This year is the 200th anniversary of the death of the Gaon of Vilna.
May we relate here a little known story about the Gaon. The same story is also told about Rabbi Yehezkel Landau, Rabbi of Prague and author of responsa Noda BiYehuda. About that later.
The story about the Gaon first appeared in print in Siftein Hen, a book of Derushim on the pentateuch by R. Hayyim Nathanson, whcich was printed in VIlna in 1900.
We read there (end of Parashat Vayigash):
I heard from Rabbi Shlomo Moshe, of blessed memory, who heard from the Gaon Rabbi Yitzhak of Volozhin (son and successor of Rabbi Hayyim of Volozhin) what happened in the days of the Gaon of Vilna. A youngster from the environs of Minsk married the daughter of a rich Jew of Minsk and subsequently lived in his in-law’s house. Several weeks after the wedding, a fight broke out between the young couple. The young husband fled from the house of his in-laws and disappeared. Years passed without any news from him. The family’s enquiries about his whereabouts did not yield any results. About fifteen years passed– the wife, an Agunah, was desperately waiting to hear from her husband — when all of a sudden a man turned up in Minsk, telling the woman’s father that he was the lost son-in-law. The members of the family welcomed him with joy, especially as the man seemed to know them and called them by their names. They didn’t recognize him, but this didn’t make them doubt his claim. After all 15 years had passed since they had last seen him. He was fifteen years old when he left. Now he was 30 and had a little bear. Moreover the man told them details of the wedding and of his life in their home in the first weeks after his marriage, which convinced the family that the man was indeed the person they were looking and waiting for. Only one member of the family was skeptical– the wife. Though the man told her intimate details of their married life, which only her husband could have known, she refused to believe him. She declared that she wouldn’t let him come near her until great rabbinic authorities would decide the case.
The matter was brought to the attention of the Gaon of Vilna. The Gaon said to the family: “I am sure that on the first Shabbat after the wedding, the son-in-law — as is the established custom — prayed together with the father-in-law, sitting near him in shul. A man who remembers all the details of the wedding and more, should certainly recall the place where the father-in-law sits in shul.
Addressing the father in law, the Gaon said, “I advise you to take the man along when you go to Shul next Shabbat. Stop for a moment at the entrance of the synagogue and tell the man to proceed on his own to your seat. This is how we will test him. If he is not the son-in-law, he will not know where the father-in-law sits. If he is an impostor, we must assume that he elicited all the details about the wedding and the life in the in-laws’ home from the real son-in-law whom he met somewhere. I am confident that he didn’t ask the real son-in-law about the father-in-law’s seat in the synagogue. Why, because if he is an impostor, he is a Rasha, an evil doer who want to live with a woman who is married to another. Such a man, whose thoughts are unclean (Tamei) cannot think of holy things (Kedusha) of seating and payer in a synagogue.
The father-in-law did as he was advised by the Gaon. The following Shabbat he went with the man to Shul. at the entrance he told him to proceed on his own to the seat. The man kdidn’t know where to go. He had failed the test. When he was taken away to be punished, he confessed that he was an impostor and that he had drawn out from the real son-in-law, whom he encountered at a wayfarer’s inn all the details about the wedding and life in the in-laws’ home.
The story has a happy ending. After some time, the real son-in-law appeared in Minsk he was immediately recognized by his wife and the other members of the family.
As mentioned earlier, the same story, with slight variations, is also told about Rabbi Yehezkel Landau. It was first printed by Yehezkel Kamelhar in his biography of the Noda BiYehuda (Mofet Hador, Munkacz, 1903)
The Jewish Press, Friday, December 6, 1997
(Conclusion)
Following is the story about Rabbi Yehezkel Landau as told by Rabbi Yekuthiel Aryeh Kamelhar in his Mofet HaDor.
