Episode 4: The Maharal in Krakow, the Kohen and the Divorced Woman

00:02 We continue the story of the Maharal of Prague. As is known, the Maharal studied under the gaon Rabbi Yitzchak Klober [unclear]. When the gaon Rabbi Yitzchak Klober [unclear] passed away, it was the year 5298. His students—the Maharal, his friend Rabbi Shlomo Luria, and others—decided to leave Poznań and move to Krakow. Krakow was then a center of Torah learning. The Maharal spent five years there. For the first three years, he studied with his friend Rabbi Moshe, son of Rabbi Yisroel Isserles, who later became known as the Rema, one of the great halachic authorities of the Jewish people. In later years, the Maharal spoke of Krakow with great admiration. He said he had never seen a community as blessed in its esteem and affection for Torah scholars as Krakow. He related that even butchers, water carriers, and woodcutters were highly learned in Torah. The relationships between people were exceptional. Krakow was a model of a city of Torah and good character. They studied both the revealed and the hidden dimensions of Torah there. The Maharal related an interesting detail: in Krakow’s market square, an area of ground about fifteen meters across was enclosed by a stone wall. In the Maharal’s time, people in Krakow believed the wall was about 160 years old. Why had the area been fenced off? It was said that the ground had once split open there and swallowed a man and a woman before the eyes of many people. This is how that extraordinary event happened. In the year 5123, the gaon Rabbi Yitzchak served as the rabbi of Krakow. He was among the Jews expelled from Germany under a decree issued against the Jews there at that time. Krakow then belonged to one of the princes of Poland, whose estate manager was also a Jew from Germany. This Jew, however, was a kohen. His name was Shlomo Zeligman. Little by little, he strayed from the path of Judaism, and in time changed his name from Shlomo to Sigmund. Things reached the point

03:16 where he desecrated Shabbos, ate non-kosher food, and did everything the Torah forbids. This fellow, Shlomo Zeligman, decided to marry a divorced Jewish woman in Krakow. But since a kohen is forbidden to marry a divorcee, Shlomo Sigmund went to Rabbi Yitzchak, the rabbi of Krakow, who told him that he could not marry them. The rabbi tried to explain this to Shlomo Sigmund and persuade him not to commit such a serious transgression. Zeligman brazenly replied that he was prepared to give up his status as a kohen in order to marry the woman. He went on to say that if the rabbi would not conduct the chuppah and kiddushin for him and the divorcee, they would travel to another city and marry there. The rabbi summoned the woman and her relatives, who were among the city’s prominent citizens, and told them that if they did such a thing, he would place them under a ban. The divorcee’s relatives, who had business dealings with Zeligman, actually wanted the marriage to take place and tried to persuade Rabbi Yitzchak to find a way to permit it. Rabbi Yitzchak stood firm and even ordered an announcement in the synagogue that this marriage was strictly forbidden. He also warned the couple not to dare go through with it. When Zeligman heard the rabbi’s warning, he flew into a rage. Seeing himself as a powerful man, he declared emphatically that he would do as he pleased. A great dispute then broke out in the Krakow community. Those who feared Hashem and were scrupulous in their observance, especially the Torah scholars, spoke out against this breach of Torah law. The divorcee’s relatives and various people seeking grounds to permit the marriage, on the other hand, defended Zeligman—no doubt hoping to be rewarded for it. Zeligman did not give up. Because he was held in high regard by the prince whose estates he managed, he approached the prince and told him what had happened. Zeligman turned the prince against Rabbi Yitzchak, who, for fanatical reasons, as he put it, insisted on refusing to do such a small thing as conduct a chuppah and kiddushin

06:01 for him and the divorcee. The prince summoned Rabbi Yitzchak and also invited the Christian bishop to the meeting. The elderly rabbi arrived with one of the leaders of the Krakow community. The prince opened by asking why the rabbi was preventing two people who loved each other from marrying. The rabbi explained that it was not a matter of his own wishes, but of what the Torah required: the Torah forbids a kohen to marry a divorcee. The prince turned to the bishop and asked whether this was indeed so. The bishop, who hated Jews, said that this prohibition did appear in the Torah of Moshe. But, he claimed, the sages of the Talmud had overturned many things the Torah forbade, and the Torah gave rabbis the authority to change its prohibitions or permit things written in it. Rabbi Yitzchak denied the bishop’s claim. He explained to the prince that together with the Written Torah that Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave Moshe at Sinai, He gave him what is called the Oral Torah. The Oral Torah contains explanations, interpretations, and instructions for carrying out what is written in the Written Torah. These teachings were passed down orally from generation to generation for many centuries, until the sages of the Mishnah and Talmud wrote them down. The rabbi went on to explain to the prince that the Written Torah and the Oral Torah are not separate, different things; they complement each other. The bishop then began putting questions and challenges to the rabbi in a scornful tone, intending to fluster him and make him look ridiculous in the prince’s eyes. But Rabbi Yitzchak was well versed both in Talmudic literature and in the methods of those who had attacked the Jews throughout the generations, with their questions and challenges. He also knew the substance of the debates that Jewish sages had been forced to hold with leading Christians, such as the disputation of the Ramban. So Rabbi Yitzchak did not lose his composure. He gave his answers calmly and clearly. The conversation with the prince took place through an interpreter,

08:39 since the rabbi did not know the language of the country. Still, the wisdom in his answers greatly impressed the prince. The bishop seethed with anger, especially when he sensed how much the rabbi’s knowledge and wisdom were impressing the prince. He began hurling insults at the rabbi and at Jews in general. The rabbi remained calm, though the words hurt him deeply. He told the bishop that he ought to treat Judaism with respect, for a person does not spit into the well from which he has drunk. “After all,” Rabbi Yitzchak said, “Christianity and its founder come from Judaism.” The bishop was beside himself with rage and began shouting that the rabbi had insulted the founders of Christianity. Then he cried, “And who was your Moshe?” “Moshe Rabbeinu,” the rabbi replied calmly, “was born like anyone else, to a father and mother. His father was Amram and his mother was Yocheved. He was born on 7 Adar in the year 2368 from Creation, and he passed away 120 years later, on 7 Adar in the year 2488 from Creation.” The bishop continued to mock him. “How remarkable that your memory extends to the exact dates of Moshe’s birth and death,” he said sarcastically to Rabbi Yitzchak. “It is not a matter of my memory,” Rabbi Yitzchak replied, “but of a tradition passed down among our people from generation to generation.” The bishop steered the discussion back to Christianity and its founder, and the rabbi gave him decisive answers, drawing even on Christian sources. From these he demonstrated that the G-d of Israel is the one G-d of the entire world. The bishop realized that the rabbi’s knowledge, even of Christian sources, surpassed his own as a Christian leader. At this point, the prince intervened. He felt obliged to prevent the impression that the Christian clergyman had been defeated in his debate with the rabbi. Addressing the rabbi in a commanding voice, he said, “Even if the Torah forbids a kohen to marry a divorcee, since Zeligman is giving up his status as a kohen,

11:19 I command you to conduct the chuppah and kiddushin for the couple and let them live their lives in peace.”