54. The Rov Of Frankfurt Spilled The Ink

00:15 So kindalech, I wanna tell you an amazing story. Remember I told you last time about this great goan and tzadik, Rabbi Avrom Abishul, the Rebbe of Frankfurt. He was very humble, the great tzadik, a really holy man and a great goan. After Rabbi Avrom Abishul passed away, the next Rebbe in the city of Frankfurt, or shortly after that he passed away, the Rebbe of Frankfurt became the famous Reb Pinchas Horovitz, who was the rebbe of the Frank- of the Chasam Sofer, a talmid of the Mezritcher Maggid, and the brother of the famous tzadik, Reb Shmelke of Nikolsburg. Reb Pinchas Horovitz became the Rebbe of Frankfurt, and I'm gonna tell you how he became the Rebbe. Now here comes the story. When Rabbi Avrom Abishul was the Rebbe of Frankfurt, a crazy story happened in Europe, actually in Germany. A man by the name Itzik, that was his name, Itzik, got engaged to a girl by the name Leah. They were from different cities in Germany, not from Frankfurt, from other cities, Bonn, to other cities. And came the day before the wedding, the whole family of the kallah came to the city of Bonn, where Itzik lived. The hasanah, the wedding is gonna be the next day. People noticed that Itzik was a little bit depressed. Nobody understood why he was sad, but they tried to make him feel better and so on. So the wedding happened. Itzik, he gave a nice speech at the wedding, a drasha full of learning, he showed his learning.

02:15 Then there was sheva berachos a whole week. Shabbos of the sheva berachos, Itzik got up early in the morning and ran away. He left the house and he ran away to another city. Nobody knew where he went. That means it was mechallel Shabbos because he traveled on Shabbos. Nobody understood what happened. So they went to search for him after Shabbos. People searched everywhere till they found him in a certain town. They asked him, "Why did you run away?" And he said, "I'm in imminent danger. S- I can't stay in this country, in Germany, because I'm in danger. I may get killed, so I need to run away." People thought he must be crazy because normal people don't think that way. I mean, nobody wants to kill him. Why would anybody wanna kill him? He's just imagining it. Something is going crazy in his head that he thinks people wanna kill him. But they calmed him down and they convinced him, "Listen, if you're not going to get s- stay married with your wife, then you have to give her a get so she can marry someone else." They finally convinced him to go to a rav. His name was Rabbi Srul Lipschitz. This Rabbi Srul Lipschitz, uh, spoke to Itzik, and he seemed to be fairly normal. Although it didn't make much sense that he said that he's in danger and he needs to run away. Nobody understood what he meant. But in other ways, when he spoke to him, he sounded like normal, so

03:55 they made a get. After the, the made a get, his father, Itzik's father, found out that they found his son and that he gave a get to his kallah, and he got very upset and he went to different rabbonim and to tell them that his son was not normal. If somebody's not normal, somebody's meshuga, then he can't ma- give a get. If you give a get, it's doesn't, it pr- doesn't mean anything because as, as you know, a person who is doesn't have his mind normal and healthy cannot do anything. He cannot sell anything. He cannot marry a wife. He cannot give a get. You have to understand what you're doing. You have to be normal. And the halacha is that somebody is a sheita. Sheita means he's not normal, then his get is not a get. And therefore he said the get was not a get and she should not, uh, the kallah, Leah, should not get married again, uh, because this is she never got a kosher get. The Rebbe of Frankfurt, Rabbi Avrom Abishul, and his bezdin, which were all the rabbonim, there were a lot of rabbonim in Frankfurt, and they all together decided that this get is not a get and she can't get married. She cannot get married now. She has to wait, either she gets another get from the husband. But the husband ran away. He says he gave the get and he's gone off. Nobody knew where he was. So Avrom Abishul and the pe- mem- mem-

05:28 people of Frankfurt wrote a psak halacha. They wrote a, a decision that everybody should know that this woman cannot get married to anyone because she's still married according to halacha. According to halacha, she's still married and nobody should marry her. Other rabbonim said, "No, she should be able to get married. She should have a choice to get married. Why shouldn't she be able to get married if she wants to get married to anyone she wants? She was... The get was a good get. She's divorced. Now she's no longer married, and therefore we should say the get is good." So this broke out a huge, huge machloket, an argument between different Rabbanim. Mostly was Rabbi Vom Abishul, the great grandma Vom Abishul of Frankfurt, and his Bessdin. They were cr-- they were against the get. The get is not a get and he, he-- they're still married according to Halakha. Other Rabbanim, like the Noda BiYehuda, famous Gaon, and other Rabbanim in his time, they all sided with Rabbi Saul Lipschitz, the Rav who made the get, that the get was a kosher get, and he's not considered crazy. He's, he spo-- the Rav spoke to him before giving the get, so therefore he saw that he was speaking normally, so therefore the get is a get. And there was so much machlokes. Every Rav in all over Europe, the greatest Rabbanim, the Pri Yeshua, the Noda BiYehuda, everybody was involved in this machlokes. The whole world was involved in this machlokes. Letters were written from

