On this page of Talmud we read about the miraculous recovery of a young lady who had drowned. It all begins with “a certain pious man who would dig pits, wells, and caves to collect water for passersby. Once his daughter was passing over a river for the purpose of marriage, and the river washed her away. And all the people came to console him, but he refused to accept their condolences.” The story continues:
שקלים יד, א
עָאַל רִבִּי פִינְחָס בֶּן יָאִיר לְגַבֵּיהּ בָּעֵי מְנַחַמְתֵּיהּ וְלָא קִבֵּל עֲלוֹי מִתְנַחֲמָה. אֲמַר לוֹן. דֵּין הִינּוֹ חָסִידֵיכוֹן. אָֽמְרִין לֵיהּ. רִבִּי. כָּךְ וְכָךְ הָיָה עוֹשֶׂה וְכָךְ וְכָךְ אִירַע
אָמַר. אֵיפְשַׁר שֶׁהָיָה מְכַבֵּד אֶת בּוֹרְאוֹ בַמַּיִם וְהוּא מְקַפְּחוֹ בַמַּיִם. מִיַּד נָֽפְלָה הֲבָרָה בָעִיר. בָּאָת בִּתּוֹ שֶׁלְאוֹתוֹ הָאִישׁ. אִית דְּאָֽמְרִין. בְּשׁוּכְתָּא אִיתְעֲרִײַת. וְאִית דְּאָֽמְרִין. מַלְאַךְ יָרַד כִּדְמוּת רִבִּי פִינְחָס בֶּן יָאִיר וְהִצִּילָהּ
Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair came to visit him to console him, but he refused to accept condolences even from Rabbi Pinchas. Rabbi Pinchas said to the people of that community: Is this your righteous man, who will not be consoled and accept God’s judgment? They said to him: Rabbi, he would perform such and such acts of righteousness, by supplying water, and yet such and such tragedy, the drowning of his daughter, occurred to him.
Rabbi Pinchas said: Is it possible that he honors his Creator with water, and yet his Creator strikes him with water? Immediately thereafter, a report spread throughout the city: The daughter of that righteous man has arrived, as she did not actually drown. Some say she grasped a branch and pulled herself out of the river, and some say an angel in the form of Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair descended from heaven and rescued her.
It is a sad story with a happy ending. God could never let the daughter of a righteous person die. That was inconceivable. And certainly not by drowning, since her father was charitable with water. Let’s put aside for now the questions this passage raises about theodicy. Instead, let’s turn to another drowning event that occurred fifteen-hundred years later. It too involves the drowning death of innocent person, and by a remarkable coincidence, also involved a person named Pinchas.
Pinchas Hurewitz and his Sefer HaBerit
In 1797 a new Hebrew encyclopedia was published anonymously in Brno, which is now in the Czech Republic. It was called Sefer Haberit (The Book of the Covenant). It has a simple structure and is divided in two parts. The first part, consisting of some two hundred and fifty pages, is a scientific encyclopedia, addressing what the author calls human wisdom (chochmat adam) and focuses on the material world. It deals with topics like geography, astronomy, biology and medicine. The second part, shorter than the first at only one hundred and thirty pages, is an analysis of divine wisdom (hochmat elohim), and focuses on the spiritual. This part was written to explain a kabbalistic work called שערי קדושה (The Gates of Holiness) a mystical book written by the famous kabbalist Chaim Vital, who was himself a student of the even more famous Isaac Luria, known as the Ari.
As we mentioned, the book was published anonymously, but in later editions the author revealed his name, though not much else. It was Pinchas Hurwitz, about whom few details are known. He appears to have been born in Vilna, Poland in 1765, and received a traditional Jewish education, but was forced to leave his studies at an early age as a result of both the dire economic situation and the physical threats then facing Polish Jewry. He probably arrived in Frankfurt before his twentieth birthday and while there he met a number of maskilim and picked up a working knowledge of German. He then moved to Holland, where he must have endeared himself to many rabbinic leaders, before crossing to England, where again he met the leading Jewish religious intellectuals of the day. The most prominent of these was Eliakim Gottchalk Hart, an important Jewish intellectual and a wealthy jeweler, who provided financial support for Hurwitz during his time in England. Despite what appears to have been a comfortable time both physically and intellectually in London, for reasons that are not known Hurwitz returned to Poland, all the time working on his magnum opus. In 1797 he finally published Sefer Haberit anonymously, and spent many years peddling his work from town to town. It had taken a decade of travel and research, but Hurwitz understood the need of the hour and produced a work that was, and would remain, in great demand.
