The Jews of Aleppo risked everything to protect an ancient manuscript they believed carried not only words, but the soul of the Jewish people.
$38 Million for a Tanach
Just two days before October 7th, the most valuable Jewish manuscript ever sold arrived in Israel: the Sassoon Codex, an ancient handwritten copy of nearly the entire Tanach. Scholars believe it was written in Syria or the Land of Israel around the year 900 CE. The codex is named after David Sassoon, the prominent Jewish collector who purchased it in the 20th century.
In 2023, the codex was sold at auction for $38.1 million—making it one of the most expensive books or manuscripts ever purchased. It was then donated to the ANU Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv.
This week, as Shavuot approached, the museum held a special event to mark the codex’s installation as a permanent exhibit. Among the speakers were Agam Berger and her mother, Meirav, who gave a speech that moved the crowd to tears.
Meirav shared that for their family, the ancient Tanach represented life—and a circle completed. This past summer, they marked Agam’s 20th birthday with a ceremony at the very same ANU museum hall—while she was still in captivity. After Agam was freed and returned home, she told her family that, by sheer coincidence, her captors had let her watch TV that day. She saw her mother, heard her blessing, and drew strength from that moment—while still held by Hamas.
She said that she was speaking not just for herself, but on behalf of her daughter Agam—and for all the families still waiting for their loved ones to come home—
She looked at the Sassoon Codex and said: this isn’t just a historical artifact. It’s something alive. It tells our story as a people. A story of survival—through wars, crusades, through destruction, through centuries of hardship. This codex is not just parchment and ink—it is proof that we are still here. That after every destruction, we rebuild.
“Today, we are preparing to relive the giving of the Torah—an event that took place thousands of years ago. And while others call it history, I believe the Jewish people don’t have ‘history.’ We have memory. The Torah commands us, ‘Lest you forget the things your eyes have seen.’ That voice still calls to us today—to be a people, to be moral, to be alive, and to take responsibility for one another.”
The Crown of Ben Asher
On Shavuot, we celebrate the giving of the Torah. If you take a look inside a Torah scroll, you’ll notice something right away: there are no vowels, no punctuation marks, and no cantillation notes. Just letters. The reader has to come prepared, knowing all the correct pronunciation, phrasing, and melody by heart.
I want to share with you a story about a special copy of the Tanach written around the same time as the Sassoon Codex. About 1,200 years ago, in the city of Tiberias in the Land of Israel, a group of scholars began a massive project: to create an authoritative edition of the entire Tanach on parchment, complete with vowels and cantillation marks. They made it their mission to gather all the traditions that had been passed down in Jewish communities and compile them into one authoritative version. It was an enormous undertaking that spanned generations.
A scribe known as Aharon ben Asher completed this monumental task in the year 930 CE. He created a book of 491 parchment pages, each one written in three neat columns. It contained all twenty-four books of the Tanach. This extraordinary manuscript came to be known as “The Crown.”
Seventy years later, someone—possibly one of Ben Asher’s own descendants in desperate need of money—sold the Crown to a Jewish man from Iraq. That man later donated it to the Karaite community in Jerusalem, with a strict condition written on it: the book could never be sold or pawned under any circumstances.
The Crown remained in Jerusalem for a hundred years—until the Crusaders arrived. They plundered it from the Jewish community. The only way to get it back was to buy it back—for a massive sum.
So the Jews of Jerusalem reached out to the wealthy Jewish community of Egypt, near Cairo. The Egyptian Jews responded very generously. They raised the funds and redeemed the Crown—and they brought the Crown to Egypt.
There, it remained for nearly 275 years. The Rambam, who lived in Egypt during that time, wrote in his halachic work Mishneh Torah that he personally wrote a Torah scroll and corrected it according to the book of “Ben Asher” (Hilchos Sefer Torah 8:4).
