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JEWISH MAIL

In the ancient world and through the period of the Middle Ages there were couriers who risked their lives to deliver letters and messages to far-flung outposts. Diplomatic pouches and their carriers date back at least a millennium and the beginnings of a modern postal system existed in England in the seventeenth century with the advent of postage stamps, and official postal authorities arose in the next century.

There was always a Jewish postal system, though never officially established and authorized. Important legal and scholarly documents had to be transported from one place to the other in the Jewish world. The delivery of "mail" was usually entrusted to two types of travelers: the merchants who traveled for commercial reasons and the representatives of yeshivot and other Jewish institutions who traveled to gather funds to help support their Torah or charitable endeavors. There were also official agents or bailiffs of Jewish courts who traveled between communities to deliver legal documents, such as bills of divorce. And then there were special couriers who delivered books and Torah writings throughout the Jewish world. Amazingly enough, this ad hoc, seat-of-the-pants type of delivery system was efficient and, under the circumstances, timely and honest. Jews trusted each other with the delivery of important personal and commercial documents and this trust was backed up with an official ruling.

In the tenth century, Rabbi Gershom, the Light of the Exile, the head of the yeshiva in Mainz (France-Germany) promulgated a number of ordinances that greatly affected Jewish life. The most famous one was the ban on polygamy in Jewish domestic life. However, one of his other "lesser" ordinances prohibited opening, reading or using any information that was in a letter or document entrusted to one person for delivery to another person. Till today, a Jew is not allowed to open a letter addressed to someone else. This ban strengthened the Jewish mail system greatly, for Rabbi Gershom buttressed his ordinances with the power of a cherem, the punishment of exclusion from the Jewish community for anyone who deigned to disobey the ordinance. I have personally known Jews who were completely unobservant of many important mitzvoth of Torah but who remained scrupulously observant of Rabbi Gershom's ordinance because of the cherem attached to it. In any event, the flow of Jewish letters and documents continued unabated in the Middle Ages and until modern times independent of any official postal or document delivery system.

Maimonides sent special couriers to France and Morocco as well as Yemen and Iraq to bring his great works to the attention of those Jewish communities and their scholars. It is truly amazing how his works were so rapidly disseminated in the Jewish world. His communications and letters to and from the rabbis of Provence and Iraq have been preserved as testimony to the impact of his writings on the Jewish world of the twelfth century. Rashi's great commentaries, written in eleventh century Troyes in the Isle de France, were also soon known throughout the Jewish world. The famous Cairo genizah, the storehouse of discarded documents, of mostly holy writings, contains copies of letters sent to the Jewish community of Cairo from great rabbinic figures from throughout the Middle East and Europe. Since Jews were always active in mercantile trade and traveled extensively, there always seemed to be couriers available to deliver Jewish mail around the world. This habit of private mail service is so ingrained in the Jewish psyche that it continues today in spite of governmental and private postal services. Who amongst us has not been asked to take some mail for someone when embarking on a trip to another country or city that contains a Jewish community? Thus, the Jewish mail system, like most Jewish habits and traditions, remains strong and operative even today.

Berel Wein