Haluka - Contracts With The Meshullah

Contracts With The Meshullah

Till the middle of the eighteenth century the management of the halukkah was entirely in the hands of the Sephardim, who were classed as (1) rich or dependent on their own relatives, (2) working men and employees, and (3) hakamim and scholars of the yeshibot. The third class took one-third of the halukkah; one-third was appropriated for poor widows, orphans, and for temporary relief to helpless men; one-third was used in defraying the communal expenses. The distribution was made semiannually, before the Passover and the New-Year festivals. The meshullahim kept up their work in the Levant, in Italy, Germany, France, Holland, and England, with occasional visits to Russia, Poland, and America. A regular legal contract was drawn up between the community and the meshullah. The community undertook to provide for the meshullah's family during his absence and to advance his initial traveling expenses. The meshullah on his part undertook to devote his attention and best endeavors to arousing the people by lectures, to urging the gabbaim to increase their remittances, and to opening up new sources of income. The commission was usually fixed at 45 per cent on all contributions coming direct from hiṃ or that were due to his influence, and 10 per cent on all income from his territory during the ten years following his return. It generally took the meshullah from three to ten years or longer to complete his mission. In an important city he sometimes accepted a rabbinate or the position of a "maggid"-preacher, and held it for sometime. Occasionally he undertook the promotion of a business enterprise. He was also useful as a news-gatherer before newspapers came into existence. In short, the services of the average old-style meshullahim were distinctly valuable, in spite of the shortcomings of some among them who thought chiefly of personal gain, and cared little for the cause they represented. Pseudo-meshullahim, who represented no community, but traveled on their own behalf, also contributed largely to bring discredit upon the office and duty they had fraudulently assumed.

Among the early meshullahim to America were Rabbi Moses Malki of Safed, who visited the Newport congregation in 1759, and Rabbi Samuel Cohen of Jerusalem (1775). An interesting meshullah was Raphael Hayyim Isaac Carregal, of Hebron, who was in Newport in 1771 and 1773, after visiting the West Indies (Curaçao, 1764). These meshullahim are mentioned by Ezra Stiles in his Diary ("Publications Am. Jew. Hist. Soc." No. 10, pp. 18–32). Carregal refers to David Melammed as his teacher.