It happened in Prague. The daughter of one of the richest and most learned members of the community was an Agunah. Her husband, a young and erudite man, had deserted her. Several years had passed since he disappeared and his whereabouts were unknown. One day, a person whom the people identified as the absentee husband came to the city. The father-in-law as well as the woman, seemed to recognize him by some of his features and traits. The man declared that he was indeed the long sought after husband and he offered a variety of excuses for having left his home for such a long period. The father-in-law took him into the house. All the members of the family were sure that he was the man they had been waiting for, yet some doubt still lingered in the hearts of the father-in-law and the deserted woman. They consulted Rabbi Yehezkel Landau, who told them to bring the man to his house. The rabbi looked at him for a long time but didn’t say a word. Later he warned the woman not to let the man touch her and counselled the father-in-law to keep him at his home over Shabbat.
“On Shabbat, when you go with him to shul,” the rabbi told the father-in-law, “linger for some moments at the entrance. Tell the man not to wait for you, but to go to your seat,”
The father in law followed the rabbi’s advice. When he came to the synagogue on Shabbat, he conversed for a while with an acquaintance at the entrance, asking the man to take a seat near his own. The man didn’t know where to go. He turned here and there but couldn’t find the father-in-law’s seat . When Rabbi Yehezkel Landau was apprised of this he asked that the man be brought to him after Shabbat. At the rabbi’s house, the man confessed that he was an impostor and had tried to deceive the family. The rabbi ordered him to leave the city.
In the story about Rabbi Landau, nothing is said about the possibility of the impostor having met the real husband somewhere and having extracted from him details about his wife and her family. For this reason Rabbi Yehezkel Landau, unlike the Gaon of Vilna did not have to explain why the impostor wouldn’t know the father-in-law’s seat in the synagogue. One could safely assume that a stranger wouldn’t know this.
At the end of this story in his book Rabbi Kamelhar adds, “This story I received in writing from Rabbi Sholom Yosef Haczstark, rabbi of Josefow, Poland, who heard it from Rabbi Shneur Zalman (Ladler) rabbi of Lublin (author of responsa Torath Hesed, who later settled in Jerusalem where he died.). The latter heard it from his teacher Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson of Lubavitch the author of Tzemah Tzedek. Rabbi Menahem Mendel remarked when he related that story: “The world tells this story about the Gaon of Vilna, but I know for certain that it happened with the Noda Beyehuda.
Rabbi Y.L Maimon (Fishman) in his Sarei HaMe’ah, tells this story about Rabbi Yehezkel Landau; however his version has much in common with the story told of the Gaon of Vilna. In Rabbi Maimon’s version, the Noda Beyehuda’s explanation why he tested the impostor the way he did is very much like that of the Gaon.
“When I saw the man, I felt he was a very sly swindler. The fact that he knew some intimate details of the family’s life made me assume that he met the husband somewhere and elicited from him, by cunning all this information. In order to find out the truth, I decided to test him whether he knew where the father-in-law sat in the synagogue. He was able to deceive the husband and extract from him various details, but I was sure that he never asked him about the father-in-law’s seat in shul. A rogue’s heart and mind are not geared to inquire about things that are holy.”
There are quite a number of identical stories which are told about two or even more rabbis. In many cases, for example when the rabbis bore similar names or officiated in the same community or in communities with similar names — we can assume that the story was told first about one rabbi and then by mistake because of the similarity of names, also about another rabbi. Certainly there are also cases in which the identical stories are authentic– two or three rabbis having been in similar circumstances and confronted with the same problems could have reacted in the same manner.
However, the stories quoted above present an enigma. How could people err and attribute a story told about the Gaon of vilna to Rabbi Yehezkel Landau or vice versa.It is also very unlikely that both stories are authentic, because the event described in them is very uncommon. The remark of the Tzemah Tzedek that the world tells the story about the Gaon of Vilna but he knew for certain that it happened with the Noda BeYehuda printed during the shows that he didn’t admit to the possibility that both stories are true.
The story about Rabbi Yehezkel Landau comes to us from Eastern Europe. This isn’t extraordinary. Descendants of Rabbi Landau lived in Eastern Europe and they might have spread the story. Yet it is strange that in the literature about the Noda BiYehuda printed during the 19th century in Central Europe, including Prague, where the event is supposed to have taken place, this story is not mentioned at all.
The Jewish Press, Friday, Dec. 12, 1997