Episode 25: Rabbi Moshe Leaves Poznan and Arrives at the Vatican in Rome

00:01 We continue the story of Rabbi Moshe, a grandson of the Maharal on one side of his family and the grandfather of Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, the founder of Chabad Chassidus, on the other. The background at this point is the Church’s cruel decrees and its humiliating treatment of the Jews, as we will see in the book. The popes who came after Gregory were not so insistent on enforcing the decree requiring Jews to come and listen to priests’ sermons in churches. On the other hand, the priests were given a free hand to go among the Jews and tell them about their religion. They delivered particularly many speeches urging conversion on their holidays, meaning Christian festivals. Then, suddenly, a new order came from the Vatican: senior priests in every country were to arrange public disputations from time to time between representatives of the Church and the Jews. These disputations posed a great danger to Jews, sometimes even a danger to their lives. Their character and format depended on the different rulers and priests involved. In Poznań, during the period when Rabbi Moshe served as head of the community, the head of the Catholic Church there was an enemy of the Jews in the fullest sense, and he made Rabbi Moshe’s life miserable. The disputations arranged in Poznań followed the direction of Prince Maximilian, who ruled the region. They served as a pretext for malicious accusations and incitement, to the point that Rabbi Moshe was forced to resign as leader of the community. Poznań was renowned for its Torah scholars, and all its Jews aspired and worked to make their sons scholars. The great scholar Rabbi Yehuda Leib, Rabbi Moshe’s father, who served as head of the city’s beis din, entrusted his son to the finest teachers and later sent him to yeshivos whose heads excelled in their sacred work. Rabbi Moshe had exceptional abilities. He was highly successful in his studies, surpassed all his peers, and was blessed with many qualities, including keen intelligence, composure and sound judgment. Even as a small child, he behaved like an adult. He never lost his temper, and he never

03:12 cried. Even when he was hurt while playing, he did not come crying and complaining as children usually do. Nor did he often complain of headaches or stomachaches; in general, he did not demand attention. At the age of three he was sent to cheder. When he grew older and had filled himself with Torah learning, he was sent to Padua, Italy. Padua was a center of Torah learning. There he also pursued secular studies, without wasting even a moment. He was always occupied with Torah studies or, to distinguish between them, secular studies. After his marriage, Rabbi Moshe went into business. He continued, however, to study a great deal of Torah as well as various sciences. He was especially fond of the natural sciences and the study of history. He could speak and read many languages fluently, among them French, Italian, German, Greek and Latin. From his grandfather Rabbi Shmuel, a grandson of the Maharal, he inherited a discerning eye and expertise in jewelry and goldsmithing. Rabbi Moshe traveled to various countries for his business. Wherever he went, he visited libraries and examined the ancient manuscripts they held. His knowledge of languages helped him establish good connections, and he also acquired many books in addition to those he had inherited from his father and grandfather. In this way, his library became one of the largest and richest around. In the year 5475, 1715 by their reckoning, after the Catholic priests intensified their pressure and oppression of the Jews of Poznań, Rabbi Moshe resigned as head of the community. Later, after consulting his family, he decided to leave Poznań altogether. Rabbi Moshe took care that no one would suspect he was preparing to leave. It was said that he was setting out on a business trip. In fact, he intended to move his property gradually to another country and have his family follow him. His property included gold objects, diamonds and valuable antiques,

