unto this day" and the prophecies of Isaiah (11:11), Jeremiah (31:8), and above all of Ezekiel (37: 19–24) kept alive the belief that they had maintained a separate existence and that the time would come when they would be rejoined with their brethren, the descendants of the Exile of Judah to Babylon. Their place in history, however, is substituted by legend, and the legend of the Ten Lost Tribes is one of the most fascinating and persistent in Judaism and beyond it.

The belief in the continued existence of the ten tribes was regarded as an incontrovertible fact during the whole period of the Second Temple and of the Talmud.

[...] Josephus (Ant., 11:133) states as a fact "the ten tribes are beyond the Euphrates till now, and are an immense multitude and not to be estimated in numbers."

[....] Their inability to rejoin their brethren was attributed to the fact that whereas the tribes of Judah and Benjamin (the Kingdom of Judah) were "scattered throughout the world," the ten tribes were exiled beyond the mysterious river *Sambatyon (Gen. R. 73:6), with its rolling waters or sand and rocks, which during the six days of the week prevented them from crossing it, and though it rested on the Sabbath, the laws of the Sabbath rendered the crossing equally impossible. According to the Jerusalem Talmud, however (Sanh. 10:6, 29c), the exiles were divided into three. Only one-third went beyond the Sambatyon, a second to "Daphne of Antioch," and over the third "there descended a cloud which covered them"; but all three would eventually return.

Throughout the Middle Ages and until comparatively recent times there were claims of the existence of the ten lost tribes as well as attempts by travelers and explorers, both Jewish and non-Jewish, and by many naive scholars, both to discover the ten lost tribes or to identify different peoples with them.

In the ninth century *Eldad ha-Dani claimed not only to be a member of the tribe of Dan, but that he had communicated with four of the tribes. David *Reuveni claimed to be the brother of Joseph the king of the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh who were settled in Khaybar in Arabia, which was identified with the Habor of II Kings. Benjamin of Tudela has a long description of the ten tribes. According to him the Jews of Persia stated that in the town of *Nishapur dwelt the four tribes of Dan, Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali, who were then governed "by their own prince Joseph Amarkala the Levite [ed. by N.M. Adler (1907), 83], while the Jews of *Khaybar are of the tribes of Reuben and Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh" (ibid., 72), as was also stated by Reuveni.

[....] Various theories, one more farfetched than the other, have been adduced, on the flimsiest of evidence, to identify different peoples with the ten lost tribes. There is hardly a people, from the Japanese to the British, and from the Red Indians to the Afghans, who have not been suggested, and hardly a place, among them Africa, India, China, Persia, Kurdistan, Caucasia, the U.S., and Great Britain.

Special interest is attached to the fantastic traveler's tale told by Aaron (Antonio) Levi de *Montezinos who, on his return to Amsterdam from South America in 1644, told a remarkable story of having found Indians beyond the mountain passes of the Cordilleras who greeted him by reciting the Shema. Among those to whom Montezinos gave his affidavit was *Manasseh Ben Israel, then rabbi of Amsterdam, who fully accepted the story, and to it devoted his Hope of Israel (1650, 1652) which he dedicated to the English Parliament. In section 37 he sums up his findings in the following words:

"1. That the West Indies were anciently inhabited by a part of the ten Tribes, which passed thither out of Tartary, by the Streight of Anian.

2. That the Tribes are not in any one place, but in many; because the Prophets have fore-told their return shall be into their Country, out of divers places; Isaiah especially saith it shall be out of eight.

3. That they did not return to the Second Temple.

4. That at this day they keep the Jewish Religion.

5. That the prophecies concerning their return to their Country, are of necessity to be fulfilled.

6. That from all coasts of the World they shall meet in those two places, sc. Assyria and Egypt; God preparing an easier, pleasant way, and abounding with all things, as Isaiah saith, ch. 49, and from thence they shall flie to Jerusalem, as birds to their nests.

