Mahari Beirav: Consensus and Controversy
Rabbi Gil Student on Parshas Bereishis
As Rabbi David Bashevkin concludes his year of writing the weekly Reading Jewish History in the Parsha segment, offering insightful reflections on how Jewish history intertwines with the weekly Torah portion, we are excited to launch a new initiative in which past 18Forty guests will contribute as guest writers for this segment.
This week, we are thrilled to welcome Rabbi Gil Student, who joined us on the 18Forty podcast for our exploration of Biblical Criticism. Rabbi Student is the editor of TorahMusings.com and the author of Articles of Faith: Traditional Jewish Belief in the Internet Era (available for preorder).
I. Consultation and Consensus
When God created Man on the sixth day, the Torah initially uses plural language, “Na’aseh Adam, Let us make man.” One of the primary messages of the Torah is monotheism, that there is only one God. Why does the Torah use a plural term here, which seems to contradict this fundamental message of the rest of the Bible?
The rabbis offered several possible explanations in midrashic literature. One particular understanding that resonated throughout the ages is that God asked advice or permission from angels, His advisors. One version of this interpretation is that God discussed his plan with four attributes—Kindness, Truth, Justice, and Peace. Kindness and Justice voted in favor of creating Man. Truth and Peace opposed it. God cast the deciding vote by expelling Truth. According to the rabbis of the midrash, why would an all-powerful God need to consult with his advisors before creating Man, to the point of insisting on a majority vote in favor?
Rashi says that this teaches the lesson of humility. Indeed, teaching humility is so urgent that it demands language that could even lead to heresy. Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel understands this linguistic lesson as teaching that a lack of humility is so critical that a person is bound to reject God without it. The Torah was willing to risk heresy to prevent heresy.
Rav Yehudah Loewe sees a different message in this midrashic interpretation. God consulted with angels to teach the important lesson that people must lead through consensus. Leadership involves bold action, like creating human beings whose existence connects the earth with the heavens. But even the most innovative and creative initiatives must emerge from a consensus of advisors. Leadership is a careful balance between bold action and careful consultation. While God is all-powerful and always just, He still insisted on maintaining a governing coalition because that is how humans must rule.
Note that God ejected Truth from his advisory group and then outvoted Peace. Coalition politics make for dirty business. It would be naive to expect coalition partners to act with complete honesty when they often trade concessions and struggle to maintain their values in an imperfect union. Passionate leaders will disagree passionately about how to implement their agendas. There is neither perfect truth nor complete peace among reluctant coalition partners who agree to such a situation because they recognize that partial success is better than total failure.
Tyrants act on their own. Good rulers consider the input from others, balancing the concerns of many with their own sincere beliefs. No one can please everyone but they can balance the need to lead ahead with the need to listen to others. A leader must be both a leader and a follower.
II. The Attempt to Renew Ordination
We see in rabbinic history how some leaders struggled to maintain that balance between bold leadership and consensus building. Rabbi Ya’akov (Mahari) Beirav was an 18-year-old Talmudic prodigy at the time of the expulsion from his native Spain in 1492. He fled to North Africa and was appointed—as a young, single man—the rabbi of the large Jewish community in Fez, Morocco. He later married and made his way to Jerusalem. The poverty there was so overwhelming due to Ottoman oppression that he eventually made his way to Egypt. The dates are unclear but it seems that in 1530, Mahari Beirav arrived in Egypt where he met with various rabbinic scholars who wished to discuss an important case with him.
Most people who are familiar with Mahari Beirav, know about him from his attempt to renew the biblical ordination. Semichah, biblical ordination, must be transmitted directly from teacher to student like Moshe passed it down to Yehoshua. That chain of transmission was lost in Tannaitic times. In his halachic code, Mishneh Torah (Hilchos Sanhedrin 4:11), Rambam writes that the biblical ordination can be restored if all of the Torah scholars in Israel at any given time agree to ordain someone specific. Based on this important view, in 1538, Mahari Beirav gathered a group of Torah scholars in Tzefas (Safed) who ordained him with the widespread agreement of the local rabbis. In turn, he ordained four other Torah scholars. Among the ordained was Rav Yosef Karo, who went on to write the Shulchan Aruch.
