Is Jewish law more important than everything?

A 1907 collection of hassidic tales by Rabbi Yisrael Berger (1855-1919), Eser Orot, offered a bevy of tales about Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berdyczów (1740-1809).

Berger was one of the key transmitters of hassidic tales, publishing a tetralogy that covered 40 hassidic masters.

In addition to his work as a collector of hassidic stories, he served in the rabbinate in Probuzna (then in Galicia, today in Ukraine), Dorna Watra (then in Bukovina, today in Romania), and Buzeu (then in Wallachia, today in Romania). In 1898, he accepted a rabbinic post in the capital of Romania, Bucharest, where he served for 21 years until his death.

This is one of the tales he recorded.

RABBI LEVI YITZHAK of Berdyczów once traveled to Hungary, where he met a butcher. The butcher asked the rabbi if he was a qualified shohet, a ritual slaughterer, because he had one animal ready to be slaughtered but the nearest shohet lived quite far away, and the butcher could not wait for him to arrive.

Rabbi Levi Yitzhak is remembered as a famed and beloved hassidic master who was willing to petition God for the sake of the Jewish people. Professionally, he served in the rabbinate, beginning in smaller towns before progressing to larger cities. There is no evidence to suggest that he was a qualified shohet. Nonetheless, he responded to the butcher’s question with a simple “Yes.”

The butcher was eager, and he offered the hassidic master to pay double the rate for his services as a shohet.

Rabbi Levi Yitzhak responded: “I will do as you ask, but I have one request from you. Today, I really need 20 silver rubles for my expenses. So I ask you to please lend me this amount. In a few days, I will gratefully return the money because I am traveling from village to village collecting donations, and – thank God – I am a successful person. And you can see on my face that I am – thank God – a truthful person and would not be dishonest.”

The butcher responded: “Please forgive me, sir, but I don’t know you. So how could you request something so significant from me – that I should lend 20 silver rubles to a person whom I do not know?”

The hassidic master retorted: “Let your ears hear what your mouth is dispensing! You don’t want to lend me 20 silver rubles because you don’t know me. But to slaughter an animal for you, you are willing to rely on me!

“What would happen if someone who just wanted to earn some coin from the slaughtering fee chanced upon you and he would slaughter the animal and purportedly check it and declare it kosher... and you – heaven forfend – would be selling non-kosher meat to Jews. That would be a worse sin than not returning 20 silver rubles!”

Here the storyteller, Rabbi Berger, interjected with a brief explanation of the relative severity of each sin. Once non-kosher meat is eaten, a sin has been committed and there is no backtracking. In contrast, an unrepaid loan remains intact, and the situation can be remedied by repaying the money. Viewed in this light, eating non-kosher meat is more severe than not repaying a loan.

The tale of the butcher and Rabbi Levi Yitzhak concludes with the butcher rectifying his ways and undertaking not to do such a deed again – presumably not to be blasé about who slaughters his animals, but perhaps also to be less discerning about helping others with loans.

In the final line of the tale, Rabbi Levi Yitzhak reveals that he is not really a shohet at all – despite his claims of patent honesty! The entire charade was an andragogical exercise.

The Rabbi's message

RABBI BERGER’S tales are recorded without expounding their message. It seems that in the compiler’s eyes, the lessons of the stories were obvious and needed no elucidation. Alternatively, he understood his mission as a collector and transmitter, leaving interpretation of the tale to his readership. Perhaps the malleability of the hassidic story allows readers to draw different lessons from the one tale.

This hassidic tale depicts Rabbi Levi Yitzhak as an educator. But what was the hassidic master and rabbi of Berdyczów trying to teach?

The story was recently recounted by Itzhar Maor in Otiyot veyeladim (issue 863, https://otiyotveyeladim.co.il). The fortnightly Hebrew magazine caters to children aged seven to 15 from the Religious Zionist sector. Naturally, the tale was not presented in the same language as it appeared in 1907. Rather, it was shortened, rendered into modern Hebrew, and presented with graphics on two pages.

In this version, Rabbi Levi Yitzhak never pretends to be something he is not – an appropriate change for a children’s magazine. The story ends with the hassidic master declaring: “Always remember that Jewish law is more important than everything, and one needs to be meticulous with it more than monetary matters.”

Is this indeed the lesson of the tale? Would Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berdyczów have said that Jewish law is more important than everything? Isn’t helping out other people also part of Jewish law?

On one hand, Rabbi Levi Yitzhak was a community rabbi, and in this role he was responsible for the administration of Jewish law. He served first as the rabbi of Ryczywol, then as the rabbi of Zelechow. In 1775, he was appointed as the rabbi of Pinsk. After 10 years in Pinsk, he took up the post of rabbi in Berdyczow, where he served for his remaining years.

Moreover, the hassidic master berated the butcher for his flippant attitude toward kosher observance. Eating non-kosher is indeed an act that cannot be reversed, and in that aspect it is more severe than not repaying a loan.

Yet declaring “that Jewish law is more important than everything” seems to be a leap that would be uncharacteristic for Rabbi Levi Yitzhak, who is remembered for seeing the good in people and defending Jews, even when it was patent that they sinned.

It could well be that Rabbi Levi Yitzhak’s concern was not focused on the primacy of Jewish law but on responsibility people have to one another. The butcher was supplying meat to his customers, and this vocation demanded extra accountability so as not to cause others to inadvertently sin. Perhaps Rabbi Levi Yitzhak was reminding the butcher of his duty of care toward others. ■

The writer is a senior faculty member at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies and rabbi in Tzur Hadassah.