Rashi de Troyes

I relate a Jungian synchronicity. I was attending a meeting of the AAAS at the Hilton Hotel in 1980. A man walked up to me noticed my name tag "Sarfatti" and said "Are you related to Margherita Sarfatti?" [12] "Yes, distantly.", I replied. "I have traced your family tree back a thousand years to Rashi de Troyes. My name is David Padwa." Padwa told me a little about the great French Rabbi. He claimed that one of Rashi's daughters went to Spain and that her descendants formed our Italian branch [13] after the expulsion of Spanish Jews in 1492. He said we were distant cousins. He gave me his card. He was from Santa Fe, New Mexico. I mentioned the incident to beat poet, Gregory Corso. Corso said. "Oh yeah, Padwa! I knew him in the Village. He's a smart guy who made a lot of money from Xerox. He went with Ram Dass to India. He's mentioned in the book Be Here Now as the rich American in the Land Rover. He's a real heavy with the Dalai Lama. He brought the Dalai Lama to America." About a month goes by. Dave Masetti, editor of North Beach Magazine back then hands me a letter from Padwa. I open it. Padwa writes that a strange thing happened to him right after he met me. He had been looking for the autobiography of George Gamow's My World Line for six months. It was out of print. Mathematician Stan Ulam had told Padwa to read it. Padwa leaves me at the Hilton after the conversation about Rashi wanders over to North Beach and discovers My World Line on a shelf in Discovery Bookstore. He then goes to Ferlinghetti's City Light's Bookstore and sees a copy of North Beach Magazine with my picture on the cover. In the picture I am holding a copy of Gamow's My World Line in front of a large poster of Einstein.

A second incident occurred around the same time (approx 1980). I met Yuval Ne-eman and Max Jammer at a "Unity of Consciousness" conference at the Fairmount Hotel at the top of Nob Hill in San Francisco. Stapp was also at this conference which was sponsored by Rev. Moon. Werner Erhard had several of these sorts of conferences attended by Feynman, Hawking and other notables. Ne-eman and Jammer are well known physicists. Ne-eman was also high up in the Israeli defense community as well as President of Tel-Aviv University. Ne-eman spent at least five minutes telling me of Rashi's historical significance and the importance of the "Sarfatti" name as a symbol in Jewish history. This event was witnessed by Sam Sternberg.

24 a)

"he was called R. Solomon by the Jews of France, and R. Salomon ha- Zarfati (the Frenchman) by Jews outside of France (p.33)... According to a rather wide-spread legend, Rashi stood in intimate relations with one of the principal chiefs of the Crusade... Godfrey of Bouillon (p.68)"
- RASHI, Maurice Liber Szold trans.(Jewish Publication Society, 1906) This book describes (p.p.68-69) Rashi's precognition or "remote viewing" of Godfrey's fate in the war against the Saracens in Jerusalem. Godfrey said to Rashi (Zarfati)
"I see that your wisdom is great. I should like to know whether I shall return from my expedition victorious or whether I shall succumb. Speak without fear."
Zarfati replied:
"Thou wilt take the Holy City and thou wilt reign over Jerusalem three days, but on the fourth day the Moslem will put thee to flight, and when thou returnest only three horses will be left to thee."
Godfrey, angered by Zarfati's prophecy, reneges on his promise and threatens to kill all the Jews of France
"if I return with only one more horse than thou sayest."
Godfrey's fourth horse died at the Gates of Troyes according to ancient legend and the Jews were saved. Keep note of the image of the three horses for later on in the book!

b) In a section "THE GRAIL AND CABALISM" (p.274-5 of Holy Blood, Holy Grail by M. Baigent, R. Leigh and H Lincoln, Delecorte, 1982) I find:

"the Grail is an initiatory experience... a 'transformation' ... or 'altered state of consciousness' ... a "Gnostic experience,' a 'mystical experience,' 'illumination,' or 'union with God'. It is possible to ... place the experiential aspect of the Grail in a very specific context ... the Cabala ... it would hardly seem coincidental that there was such a school at Troyes. It dated from 1070 - Godfroi de Bouillon's time - and was conducted by one Rashi, perhaps the most famous of medieval Cabalists."

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