Another of the ordained, Rav Levi Ibn Chaviv (Ralbach), the leading rabbi of Jerusalem, was ordained in absentia. When he learned about this, he objected that this process was flawed for two reasons. First, Rambam writes that he is not certain that biblical ordination can be renewed in this way. Perhaps, Ralbach suggests, biblical ordination will be renewed when Eliyahu the prophet comes to announce Mashiach’s arrival. Eliyahu himself was ordained and can ordain others. Because Rambam’s proposed renewal procedure is uncertain, even according to its main proponent, we cannot utilize it and must instead wait for Eliyahu and Mashiach. Additionally, Rambam says that all of the Torah scholars in Israel must agree to the ordination. Mahari Beirav failed to obtain the agreement of a few rabbis studying in impoverished conditions in Jerusalem. Even if he wants to say that Mahari Beirav had received approval from the majority of rabbis in Israel and therefore did not need the approval of the rabbis in Jerusalem, we only invoke the principle that majority rules after there is consultation and discussion. By failing to consult with the rabbis in Jerusalem, Mahari Beirav lost the opportunity to follow the majority.
Ralbach’s opposition to Mahari Beirav’s attempt to renew biblical ordination troubles one contemporary scholar. Mahari Beirav was not just a once-in-a-generation genius; he was one of the timeless geniuses of the Jewish People, unique among all the generations. Additionally, he had agreement from the great Torah scholars of Tzefas, which was the center of Torah scholarship in the Mediterranean region. Who can oppose such a formidable scholar? Rav Yisrael Ariel, the founder of the Temple Institute in Jerusalem and a leader of a recent attempt to form a Sanhedrin, goes so far as to outrageously accuse Ralbach of heresy for opposing Mahari Beirav (Sanhedrin Ha-Gedolah [Jerusalem, 2014], p. 915ff). However, there is no need to go to such exaggerated lengths to understand this disagreement. The answer lies in earlier incidents and Mahari Beirav’s struggle to balance bold leadership with the need for consensus building.
III. The Child Bride of Tripoli
In 1516, two brothers in Tripoli, Lebanon (not Libya), married their children to each other—a nine-year-old girl named Yakuta to her first cousin, Pinchas, who was probably not much older than 13. Eight months later, the Ottomans conquered the city. The young couple was captured and separated. Yakuta was eventually released but Pinchas disappeared, rumored to have converted to Islam and assimilated into the population. Without witnesses or knowledge of Pinchas’ death or whereabouts, the young bride was left an agunah, trapped in a marriage to a man who could not be found. She made her way to Egypt with her father and, after a number of years, they approached rabbis with witnesses who testified that the marriage was invalid.
Child brides lack the ability to consent to a marriage. However, the institution of child marriage—which horrifies us today—was once common in a different economic and cultural context. A bride’s father must consent on her behalf to the marriage. Yakuta and her father claimed that he and his brother had argued the night of the wedding, with Yakuta’s father never giving consent. Since she was married against her father’s will, the marriage is null and she may remarry without a divorce.
The first court to hear the conflicting witness testimony rejected Yakuta’s claim that the wedding was invalid. However, the proceedings took place at night, which rendered them invalid. The witnesses testified again to other rabbis, this time during the day, at which time they all said that Yakuta’s father did not consent to the marriage. The rabbis of the original court did not believe this apparent retraction and revision.
Another court took interest and accepted the final testimony of the witnesses. The court conducted more investigations for over two years and, with the approval of Rabbi David Ibn Zimra (Radbaz, chief rabbi of Egypt) and Rav Moshe (Maharam) Alashkar, finally declared Yakuta free to marry, against the protests of the rabbis of the original court. Yakuta married in 1523 and had a number of children, whom some rabbis considered illegitimate but the communal leadership considered perfectly fine.