The Popularity of Sefer Haberit
In 1934, while studying at the famous yeshiva of the Chofetz Chaim in Radon, Poland, a yeshiva bochur whose name is only known to us as Henech entered a competition in which he wrote an essay about his life. Here is part of what this twenty one year old student had to say:
I obtained a copy of the Book of the Covenant [Sefer Haberit]…and virtually committed it to memory, reading it in the bathroom for fear of being caught and confronted with a whole new series of accusations. The Book of the Covenant gave me a sound foundation in anatomy, physics, geography and the like. I had a weakness, however, for showing off my scientific learning to my friends (without telling them about its source). This led to my becoming known as a person of wide-ranging knowledge, and I was sought after by those who were drawn to the Haskalah.
Here then is testimony about the popularity Sefer Haberit as a work of science in pre-war Poland, over one hundred and thirty years after it was first published. This book is still readily available modern Jerusalem. I bought my own modern edition of Sefer Haberit in a small bookshop in Meah Shearim in Jerusalem. I had asked the owner if he might perhaps have a copy of the work. Without moving from his position behind the counter he reached behind his shoulder and handed me a copy that had been published in Jerusalem in 1990. I not only appreciated the clear type and crisp pages of this modern edition, but was struck by the ease with which it had been obtained.
In fact since it first appeared in 1797 Sefer Haberit has been published in over thirty editions. It was published in 1797, 1801 (twice, as bootlegged printings), 1807, and thirteen more times before the end of that century. It was published in 1900, 1904, 1911, 1913 (by three different publishers), 1920, 1960 and 1990. In addition it was published in Yiddish in 1898, 1929 and 1969, and in Ladino in 1847. This remarkable print run would be the envy of any modern author.
Isaac Bashevis Singer recalled that not only did he read Sefer Haberit as a child, but that his mother also was an avid reader of the work.
There were a number of holy books in my father’s bookcase in which I soulght answers to my questions. One was The Book of the Covenant [Sefer Haberis] which I believe was already at that time a hundred years old and full of scientific facts. It described the theories of Copernicus and Newton, and, it seems, the experiments of Benjamin Franklin as well. There were accounts of savage tribes, strange animals, and explanations of what made a train run and a balloon fly. In the special section dealing with religion were mentioned a number of philosophers. I recall that Kant already figured in there too. The author, Reb Elijah of Vilna, a pious Jew, proved how inadequate the philosophers were in explaining the mystery of the world. No research or inquiry, he wrote, could reveal the truth. The author of The Book of the Covenant spoke of nature too, but with the constant reminder that nature was something God had created, not a thing that existed of its own power. I never tired of reading this book.
Sefer Haberit and LOve of the Other
Perhaps the most important section of this entire book is a long chapter – some 50 pages in all - called אהבת רעים – Ahavat Reim - The Love of Others. In this section, Horowitz set out to re-teach a command that is, in his words עיקר דרך הקדוש ושורש כל התורה הקדושה - the entire point of attaining holiness and the foundation of the entire holy Torah. In fact this section follows another called דרך הקדוש- The Way of Holiness, and was seen as the key to attaining religious heights that Horowitz had previously described. In this chapter he described a number of ways in which love of the other impacts our daily lives: in loving our families and in respecting the government, in being a model citizen and not cheating on our taxes, in treating our workers with the appreciation they deserve and by condemning domestic abuse, whether physical or verbal.
The nature of loving others is for a person to love every kind of person, irrespective of their nationality or language, but simply because the person is a human, formed in the image of God, and is someone involved in the development of humanity. This involvement can be as a builder or farmer or businessman or merchant or or other kinds of job, like one who is an intellectual and investigate the world…for through these paths the world exists as it should, and is completed as God created it to be done, and as he made the Earth as “he saw that it was very good” for all of humanity…
The Drowning Death of Prince Leopold
As any good teacher knows, stories have a far greater teaching impact than bland statements or impersonal statistics. So Horowtiz now gave an example of the importance of brotherly love. It was in fact the outstanding story of love of the other of his time, and it concerned the drowning death of Prince Leopold that had occurred in 1785. Here it is. Read it slowly. There is a lot to appreciate.
The question is whether we are naturally inclined to help others. In answer to this, if we consider the nature of a person we will find that it is naturally inclined and desires to do good in the eyes of others, and tries to influence others to do so too; to have compassion on the poor, to rescue the oppressed, to release those who are imprisoned, to bandage the wounded , to heal the sick, to save those who are dying, share his knowledge with others, to teach students and instruct people in the correct way to behave and so on…
Experience has already demonstrated that on many occasions, even royalty and nobility have put themselves into mortal danger, battling fire and water in order to save others…as happened in Frankfurt on the Eder on the 17th of Iyyar 5545 (1785).