7. That their Kingdom shall be no more divided; but the twelve Tribes shall be joined together under one Prince, that is under Messiah, the Son of David; and that they shall never be driven out of their Land."

Sambatyon

A legendary river across which part of the ten tribes were exiled by the Assyrian king, Shalmaneser, and which rested on the Sabbath. The river is mentioned in the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan (Ex. 34:10):

"I will take them from there and place them on the other side of the Sambatyon River."

The rabbis declared that the ten tribes were exiled three times: once beyond the Sambatyon River, once to Daphne of Antioch, and once when the divine cloud descended upon them and covered them (TJ, Sanh. 10:6, 29c; Lam. R. 2:9; cf. Gen. R. 73:6). The first ascription of miraculous qualities to this river is found in the Talmud.

When *Tinneius Rufus asked R. Akiva how he could prove that the Sabbath was divinely ordained as the day of rest, he replied, "Let the River Sambatyon prove it" (Sanh. 65b). It was unnavigable on weekdays because it flowed with strong currents carrying along stones with tremendous force, but it rested on the Sabbath (Gen. R. 11:5). These passages give no indication as to the supposed location of the river or of the origin of its name. The only inference that can be drawn from them is that it was located in Media. The most extensive description of both its name and locality is given by Naḥmanides (to Deut. 32:26). He identified the river with the River Gozan of the Bible (e.g., II Kings 17:6), explaining the name (on the basis of Num. 11:31) as meaning "removed," i.e., the ten tribes were "removed" from the rest of their people. Naḥmanides also held that its name derived from its Sabbath rest, since Sabbat was the local word for the Sabbath.

Pliny the Elder (24–79 C.E.) described the river in his Natural History, and his observations agree with the rabbinic sources. He also claimed that the river ran rapidly for six days in the week and rested on the Sabbath (31:24). This characteristic of the Sambatyon prevented the ten tribes from leaving their place of exile, since they could not cross the river during the six days of the week, and though it rested on the seventh day, the restrictions on travel on the Sabbath rendered the crossing equally impossible.

Josephus, however, described the periodicity of this river in a different fashion, claiming that it was quiescent on weekdays and flowed only on the Sabbath. He related that when Titus marched from Beirut to the other Syrian cities, displaying the Jewish captives, he observed a unique river. It ran between Arce, at the northern extremity of the Lebanon range, and Raphanea.

Josephus adds: "It has an astonishing peculiarity. For, when it flows, it is a copious stream with a current far from sluggish; then all at once its sources fail, and for the space of six days it presents the spectacle of a dry bed; again, as though no change had occurred, it pours forth on the seventh day just as before. And it has always been observed to keep strictly to this order; whence they have called it the Sabbatical river, so naming it after the sacred seventh day of the Jews" (Jos., Wars, 7:96–99).

According to this description there is no explanation for the inability of the ten tribes to cross the Sambatyon during the weekdays.

In the post-talmudic period, especially in the apocryphal literature, legends about the Sambatyon increased. The exact date that the ten tribes were to return from their places of exile during the messianic period was recorded in the Sefer Eliyahu. Tishrei 25 was designated for the return of those beyond the Sambatyon. Although 17,000 men and women would leave this area, 20 men and 15 women would be killed on the way to the Holy Land (Judah ibn Samuel, Midreshei Ge'ullah (19542) 31f., 43; cf. Num. R. 16:25). *Eldad ha-Dani claimed that the Sambatyon did not surround the land of the ten tribes but rather that of the children of Moses. These people originated as a result of God's promise to Moses that "I will make of thee a great nation" (Ex. 32:10). Eldad depicted the river as consisting entirely of sand and stones. His description was as follows:

"The children of Moses are surrounded by a river resembling a fortress, which contains no water but rather rolls sand and stones with great force. If it encountered a mountain of iron it could undoubtedly grind it into powder. On Friday, at sunset, a cloud surrounds the river, so that no man is able to cross it. At the close of the Sabbath the river resumes its normal torrent of stones and sand. The general width of the river is 200 ells, but in certain places it is only 60 ells wide, so that we may talk to them, but neither of us can cross to the other one's side" (A. Epstein 5f.).