07:04 one side of Europe to the other side of Europe. Um, books, sefarim were written, tays sefarim were written about the get of Kliva. Rabbi Saul Lipschitz was the Rav in the city called Kliva. Is in this, in that city, that's where the get took place. And there was this huge, huge, huge argument and debate whether the get of Kliva is a good get or not. Rabbi Pinchas Horovitz at that time was a young Rav in a small town, but everybody heard that he's a big Gaon, so they asked him to also write a teshuvah, write a letter to see what he thinks. The Rabbanim of Frankfurt were hoping that Rabbi Pinchas Horovitz will agree with them and write a beautiful, brilliant teshuvah, because he was a great Gaon, proving that the get was a get. That the get is not a get. Sorry, they, the people of Frankfurt said the get is not a get. Rabbi Pinchas Horovitz looked into it and studied all the teshuvahs, all the writings of all the Hakhamim and the Rabbanim that wrote about this get, and he came to the conclusion that the Noda BiYehuda, who was the Rav of Prague, is right. The get is a kosher get, and we should not, um, make any problems, so the woman should get married to whoever she wants, 'cause the get from her husband is a good get. So he started writing down a teshuvah, a long teshuvah. A teshuvah is a letter where the Rav writes down all the

08:38 sources from this Gemara and that Gemara and the questions that can come up from another Gemara, from a Tosefta, from a Rashi, from a Rash, from a, from a Rambam. And so it's usually have to be a great Talmud hakham to be able to write such a teshuvah. But Rabbi Pinchas Horovitz was a great Gaon, and he wrote an amazing teshuvah about from all over the Gemara and Shas, Babylon, Yerushalmi, and proving that this woman is officially a pia alochah. She's considered a, a divorce. She's a good get, and therefore she can marry whoever she wants. As he finished writing his letter, his w-- his page was still wet. In olden days, when people wrote letters with ink, ink was very wet in those days, and it took a while to dry. In order to make the, a letter dry faster, they would drop like a, um, like a kind of a dust. It was a kind of a dust which people used to dry up the ink. But Rabbi Pinchas Horovitz tried to put this drying type of dust so the ink would become dry and they could send away to the Rabbanim that asked him to write about it. He accidentally used not the bottle with the dust, the bottle with the ink and poured it on the, on the teshuvah. So obviously the whole teshuvah is now ruined because he wrote-- he poured a lot of ink all over his page. So he decided he has to write it again. It's a

09:59 long teshuvah. It's very difficult to write again. He did it again and again ink spilled all over. The third time when it happened, he said, "Ah, it's min hashamayim. From Shamayim, they don't want me to write this teshuvah." He didn't write it. Many years later, Rabbi Vom Abishul, the great, great Rav of Frankfurt, passed away. And the city of Frankfurt was looking for a Rav. And they decided we're not gonna fi-- we're not gonna... A lot of Rabbanim wanted to be Rav in Frankfurt. Frankfurt was considered the most special community in the world. Many Hakhamim lived there, many Talmidi Hakhamim, Rabbanim lived there. This, everybody wanted to be Rav in Frankfurt. It's like a great honor. So there was a long list of people that wanted to become Rav, and they were deciding who should be elect and asked to be Rav. So they looked down the list and anybody who was involved in this debate, in this argument about the get of Kliva, if they were against their Rav, Rabbi Vom Abishul, they would not... They would say, "Okay, he cannot be Rav by us," because he was not nice to a Rav because the, the, the people were writing very, very, very insulting language. And so they said, "He can't be Rav." When it came to Rabbi Pinchas Horovitz, he also submitted. He said that he wants to be Rav. He said they looked into all the teshuvahs. Oh, his name wasn't there. He didn't write a teshuvah against our Rav, so they

11:37 elected him. So Rabbi Pinchas Horovitz realized it's min hashamayim, that when he started writing the teshuvah many years before, they stopped him from Shamayim not to write this teshuvah because he was supposed to be the Rav of that city. But the story didn't end here, because Rabbi Pinchas had a brother, as I said before. His name was Rabbi Shmelke of Nikolsburg. Rabbi Shmelke and Rabbi-- and, and, and, um, Rabbi Pinchas were two brothers. Rabbi Pinchas was the older one. Shmelke was the younger one. Frankfurt had three possible candidates, three possible people that could be Rav. They weren't sure which one to elect. Rabbi Pinchas, his brother, Rabbi Shmelke, and there was a third Rav. In the end, they decided to be either Rabbi Pinchas or Rabbi Shmelke of Nikolsburg, the two brothers. And the two brothers weren't sure who should take the Rabbonus to become Rav in Frankfurt, because the city of Nikolsburg also was looking for a Rav. So they decided, "We're gonna go and ask the Mezritcher Maggid." They asked the Mezritcher Maggid... Uh, so they came to Mezritch, and before they went into the room of the Mezritcher Maggid, they each said to the other, "You go first." He said, "No, no, you go first." As they were arguing who should go first into the room of the Mezritcher Maggid to ask him where they should be Rav, they heard a voice from inside the room. It was the Mezritcher Maggid was calling out and says, "Let the Frankfurter Rav, the Rav

13:12 of Frankfurt, come into my room first because he's the oldest." Now, what did he say here? The oldest is the Rav of Frankfurt. That means Rabbi Pinchas. So they got the answer already. So Rabbi Pinchas became Rav in Frankfurt, and Rabbi Shmelke became Rav in Nikolsburg.