At that time the river bust its banks and swept away a number of villages and the houses in them. In one village there were a number of wooden branches and window frames that were floating here and there, and a number of bodies of those who had drowned. Floating there was a tree trunk and on it was a person shouting to those on the shore to save him, but it was not possible to do so because of the strong current.
When the nobleman Duke Leopold, Commandant of the city, noted this he immediately commanded any one who could do so to sail over to save the person. No one was able to reach the person, and they told the Duke it was not possible to reach him because of the strength of the current and the size of the waves.
And when the Duke heard this, he took it upon himself “I will sail over.” He put his life in his hands, and went over to save the life of that person. He had not reached half way across the river when his boat capsized and was swept away by the huge waves. The righteous Duke was lost and could not be saved. So we see that there is a natural inclination to help others.
The death of Prince Leopold gripped the imagination of Horowitz. It was the sine qua non of the love that one human being could and indeed should have for another. Its importance was not only noticed by this Jewish author from Vilna. The great German poet Goethe wrote a poem about the incident:
Thou wert forcibly seized by the hoary lord of the river
Holding thee, even he shares with thee his streaming domain
Calmly sleepest thou near his urn as it silently trickles
Till thou to action art aroused, waked by the swift-rolling flood
Kindly to be to the people, as when thou still were a mortal
Perfecting that as a god, which thou didst fail in, as a man
And in the British Museum is this wonderful print called La Mort du Prince Leopold de Brunswick.
Remember we are talking about eighteenth century Europe, which was not exactly a paradise for the peasants. The constitutional monarchy that had ruled France for three centuries had not yet just been challenged by the French Revolution, and the American War of Independence had ended barely two years earlier. And yet here was a nobleman who, without hesitation, gave his life to save an unknown commoners. It was this example that led Horowitz to conclude that not only was Love of the Other a commandment from the Torah; it was also a חוב מצד הטבע, a natural law.
Horowitz not only learned from the action of this righteous Gentile. He extended Love of the Other to include non-Jews in a radical re-interpretation of the word רעיך -the other. Normally translated as your fellow, Horowitz took it to mean that all contemporary Gentiles were included in this description. He ruled that Gentiles were not idol worshippers, and also reinterpreted the verse that we read from the book of Jeremiah towards the end of the Passover Seder: : שפוך חמתך על הגוים אשר לא ידעוך -“Pour out your wrath on the nations who do not know you.” On whom should God pour out his anger? Only on those “אשר לא ידעוך” - who do not know Him.
Yes, all are created equal. or not
Having established this inclusivity, Horowitz wrote about the way in which we should behave:
על כן איש מחוייב להתנהג עם כל אדם וכל משפחות האדמה בטוב וביושר ובאחוה
And so every person is obligated to act towards every person and every group on earth with goodness, with honesty, and with friendship
Note this language-we are required – מחוייב – to extend our love to all of humanity, irrespective of their race or ethnicity. To see how different this approach is, let’s compare it to a Jewish text that was recently published in the USA, where the Declaration of Independence states as a self evident truth that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The contemporary Jewish book I am referring to is volume two of the Rennert edition of The Encyclopedia of Taryag Mitzvoth. This Encyclopedia has excluded anyone who is not Jewish from love of the other.
In doing so, the Rennert Encyclopedia was following one school of halakhic thought in which the phrase “your fellow” is interpreted as “your fellow - in observing the commandments.” But there are lots of Jewish texts available to explain the details of the biblical command to love the other. Why not choose one with a maximalist reading? Surely we would want that from other religious traditions? If so, we must demand it from our own.
We began with a story from the Talmud in which Rabbi Pinchas believed it was inconceivable that God could act in a way that was cruel or unjust. Today we know that cruelty and injustice are part and parcel of our fractured society. Racial and ethnic bias and discrimination are still all too common in a country in which all are supposed to have been created equal. We need more thinkers like the other Pinchas, Pinchas Hurwitz who read the command to love the other in a maximalist way. What better way to memorialize the death of Prince Leopold is there than follow this dictum:
על כן איש מחוייב להתנהג עם כל אדם וכל משפחות האדמה בטוב וביושר ובאחוה
And so every person is obligated to act towards every person and every group on earth with goodness, with honesty, and with friendship
