Vikuaḥ mayim ḥayim (Dispute of “Living Waters”)

And just as a person finds pleasant only such food as he has prepared himself, in accordance with what he wishes to eat, and has no desire whatsoever to depend upon his neighbor’s table, so too, he will not find the teachings of others pleasant unless he is personally in agreement with them. How much more so that should he not wish to be dependent on the works of the recent authors, on whose authority he does not rely—just as a person finds pleasant only the food he prepares himself, in accordance with what he personally desires to eat, and has no yearning to be seated at a table set by others. It was for this reason that the early authorities refrained from compiling a single specialized work on the laws relating to prohibited and permitted matters with a view to establishing the custom and halakhah for the public. Nonetheless, it is an amazing thing, regarding the rabbi who was outstanding in his generation, our most illustrious, saintly teacher R. Moses Isserles of blessed memory, who composed a specialized work on prohibited and permitted matters, that he set no store by all the matters of which I have written. And doubtless it also did not escape his attention that at the time when we learned together at the academy of our illustrious teacher R. Shakhnah of blessed memory, and heard from him [his exposition of R. Isaac ben Meir ha-Levi’s] Sha‘are Dura, [Gates of Dura], we, his pupils, frequently pressed him to compile and gather together all laws pertaining to prohibited and permitted matters in proper sequential order—but he ignored our words, and this could surely have been only for the reason of which I have written. [ . . . ]

And in my view, it was not merely coincidental that the devout sage, the author [the Rema] of blessed memory, entitled this work Torat ḥata’at (Law of the Sin-Offering); insofar as a prince of his generation such as he committed a sin with his language, not on his personal account but by the people’s fault, in that they will say: “Aha! We have found a righteous teacher who suits us and our desires, who has released us from the shackles of the great burden placed as a yoke and thrust upon our necks, which contains the additional restrictive measures and abstinences imposed on us by the sages of each and every generation until today in regard to prohibited foods—for now the rabbi, the author of blessed memory, has granted us leeway.” [ . . . ]

And I will speak initially of works composed in our time, and explain that they engender laziness in regard to the study of the ancient works, and furthermore, the general public have such a cavalier attitude toward them [the contemporary works] that they end up with the worst of both worlds. And I should explain that it is virtually impossible for the authors of these works not to falter in their language—and accordingly one ought to rely only upon the ancient works. [ . . . ]

For I see that from the sweetness of his lips have also emerged words that are not carefully measured, and which, moreover, contain a slight degree of defamation of the illustrious, world-renowned intellectual giants, those devout servants of the Most High, compilers of those ancient works which have the foremost claim to fame [see Deuteronomy 21:17]. It is this to which I refer: the rabbi of blessed memory wrote in his preface that the fact that the Sha‘are Dura has been readily accessible to all and sundry until now, has proved to be a stumbling block for them, since his words are insufficient to cover all matters of halakhic teaching. Furthermore, his very annotations, which were appended to it, were the cause of its ruination, as is explained in his [the Rema’s] words. These words, which Moses [Isserles] spoke to all the Jewish people [see Deuteronomy 1:1], render null and void the words of the early authorities by referring to them as a stumbling block, as though the wisdom of the early compositions also dealing with the laws of prohibited and permitted matters had decayed and perished.

And in accordance with these [Isserles’s] words, we should also have to say regarding all the illustrious intellectual giants and heads of talmudic academies in existence from the time of composition of the aforementioned Gates [Sha‘are Dura] until today, that not one of them was aware of this stumbling block, or, if they were, they were powerless to remove it from the people [as the rabbi of blessed memory did]; but on the contrary, they created further trouble for him [R. Isaac ben Meir ha-levi] by appending additional annotations to his own, thus merely increasing the perplexities he had created, following the line of his [Isserles’s] reasoning. Moreover, all our absorption in the study of those Gates to date did not, according to him, represent a Torah of truth and has been of no benefit to he who studied it; God forbid we should believe this! Our complaint is not directed at the rabbi of blessed memory alone, but even at the great rabbi in whose shadow we live among the nations [see Lamentations 4:20]—our illustrious teacher R. Joseph Karo, may his Rock and Redeemer preserve him—who personally advertises the benefit of his great composition; and although he undoubtedly did a good service to his people by explaining, clarifying, and adding treatises in greater measure than all his predecessors, and by creating “handles for the Torah” [see b. Eruvin 21b]—since now all the waters of Torah will be gathered into one place and the earth filled with knowledge as the waters cover the sea [see Isaiah 11:9]—notwithstanding all this, he proceeded to assume a crown for himself beyond what befitted him, insofar as he wrote that, were it not for his compilation, the Torah would have turned into an infinite number of Torahs owing to the abundance of works on it. And thus he saw fit to determine the halakhah and decide between the conflicting arguments, so that we should have one Torah and one law. Manifestly, he elevates himself above all the other authors of the ancient works, claiming that they had rendered the Torah deficient, God forbid, and it (now) became perfected only as a result of his magnum opus. Now, in accordance with these words, we see that the people’s heart inclines strongly toward new-fangled, freshly printed works, treating them as central, in greater measure than the other works of the ancients. For they say that the new compilations are of equal weight to all these [other] works, for included within their words are those of all the early poskim, to the extent that they have decided to rely on them exclusively. It is as though they have removed from before them the remaining words of all the other decisors, as they appear numerous, and a burden.