IV. Bold Action and Subsequent Reaction
In 1530, when he arrived in Egypt, Mahari Beirav was invited by members of the original court to review the case, which they considered a travesty. Mahari Beirav then went to the leading rabbis who permitted the woman to marry to hear their arguments. He left convinced that the rabbis had permitted adultery. Never one to shy away from controversy, Mahari Beirav issued a call to survivors of the conquest of Tripoli who remembered the wedding. He traveled across Israel, through Gaza and Jerusalem, threatening with excommunication those who remembered the wedding but failed to testify (yes, there was a significant Jewish community in Gaza in the 16th century).
When Mahari Beirav visited Jerusalem, Ralbach cordially greeted him but carefully explained that he had no interest in getting involved in this political mess and the attempt to undermine a ruling of the Radbaz and Maharam Alashkar, two eminent rabbinic authorities. After Mahari Beirav’s call, many witnesses came forward. Mahari Beirav recorded the testimonies and sent them to the strict rabbis in Egypt. He also sent the testimonies to Ralbach in Jerusalem, to have him send them to the leading rabbis in Egypt who permitted Yakuta’s marriage. Ralbach had already expressed his reluctance but out of deference to Mahari Beirav, he sent the testimonies to the rabbis in Egypt. Through a strange turn of events, all records of these testimonies were either lost or truncated.
In response to Mahari Beirav’s actions and the lost testimony, the rabbis who had previously permitted the marriage went to Jerusalem to re-collect testimony from the witnesses, which the Ralbach had to join out of courtesy. This time, apparently aware of the controversy and its consequences, the witnesses all testified that the bride’s father refused to consent to the marriage. Mahari Beirav was furious and frustrated. Several lengthy responsa were exchanged, expressing various levels of frustration from the different rabbis involved.
One participant in particular was frustrated—Ralbach. He had tried to avoid this controversy yet he kept getting dragged back in. Not only did he become a conduit of letters and testimonies from Mahari Beirav to the rabbis in Egypt, but he also ended up sitting together with the rabbinic courts held in Jerusalem to obtain testimony. Against his will, he was pulled by both sides of the debate. He reluctantly published his own opinion, which satisfied neither side.
V. Leading and Listening
More than the legal issues, we have to look at the process. It is easy to understand the thinking of the rabbis of Egypt. They saw an avenue to free a young woman from a potential life of solitude and followed it, with the agreement of important jurists. Mahari Beirav was not unaware of the circumstances but he saw rabbis effectively permitting adultery through legal maneuvers and he felt it was his responsibility to put a stop to it. He was the leading rabbi of his era, a bold thinker and doer. He carefully considered all sides of the issue, reached a conclusion, and took action. This was only one example of Mahari Beirav’s fearless rabbinic actions that frustrated his colleagues.
Similarly, when it came to renewing biblical ordination, Mahari Beirav reached a conclusion and implemented it. His bold initiative could have become a turning point in Jewish history, creating a group of rabbis with legislative authority like the ancient rabbis of the Mishnah. Mahari Beirav’s abilities and reputation were well-known and universally respected. However, his most formidable challenge was finding the right balance between leading and listening. It is not enough to have tremendous power, you also need to make a strong coalition. Even bold leaders need to build consensus.
Both Ralbach and Mahari Beirav were pious Torah scholars, entirely free from guilt or selfish motives. Ralbach did not reject Mahari Beirav’s initiative out of spite or from lack of consideration. He rejected the renewal of biblical ordination because he understood that without a consensus, such a national project could not proceed. Time and again, he saw the genius, Mahari Beirav, act passionately against the grain, acting on principle without concern for the personal repercussions he might face (at one time he had to flee for his life to Syria).
Mahari Beirav was widely regarded as the greatest of rabbis, with a reputation for piety and brilliance that remains stellar even five centuries later. He was like a giant from a bygone era. Yet, as the Midrash teaches, even the greatest must build consensus before taking bold actions. Mahari Beirav surely understood this, but the outcome suggests he may have needed to fine-tune his approach to the specific challenges of his time. Had he struck the right leadership balance, his initiatives might have permanently transformed the Jewish landscape.
Rabbi Student’s new book, Articles of Faith: Traditional Jewish Belief in the Internet Era, is available at a pre-publication 25% discount with the discount code Articles25. Publication in November 2024.
Exciting new initiative!