THE POWER OF CARING

One of the influential halachic figures in Judaism was a man known as Rabbainu Tam. His story is fascinating.

In 1095 began the First Crusade of Christians began, marching toward the Holy Land to conquer Jerusalem from the Muslims. En route, during May and June of 1096, the mob slaughtered entire Jewish communities in Germany and France, in what was one of the most horrific events in Jewish history of the Middle Ages.

The situation of the Jewish People in France and Western Europe from the time of the First Crusade in 1096 rapidly deteriorated. The persecution of Jews through the Catholic Church was horrendous, and the demands that Jews convert were never-ending.

The greatest Jewish sage in France at the time was Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (1040 –1105), known as Rashi, who wrote the most basic and important commentary on the entire Bible and Talmud, and his words are studied daily by millions of Jews.

Upon the passing of Rashi, at the end of the First Crusade, in 1105, there arose in France a fascinating academic school of Jewish thought—analyzing each word and law in the Talmud in a most brilliant and profound style. This group is known as the Baalei HaTosefot, so called because their commentary on the Talmud became known as Tosafot (“Additions”), and much of it is printed in every edition of the Talmud, to the side of the commentary of Rashi.

This school spanned several generations and consisted primarily of Rishi’s family—his children, grandchildren, and their students. They are the fathers of Ashkenazic Jewry are all rooted in the customs, mindset, and worldview of the Baalei Tosafot from the 11th and 12th centuries. They took a radically different direction in many ways from Spanish Jewry.

The leading figure of this school was a grandson of Rashi, Rabbi Yaakov, known as Rabbeinu Tam.

Rashi had three daughters, no sons. Rashi’s oldest daughter, Yocheved, married Rabbeinu Meir ben Shmuel. They were blessed with four great sons.

The oldest son, Rabbi Shmuel ben Meir, is known by his acronym, the Rashbam. The second notable grandson of Rashi, Rabbi Yitzchak ben Meir (“Rivam”). He was also a great scholar and died before he was 30.

Yet the most famous of the brothers was the third grandson of Rashi, Rabbeinu Yaakov, known as Rabbeinu Tam. He, more than anyone, put his stamp on Ashkenazic Jewry until our times.

The fourth son was rabbi Shlomo ben Meir.

Yaakov ben Meir was born in the French country village of Ramerupt, in the Aube département of northern-central France. His primary teachers were his father (the son-in-law of Rashi) and his brother, Shmuel ben Meir, known as Rashbam. His reputation as one of the greatest scholars of his generation spread far beyond France. He came to be known as Rabainu Tam.

Rabbainu Tam’s Beth Din, his court, became known for communal enactments improving Jewish family life, education, charity, and women's status. What Rambam was for Sephardic Jewry, Rabanu Tam was for Ashkenazi Jewry.

He was also very wealthy. He had vast holdings of lands, vineyards, and was in the money-lending business. His main goal in life was to lead French Jewry, especially in the north, in the study of Torah. He developed within Ashkenazic Jewry the tradition that everyone had to study the Talmud, whether they would be a rabbi or not. Knowledge of the Torah is universal, and no Jew can be without it.

Rabbeinu Tam was almost killed in the Second Crusade. On May 8, 1146 (on the holiday of Shavuot), a Crusader mob came to the town of Ramerupt, dragged Rabbeinu Tam out of the synagogue, and was about to crucify him – literally. Then they erected a cross and said, “If you’re the leader of the Jewish people in France, it’s no more than right that vengeance should be taken upon you for what the Jews did to our lord.” The spiritual leader of French Jewry was about to be murdered.

They administered five wounds to his head. And at that very moment, a nobleman rode by. He was a client of Rabbeinu Tam’s bank and owed him

a great deal of money. Rabbeinu Tam had also done favors for him; he’d extended his loans; he’d waived interest. When the nobleman arrived, he knew that the mob was not going to be satisfied with anything less than Rabbeinu Tam’s death.

Then the nobleman hit upon a brilliant idea. “If you kill him, that’s just killing another Jew!” he told the crusaders. “Give him to me! I will convert him to Christianity. If, after two days, he still refuses, I will bring him back to you.”

The mob thought about it and agreed. They gave Rabbeinu Tam over to the nobleman, and as soon as the two of them were away from the crowd, the nobleman told Rabbeinu Tam to escape. He got his family and left behind his castle, the businesses, and their wealth and property. He went back to Troyes, France, to Rashi’s town, and started from the beginning, all over again.

He exercised an unusually deep and universal influence on the halachic development of European Judaism down to the present day. So high an authority as the Rosh (Rabbi Asher ben Yechiel, father of the Tur), placed R. Tam's knowledge even above that of Maimonides.

But what I want to focus on today is one detail: His name, Rabeinu Tam, or our teacher Tam. We do not know of any other Jew with that name, Tam!