For [such a type of person] says that the Torah has already attained completion with the magnum opus of Karo, may his Rock and Redeemer preserve him; therefore it, is appropriate that the main focus of learning should now be exclusively on his magnum opus which completes the Torah, rather than once again engaging our thoughts with the numerous other works. For if we did that, the Torah would revert to a position wherein it became converted into an infinite number of Torahs, and thus his [Karo’s] remedy would have been of no benefit to us. And they will also say, in a similar vein, that it is inappropriate for any other decisor to compose anything further after the completion of his magnum opus, or any work on the laws of prohibited and permitted matters subsequent to the composition of Torat ḥata’at.

I have heard words like these on numerous occasions, as though the Torah had been sealed up in their studies alone [see Isaiah 8:16], and any wisdom extraneous to their own had perished, just as the natural order of creation, to this day, is that every individual’s face differs from others. However, I do not doubt that these perfect men, the authors of blessed memory, did not speak as they did out of arrogance and in derision, but merely intended to attract the people to them by the sweetness of their words, and to alleviate for them the burden of the complex modes of study, so as to magnify the Torah and glorify it. [ . . . ]

And it is now about sixteen years since I set my mind to compile all the laws of prohibited and permitted matters based upon the works of the decisors, culled from various different sources, and I arranged them in proper order, so that they constituted a unified whole [see Ezekiel 37:17], in highly abridged form—stored away with me, sealed up in my treasuries (Deuteronomy 32:34). However, the young men who were then in my house stole it from me and had it secretly copied. Now when this became known to me, I took that copy from them in a furious rage, as I had composed it solely for myself as a memory aid, not so that anyone else should rely upon it. Likewise, the Gates that the compiler of the “Unabridged Version of [the laws of] prohibited and permitted matters” wrote, were written for his benefit only, not in order that it should be an authoritative work from which to instruct the public, as the rabbi of blessed memory who compiled the work, did. [ . . . ]

And this great stumbling-block proceeded from the hand of the rabbi of blessed memory like an error which proceeds from a ruler (Ecclesiastes 10:5) [ . . . ] But “leavened bread is available to all”; likewise, this work requires this limitation [to exclusively private use], as it is in common circulation among the masses.

Perhaps the rabbi of blessed memory, the author, had no need of this limitation in his country, for there [in Poland] they had ceased to live in dispersed fashion, and were all dwelling in communities, each of which had one rabbi who was their ruling teacher, without whose permission no man would raise his hand [see Genesis 41:44] to teach halakhah in his stead. But in these lands [Germany] where the majority of the inhabitants reside in settlements far from established communities, there is more likelihood that the public will stumble in this regard. Therefore, one must take great care that only those fitted to teach halakhah render halakhic decisions from it. [ . . . ]

And it is similarly written in the responsum of the Maharil, Section 100, in the name of the Rosh [R. Asher ben Yeḥiel], that one may not set aside the Ashkenazic tradition in favor of other countries; for the Torah has been an inheritance of German Jewry from the time of the destruction [of the Second Temple]. Even if the respective traditions were of equal standing, one may not set aside the tradition of one country in favor of another’s, even in relation to rabbinic prohibitions, and a fortiori in respect of biblical prohibitions. Indeed, the rabbi himself, in the preface to his work, wrote only of the custom of the residents of his country, without mentioning the German customs at all. And in the editor’s preface, he specifically mentioned Poland, Russia, Bohemia, and Moravia; and he extended the boundaries still further by writing: “and perhaps in every place where the German language is in use among the Jews.” It is evident that he is dubious as to whether or not this applies to the German communities.

However, the publisher added his own words to this, and mentioned Germany too, explicitly, on the first page, as the eyes of prospective buyers invariably focus first on the beginning of the work. By this device, he attracted numerous buyers from all countries; but this [that the German customs were mentioned] was not correct, as I shall explain, with divine assistance.

Now, as Poland is my birthplace and I was reared there by the foremost heads of academies then in that country, in particular in the academy of our illustrious teacher R. Shakhnah of blessed memory, I studied there at the same time as the rabbi who wrote this work. Thus, the customs of my native land still remain firmly implanted in my mind from the learning imbibed by me in early youth. I have also been the chief rabbi of the two holy communities of Worms and Friedberg for twenty-six years, and I was always traveling to the city of the great king, the holy community of Frankfurt—constantly enquiring, searching and asking diligently [see Deuteronomy 13:15] in regard to the customs of the locality to such an extent that the customs of German Jewry are not a closed book to me. I have thus come here with the help of God, for the sake of whose great name I direct the intentions of my heart and inner thoughts.

And I shall commence by stating that it is greatly to be marveled at, in regard to the rabbi of blessed memory, that he appointed himself the sole arbiter of halakhah and took it upon himself to create fresh customs in the laws of prohibited and permitted matters, and did not even do so in conjunction with the authorities of his own generation. [ . . . ]

And this being sufficient for what I have seen fit to include in my Introduction, let us now proceed to His gates in thanksgiving.

Other works by ben Bezalel: Sefer ha-ḥayim (1578); ‘Ets ḥayim (1579); Igeret ha-tiyul (1605).