05:58 as well as a large sum of cash and promissory notes from noblemen who did business with him. Over a period of more than half a year, Rabbi Moshe managed to move most of his property and his books out of the country. He first traveled to Prague, where many of his relatives, descendants of the Maharal, lived. Later his family joined him, and they moved to Poland, eventually settling in Minsk. When he left Prague, Rabbi Moshe visited Padua, Italy, where he had spent his youth studying Torah and other branches of knowledge. While there, he toured Padua’s various yeshivos and engaged the students in learned discussion. He also entered into disputations with scholars among the Jews of Italy who had begun studying Kabbalah. At that time, Rabbi Moshe was a fierce opponent of the study of Kabbalah. From Padua, he traveled to other cities in Italy until he reached Rome. There he visited the Vatican Library, which had a rich collection of books and manuscripts. Rabbi Moshe greatly impressed the library’s director, a very learned non-Jew with whom he discussed various sciences at length throughout his time there. The director spoke enthusiastically to the cardinals about Rabbi Moshe, and several of them expressed a desire to speak with this remarkable Jew. The director introduced them, and they went on to have lengthy conversations, mainly about Judaism. The cardinals proposed that Rabbi Moshe hold a public disputation with them. Rabbi Moshe told them that his first condition was that all the Christian statues and images be removed from the walls of the hall where the disputation was to take place. In addition, the cardinals themselves would have to remove their crosses. The cardinals grew very angry, saw this as an insult to the Church and to Jesus, and threatened Rabbi Moshe in various ways. But Rabbi Moshe was unmoved and stood firm. He explained that according to halachah, he was forbidden to show respect to the statues and crosses, and therefore could not debate with them

08:50 freely while those objects were before his eyes. Reluctantly, the cardinals agreed to Rabbi Moshe’s conditions. In the end, the disputation between Rabbi Moshe and the cardinals took place on his terms. The cardinals wore no crosses on their chests throughout the disputation, and no crosses or statues were visible on the walls of the hall. This was how it was arranged: more than thirty cardinals and other senior Catholic figures at the Vatican were on one side, and Rabbi Moshe alone was on the other. Twelve of the thirty Catholic figures were well-known men of science. In principle, the procedures and rules of the disputation were supposed to give both sides complete equality. Rabbi Moshe had demanded this, and the cardinals had agreed, though with obvious reluctance. Rabbi Moshe also demanded that the disputation address not only the Jewish religion but, to distinguish between them, the Christian religion as well. He further demanded that it be conducted in both Lashon Hakodesh and Latin. The cardinals rejected this demand for the simple reason that only a few of them knew Lashon Hakodesh. The very fact that the Jew knew their language while they did not know his put them in an uncomfortable position. It highlighted the Jew’s superiority, yet they still refused Rabbi Moshe’s demand. The disputation opened in a hall in one of the Vatican palaces, before a large audience. In addition to the participants—the thirty cardinals on one side and Rabbi Moshe on the other—a chairperson, a secretary and a panel of judges were chosen to assess both sides’ arguments and determine which was right. The first issue for discussion was the place of faith in a person’s life. The Catholic representative spoke first, delivering a lengthy address on the subject. When Rabbi Moshe’s turn came, he said that before addressing the substance of the disputation, he had to protest the violation of

11:40 The principle of equality between the two sides. In fluent Italian, Rabbi Moshe began to spell out the ways in which that equality was lacking. First, they had set a group of thirty men against him, one man. Second, the Catholic side had claimed the right to speak first, when the Jewish side should have been given the first turn, since Judaism is older and Christianity professes to be based on it. Another sign of inequality was the other side’s refusal to allow the debate to be conducted in two languages. If the debaters on the other side did not know the Holy Tongue, an interpreter could be appointed, allowing Rabbi Moshe to present his arguments in it. In conclusion, Rabbi Moshe said, there was a clear inequality and an injustice here: a situation that gave one side an enormous advantage and reduced the other side’s chances of winning. These words of Rabbi Moshe left the Catholics utterly embarrassed--they expressed anger and outrage, and argued that the Jew should be punished for his insolence. The more moderate among them, however, acknowledged that Rabbi Moshe was right. In any event, the session was halted and postponed indefinitely, until a decision could be made about how to conduct the debate. The atmosphere in the Vatican toward Rabbi Moshe was hostile and tense. Even if some of the cardinals and other Vatican figures privately felt that Rabbi Moshe was right, and even came to regard him favorably, they could not, of course, show any outward sign of it.