During Father Antoine Gaubil’s (宋君荣, 1689–1759) visit to the Kaifeng Jewish community on March 23rd and 24th of 1723, the synagogue was destroyed by a great fire sometime during the reign of Emperor Wan-li, (万历皇帝) between the year 1572 and 1620. By the time Ai Tian had met Father Matteo Ricci in 1605, he had told Father Ricci that the synagogue had just been renovated, and if the renovation was due to the fire, then that means the fire must have occurred sometimes during the year 1572 to 1605.

This was the second time that the congregation suffered the almost complete destruction of its books. All the books except one Torah were destroyed.

Although this event was not recorded on any inscriptions, when Matteo Ricci met Ai Tian in 1605, Ai mentioned that the synagogue was only recently rebuilt. All the other Scrolls were copied from this Pentateuch.