*Pethahiah of Regensburg, the 12th-century Jewish traveler, claimed that in Jabneh there was a spring which ran six days a week, but ceased to flow on the Sabbath (Travels of Rabbi Petachia, ed. by A. Benisch (1865), 56f.).

Interest in the Sambatyon legend was revived in the 17th century through the fantastic stories of Gershon b. Eliezer ha-Levi in his Gelilot Ereẓ Yisrael and by *Manasseh Ben Israel in his Mikveh Yisrael. The former related that, in his journey through India in 1630, he heard the clattering noise of the Sambatyon River, which was a distance of two days' journey from where he was staying. He claimed that the Sambatyon was 17 miles wide and threw stones as high as a house. On the Sabbath it was dry and resembled a lake of snow or of white sand. The river ceased to flow on Friday, two hours before sunset, and during this interval before the start of the Sabbath, the Jews beyond the river raided the neighboring lands.

Manasseh Ben Israel, while attempting to prove the existence of the river, claimed that even when its sand is kept in a glass, it is agitated during six days of the week and rests on the Sabbath (Mikveh Yisrael, ch. 10, Lemberg, 1847 ed., p. 10a–b). The Sambatyon also figured in kabbalistic works. In 1260 the kabbalist Abraham *Abulafia traveled to Ereẓ Israel, where he started to search for the Sambatyon. He was trying to contact the Ten Lost Tribes.

According to the rabbinic sages, the Ten Tribes migrated from Assyria, beyond the River Sambatyon. They report that this mysterious river flows six days a week but stops on the Sabbath (Genesis Rabba 11:5). Most have taken this reference to be legendary, however John Hulley has argued that the tradition actually refers to the Bosporus strait, between the Black and Aegean Seas, where the current actually does slow down or even reverse itself on the average of once a week. He presents linguistic evidence that the very term Sambatyon comes from “yam Bithyon” or “sea of the Bithynians.” If this be the case, it is an amazing correlation with the evidence on the migrations of the Cimmerians, indicating that significant portions of the Israelite deportees moved northwesterly, into Asia Minor and eventually toward Europe.

Further notes:

**Khaybar means "across the river" or "divide" and is derived from "Habar" and "Hebrew". It connects Pakistan and Afghanistan .... The Khyber Pass: throughout history it has been an important trade route ... and a strategic military location.

**Nishapur/Neyshabur
Along the ancient Silk Route: Neyshabur is located in 115 kms. west of Mashhad in the province of Khorasan. This ancient city has been the home of the great poet and mathematician Hakim Omar-e-Khayyam and the great mystical poet Attar-e Neyshaburi. In addition, Neyshabur has been a major source of Firouz-e (Turquoise) for thousands of years and still a major center of Turquoise trade [and also the source for Saffron].

**A well researched article on the Land of Magog:
that includes much of Persia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, bordering the Indus River

**Map of Persia showing the area of Mashhad (ctr), Kerman (below and north of Dubai city, and to the right is Kabul, Islamabad, Lahore (along the Indus River) and these are areas much in the news these days.

**"Gog is the president of one of the nations, whom Rabbenu Saadia Gaon compared to the Moslem Caliph in his days, because Gog will also rule many peoples." One could say that America is a nation of many peoples.

Further notes:

The Pashtun People. There are estimates of a cumulative population assessment of around 42 million, within the blue shaded area of the above map. There is a prophecy that when the Ten Tribes return they will be extremely numerous. This is all hypothetical, but there are vague hints. Could this be the face of a little Jewish girl trapped in Pashtun lore. source, source, source, and yet another source; could the "Khan" of Afghanistan be Kohan, Kohen?