To be sure, his real name was Yaakov. When Genesis wishes to describe the character of Jacob, it uses these words:

Jacob was a wholesome person, dwelling in the tents. Yet, there were many Jews by the name of Jacob. We never heard of anyone else with the name Yaakov acquiring the suffix of “Tam.” Throughout the entire Talmudic literature written in his own time, he is the only one called Rabeinu Tam. Why was it he who received that title? Nobody knew. The name just stuck, and thus it remains to this day, eight centuries later.

Until one day, a great rabbi had a fascinating dream, which he transcribed, and the mystery was solved.

This is a fascinating story, with a profound moral lesson for each of us.

The ancient Jewish custom was that the man, or his family, paid for all the wedding expenses. All the brides had to do was to show up... However, there was a custom called dowry. When a Jewish girl married, if her father could afford it, he gave her a nice dowry, of jewelry, money, or other assets, which she would bring into the marriage and enjoy with her husband. The bride’s side contributed goods to furnish the new couple’s household. Sometimes, the father worked and put away money for years to give his daughter a handsome dowry.

Even when a girl had parents with meager means or was an orphan, the community would give her a dowry to bring into the marriage. This was a great mitzvah known as “hachnasat kallah.”

Now, it was not uncommon during those years, when life expectancy was short, that a woman or man would die prematurely, even in the first year of marriage. With women, this was even more common, a result of complications related to pregnancy and birth.

What would happen, in such a case, to the entire dowry? According to Jewish law, a husband inherits his wife. Hence, the husband would inherit all the assets she brought into the marriage.

Enter Rabbi Jacob, or as we know him, Rabbeinu Tam. In his halachik work Sefer Hayashar (section 579), he is outraged by this practice:

“The court issued forth a strict decree like the decree of Joshua, with the force of the heavenly court and the earthly court, that any woman who died within twelve months of her marriage, that all her dowry and assets (beside that which the husband uses for her grave and expenses related to her), return to her family, or to those who contributed the dowry. He has thirty days to give back the assets.”

He then adds something personal:

“Who, like me, has seen the deep anguish and pain of the father who lost his daughter, and now also loses all of the money for which he labored so hard.” He was referring to his position as one of the leading rabbis of the time who had encountered firsthand the pain this caused to the family of the deceased young woman.  

In a case where she passed away during the first three years of marriage, if there are no children.

But then Rabbeinu Tam added another fascinating insight linked to our weekly portion:

“After we issued this verdict and signed it, I reminded myself of a Talmudic dictum on the weekly Torah portion of Bechokotai..

In the words of rebuke, in this week's portion, where G-d shares the havoc that will be created if the Jewish people, chosen to be His ambassadors to spread love, light, and justice, there is the following passage: .

"Your strength will be spent in vain; your land will not give its produce, and the tree of the land will not give its fruit."

What is the meaning of the words “your strength will be spent in vain?” The Talmudic Rabbis, living 1000 years before Rabbeinu Tam, explain: .

“There is a man who marries off his daughter. He gives her lots of money. The seven days of feasting after the wedding had not passed, and she passed away. And all her money is lost.” This, according to the Midrash, is the meaning of the curse “your strength will be spent in vain,” or in the original Hebrew, your power will be “tam,” it will be expended, spent, squandered in vain. Parents worked a lifetime to help their daughter start a successful life, and then it is all snatched up.

Came Rabbainu Tam and said, This is unfair. We must change this. He is intimating a fascinating idea: the curses in our portion are not all caused by G-d; some of them, perhaps most of them, are caused by our behavior. By not living up to our moral and spiritual potential, we allow people to be hurt in unnecessary ways. We can eliminate these curses from our lives. We do not have to allow a person to expend his strength in futility. And this is exactly what he did with the new verdict that the wife’s family would not remain impoverished after her death.

Some 700 years pass. The year is 1854. One of the great rabbis of the time, Rabbi Yaakov David Biderman (1806-1863), who was a student of the Kotzker Rebbe and served as Rabbi of Vishgrad, published his commentary on the above Midrash on the verse in this week’s portion. He writes something fascinating:"

As we recall, the Hebrew word used for the curse of expending your energy in vain is “Tam.” Tam means: End, as well as “spend,” “expended.” Since Rabbi Yaakov’s actions brought an end to the curse of “your strength will be spent in vain,” he became universally known as Rabbeinu Tam—the Rabbi who put an end to allowing people’s hard work to face an “end” by being spent and expended.

Thus, heaven rewarded him with this nickname, enshrined in the culture and tradition of our people.

I find this deeply moving. Rabbeinu Tam was one of the greatest halachic figures who ever lived. He explained much of the Talmud in a new light. All the tradition of Jewish scholarship and law is affected by this man’s mind and output. Yet what caused him to receive the name by which he is lovingly known among our people to this day? One thing that he did: He eliminated some unnecessary pain from a family who is in mourning for the loss of their daughter, so that they would not feel that all their labor was in vain. And he eliminated what he felt was an unjust financial practice in Jewish life.

Shabbat Shalom and Chazak Chazak, Venitchazek,

Rabbi Yoseph Geisinsky