Episode 7: Moshe Yitzchok and Prince Ferdinand

00:01 We’re continuing the story of the history of Chassidus, as we tell of the Maharal of Prague. As we know, his father-in-law—the father of the Maharal’s wife, Perel—was named Shmuel Reich. He was a very wealthy man and the head of the Jewish community in Prague. Then King Ferdinand, who had come under the influence of the Catholics and their hatred of the Jews, announced that within two years the Jews had to leave all the lands under his rule. Shmuel Reich consulted his son-in-law, the Maharal, about the possibility of bribing several high-ranking officials in the kingdom to annul the decree, but the Maharal opposed it. We continue. Shmuel Reich consulted his son-in-law, the Maharal, about this matter. The Maharal objected. He felt it would be dangerous for the Jews to secure their rights by bribing their enemies. Now, at that time, Prince Ferdinand, the son of King Ferdinand I and Archduke of Bohemia, happened to visit another archduke, Archduke Johann of Moravia. Both archdukes were enthusiasts of astronomy and mathematics. During their conversation, they began discussing an important mathematical problem that they struggled to solve. They could not solve it, and other scholars asked to propose a solution could not solve it either. The two archdukes made a wager: whoever solved the problem first would become the other’s intellectual master, and the other would be his moral servant. They gave themselves six months. Prince Ferdinand returned to his palace in Prague. He gathered the leading scholars around him and told them about the mathematical problem. To his dismay, none of them could find a solution. One month passed, then two, three, four, five—and the prince still had no solution. In addition to his own estates, Prince Ferdinand had inherited estates from another archduke who had no sons and had left them to him. These estates included fortresses, towns, villages, flour mills, weaving

03:17 houses, taverns, and more. The manager of all these estates was, in fact, a Jew from Prague named Moshe Yitzchak—Moshe Yitzchak Sobel. Moshe Yitzchak Sobel was highly regarded by the estates’ previous owner and, later, by his heir, Prince Ferdinand, son of King Ferdinand I. After his wager with the archduke of Moravia, Prince Ferdinand happened to visit these estates and, of course, met with their manager, Moshe Yitzchak Sobel. The Jewish manager sensed that something was troubling the prince and asked him what was worrying him. The prince told him what was weighing on his heart: the unsolved mathematical problem. Moshe Yitzchak Sobel said to him, “I understand that you’ve approached various scholars, but not Jewish scholars.” The prince burst out laughing. “What do Jews know about such matters?” he said mockingly. “Jews can only fast and mourn the destruction of their Beis Hamikdash and await a miraculous Geulah. Since when do they know anything about science?” Moshe Yitzchak, who had known the prince since his youth, said to him, “You have false ideas about the Jews, and the blame lies with your tutor, who hated Jews. He told you fabricated stories and lies about them. Of course we mourn the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash. We also recite Tikkun Chatzos. We believe that our Geulah will come soon, with Hashem’s help. None of that changes the fact that there are many scholars and highly educated people among us. If you want to meet a truly great scholar, you should get to know the rabbi of Prague. There is no field of knowledge in the world that he does not know.” The prince said, “If you’re convinced that the rabbi of Prague can solve this mathematical problem for me, bring him to me. But I ask you to do it discreetly, so that no one knows about it. It would be a disgrace for me if

