A 1907 collection of hasidic tales by Rabbi Yisrael Berger (1855-1919), Eser Orot, offered a bevy of tales about Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berdyczów (1740-1809). Rabbi Berger was one of the key transmitters of hasidic tales, publishing a tetralogy that covered forty different hasidic masters. Alongside his work as a collector of hasidic stories, Rabbi Berger served in the rabbinate in Probużna (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 twenty-one years until his death. This is one of the tales he recorded.
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Rabbi Levi Yitzhak once travelled to Hungary where he met a butcher. The butcher asked Rabbi Levi Yitzhak whether 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 of Berdyczów is remembered as a famed and beloved hasidic 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 Rabbi Levi Yitzhak was a qualified shohet. Nonetheless, he responded to the butcher’s question with a simple “Yes.”
The butcher was eager and he offered the hasidic 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 twenty silver rouble 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 I 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 twenty silver rouble to a person who I do not know?”
The hasidic master retorted: “Let your ears hear what your mouth is dispensing! You don’t want to lend me twenty silver rouble 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, perchanced 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 twenty silver rouble!
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 andragogic exercise.
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Rabbi Berger’s tales are recorded without expounding their message. It seems that in the compilers eyes, the lessons of the stories were obvious and needed no elucidation. Alternatively, Rabbi Berger understood his mission as a collector and transmitter, leaving interpretation of the tale to his readership. Perhaps the malleability of the hasidic story allows readers to draw different lessons from the one tale.
This hasidic tale depicts Rabbi Levi Yitzhak as an educator. But what was the hasidic master and rabbi of Berdyczów trying to teach?
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The story was recently recounted by Itzhar Maor in Otiyot ve-yeladim (issue 863, https://otiyotveyeladim.co.il). The fortnightly Hebrew magazine caters to children aged seven to fifteen 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 hasidic 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 Ryczywół, then as the rabbi of Żelechów. In 1775, he was appointed as the rabbi of Pinsk. After ten years in Pinsk, he took up the post of rabbi in Berdyczów where he served for his remaining years.
Moreover, the hasidic master berated the butcher for his flippant attitude towards 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 each other. 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 towards others.
The writer is a senior faculty member at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies and is a rabbi in Zur Hadassa.