The Crown Reaches Syria
In 1375, one of the Rambam’s descendants left Egypt and moved to Aleppo, Syria, taking the Crown with him. Aleppo, known in the Bible as Aram Tzova, had a deeply rooted Jewish presence. The general of King David is said to have conquered the city. Some claim the Jewish community there dated back 3,000 years, to the time of King David himself.
It was in Aleppo that the manuscript became known as “The Crown of Aram Tzova.”
The Jewish community of Aleppo treasured the Crown. They placed it in a special small room in the synagogue courtyard and built an iron chest with two locks to protect it. The keys were held by two respected community leaders—both had to be present to open the safe.
That small room became known as “Elijah the Prophet’s Cave.” Over time, it turned into a sacred space—people came there to pray for healing and salvation.
A legend grew: if the Crown ever left the community, disaster would follow. And so, the Jews of Aleppo guarded it with fierce devotion. In fact, they became so protective, they hardly allowed anyone to see it. Biblical scholars requested access to study the Crown’s text and vocalization, but the community refused, out of love and reverence. In the 1940s, one determined researcher asked to photograph the manuscript—but the community refused outright.
The Mystery
Then came a turning point in history—the vote at the United Nations on the establishment of a Jewish state. At the time, about a million Jews were living under Muslim rule. Arab delegates to the UN warned that if the resolution passed and a Jewish state was recognized, they could not be held responsible for what might happen to the Jews in their countries.
And sure enough, on Shabbat, November 29, 1947—the day of the UN vote—riots broke out. In Aleppo, Syria, the very next day, an angry mob stormed the Jewish quarter. They broke into the synagogue, pulled out around forty Torah scrolls, and set them on fire. The synagogues themselves were torched as well.
Word reached Israel that among the Torah scrolls burned was the precious Crown. A news article at the time even reported that “The Crown” had been destroyed in the fire.
Some time later, Jews from Aleppo began immigrating to Israel, and they revealed that the story of the Crown having burned was just a cover—meant to fool the authorities so they wouldn’t go looking for it. In truth, the Crown had been hidden and protected by one of the community’s respected leaders.
President Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, himself a renowned scholar, worked tirelessly to convince the Jews of Aleppo that the Crown’s rightful place was in the Land of Israel. In 1958, a Syrian Jew smuggled the Crown out of the country—hidden inside a washing machine—through Turkey, and eventually, it made its way home.
Today, anyone visiting the Israel Museum in Jerusalem can go downstairs to the lower level and see several pages of the Crown on display.
But here comes the heartbreaking part. Somewhere during those years—perhaps in Syria, perhaps in Israel—196 pages of the Crown vanished. Most of the section containing the Five Books of Moses is gone. Scholars still debate where exactly the pages went missing. But the tragic fact remains: a manuscript preserved intact for over a thousand years lost a third of its pages only recently, and many still hope that one day, the missing leaves will resurface.
Guarding the Torah
What’s very interesting here is the name of the manuscript—The Crown. When a king is coronated, the crown is what marks him as ruler. (In the Purim story, for example, Haman asked the king for the crown—but in the end, he only got the royal robes and horse. The crown, the symbol of kingship, remained off limits. See Sichos Kodesh 5740 vol. 3 p. 186.)
Even today, when someone “gives up the crown,” we understand it to mean they’ve lost their reign.
The Jewish people gave the Torah the name “Crown” because Torah is our crown. It’s what gives us greatness, dignity, and our unique identity. As long as we hold onto it, we remain the Chosen People—the People of the Book. But the moment we let go of the crown, G-d forbid, we risk losing everything.
There’s another layer to the name as well. The Hebrew word Keter (כתר) has the numerical value of 620. That’s 613 mitzvot from the Torah, plus seven additional rabbinic commandments.
Our crown is Torah and mitzvot.
On Shavuot, we place that crown on our heads once again—and we pledge to guard it, just like the Jews of Aleppo guarded theirs.
(Note: See Igros Kodesh vol. 23 p. 127, where the Rebbe strongly warns not to alter the traditional wording of the Torah, even if it differs slightly from the version in the Crown.)
This post is also available in: עברית