06:18 word got out that I needed the help of members of a lowly, ignorant people to solve a scientific problem.” The prince said this calmly, even in a friendly tone. He did not realize that he was insulting the Jew he was speaking to. But Moshe Yitzchak was deeply hurt, and he did not let the prince’s words go unanswered. “My lord,” he said, “if I did not know you to be an honest, sensible man with a good heart and fine character, I would say that you pass judgment on people without knowing them, and without the slightest knowledge, reason, or evidence. That is all the worse when you are speaking not of individuals but of an entire people. How can you express an opinion about Jews when you do not know them at all and know nothing about their lives or their Torah? What speaks through you is the hatred of the priests and their associates, who hate the Jewish people. That hatred has no basis other than jealousy, because even the least learned Jew knows more than the best of your priests.” Moshe Yitzchak began explaining to the archduke, the prince, that he had been misled by the priests, who could not forgive the Jews for remaining faithful to their Torah and for standing on a far higher intellectual and moral level than they did. He asked the prince, “Why do you see the Jews as a lowly people when they are willing to do any kind of hard labor to earn their bread? And why do you regard them as ignorant when they devote their time to Torah study and the service of Hashem? Who loves toil and work as the Jews do, on the one hand? And who spends Shabbos and Yom Tov in such a spiritual, elevated way, as they do?” Now the prince broke in with accusations against the Jews, as though to prove that he was right after all. “The Jews are greedy. They love money, and they are all very rich.” Moshe Yitzchak explained to the prince that there were more poor people among the Jews than among other peoples. The difference was that even the poorest Jew

08:55 lives within his means. He does not waste what he has; he saves for tomorrow, and so he does not starve. What is more, there are always Jews who help their fellow Jews. By contrast, the non-Jews squander all their money on drink and revelry and are always looking for more money. Moshe Yitzchak also took the opportunity to speak to the prince about the troubling fact that Jewish craftsmen and small traders, who had to work hard for their livelihood, were required to pay high taxes. Moshe Yitzchak continued, “Your false accusations against the Jews have no basis at all.” He said this with tears in his eyes. The prince lowered his head. He was shaken by everything he had heard. Moshe Yitzchak took advantage of the silence and continued his argument. “Consider,” he said to the prince, “the scale of our tragedy. As though it were not enough that we were exiled from our land, we have been condemned to wander from country to country. Wherever we go, we must devote all our strength to others and fill the treasuries of foreigners. At every turn they rob us of what little property we have left and expel us as though we were criminals. And now we face a decree to leave Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia—places where we have lived for hundreds of years and enriched their inhabitants. Yet we do not complain against those who issue these decrees. We look to ourselves and ask why our Father in Heaven punishes us so harshly: because we have failed to return to Hashem truly and sincerely. This is what our first prophet, Moshe Rabbeinu, testified to us, followed by all the prophets, in the name of Hakadosh Boruch Hu.” Moshe Yitzchak continued, “Believe me, my lord, neither I nor my fellow Jews worry about our daily bread. The sages of the Talmud said, ‘The One Who gives life also gives sustenance.’ The One Who gives life provides a livelihood as well. The meager piece of bread that we eat in this country by the kindness of Hashem, blessed be He, we will, with Hashem’s help, eat in another country too. But why expel a hardworking people? After all, the heart

11:55 “I am appalled by such a gross and cruel perversion of justice.” The prince sat stunned. After a while he said, “I have known you for some thirty years. Never have I heard such harsh words from you.” Moshe Yitzchak said, “After the king’s order to expel the Jews was issued, I decided that the first time I met with you, I must open your eyes to the moral state of your fellow nobles—and to the moral state of the priest who professes such holiness and love for you, yet harbors seven abominations in his heart. For fifty years I worked on the estate of my master, the great prince, a man of integrity, who drew me and my fellow Jews close. More than once he protected us all, saving us, our wives, and our children from the hands of those bloodthirsty Jesuits. Those fifty years oblige me to do everything in my power to keep the purity and gentleness of your heart from being sullied by the filthy waters of that wicked company—the nobles and princes who have fallen into the swindlers’ trap. By saying these things,” said Moshe Yitzchak, “I have fulfilled my moral duty to my master, the great and much-praised prince, and to you as well, my master—may you live a long and good life. Only now has a weight been lifted from my heart, a weight that has burdened me for some fifteen years, ever since you became a man of twenty, for fear that you too, my kindhearted master, might, G-d forbid, fall into the trap. Now I can breathe freely. And you, my master, go forth and ride for the cause of truth, and may the whole world be illuminated.”