Rav Gershon Shaul Yomtov Lipman Heller

Early years

Rav Gershon Shaul Yomtov Lipman Heller zt"l, known to the world as the Tosafos Yom Tov, was born in Wallerstein, Bavaria, in 5339 (1579). His father, Rav Noson, passed away days before he was born, and Rav Yom Tov was raised by his grandfather, Rav Moshe Wallerstein, who served as Chief Rabbi of all German Jewry. He was a descendant of Rav Noson, author of the Aruch.

As a teenager he went to Friedberg, near Wallerstein, to learn in the yeshiva of Rav Yaakov Ginzberg, who was Av Beis Din of Friedberg and later of Prague. From there he went to Prague and became a talmid of the Maharal. His other great rebbi was Rav Shlomo Ephraim Luntshitz, author of the Kli Yakar and Olelos Ephraim.

He married Rachel, the daughter of Rav Aharon Moshe Teumim, whose son Rav Yeshaya Teumim was the father of the Kikayon D'Yonah. Her family traced its descent to Rashi and to Dovid HaMelech.

Torah and leadership

In 5357 (1597), at the age of eighteen, he was appointed a dayan and rosh yeshiva in Prague, in the beis din of the Maharal. His fame as a gaon spread across the world. At thirty he wrote his masterwork, the Tosafos Yom Tov on Shas Mishnayos, which was published in three volumes between 1614 and 1617. In 5378 he composed two selichos that gave voice to the worries and fears of the Jewish community during the Prague rebellion, and they were published in Prague on the 14th of Cheshvan, 5381.

In Cheshvan 5385 (1624) he was appointed Av Beis Din of Nikolsburg in Moravia, and on Rosh Chodesh Adar of 5385 he became Av Beis Din of Vienna. Vienna's kehillah was newly established, and the Jews were scattered throughout the city. Rav Heller obtained the right for them to form a central community in Leopoldstadt, where he reorganized the kehillah and drew up its constitution. Among the new takanos he introduced was the daily study of the Rosh's Orchos Chaim before Shacharis. He translated it into Yiddish himself, so that everyone could understand, and it was published in Prague in 5386.

In Teves of 5387 (1627) he was appointed Av Beis Din of Prague, beginning his tenure in Nissan. About half a year later he also became rosh yeshiva, succeeding his rebbi, the Maharal. In Prague he completed Ma'adanei Melech and Lechem Chamudos on the Rosh and began work on Malbushei Yom Tov, a super-commentary on the Levush's commentary on the Arba Turim.

Imprisonment in Vienna

His years in Prague fell during the Thirty Years War (1618–1648), a time of chaos for the people of Bohemia and especially for its Jews. The war emptied the royal treasury, and the government imposed heavy taxes on the Jewish community, leaving the collection to the Jews themselves. Bitter disputes followed, as many wealthy and powerful members of the community tried to avoid their share, and poorer Jews were burdened with sums they could hardly pay.

Rav Heller was deeply troubled by these tactics, which were contrary to the derech haTorah. He had himself appointed to the committee overseeing the tax collection, and he made sure that the wealthier members of the community carried the burden according to their means. This, along with his other reforms, made him bitter opponents. They slandered him to the king, falsely claiming that he had insulted the Christian faith in his seforim Ma'adanei Melech and Lechem Chamudos. King Ferdinand II accepted the accusation and ordered that he be brought to Vienna in chains.

On the 4th of Tammuz the Imperial Judge arrived to announce the decree, and on the 5th of Tammuz, 5389 (1629) the Tosafos Yom Tov left Prague. It is told in his autobiography, Megillas Eivah, that he later recalled a tradition he had heard in Prague from Rav Pinchas of Krakow, head of the Vaad Arba Aratzos (the Council of the Four Lands) and son of Rav Zalman Yeshaya Segal Horowitz. In an earlier time of harsh decrees, when the government ordered all holy Jewish books burned on the 5th of Tammuz, the sages of that generation made a she'alas chalom (a dream inquiry) to ask why this evil had come upon them. The answer was Zos Chukas HaTorah K'Targumo, and they understood it to mean the Aramaic translation of the verse in parshas Chukas, Da Gezeiras Oraisa. The word da, they noted, has the gematria of five.

Rav Heller saw in this a hint to his own ordeal. His own seforim had been ordered burned, and he had been forced to leave on the 5th of Tammuz. On the 8th of Tammuz he set out for Vienna, where he was accused, questioned and jailed. His life was in great danger. The leaders of the community took action to defend him, and even gentile officials who had met him protested that he was being held for nothing more than a false libel. He was arrested on the 17th of Tammuz after chatzos, and he was released after chatzos on the 28th of Menachem Av, 5389, after about forty days. Among those who pleaded his cause before the emperor was the influential Court Jew Yaakov Bassevi von Treuenberg.

The community's efforts bore fruit, and he was cleared of the capital charge. But the magistrate ordered him to pay a bond of 12,000 gulden to King Ferdinand II, a princely sum that all the Jews of Vienna and Prague together could not easily raise. His seforim were to be burned, and he was forbidden to serve as Av Beis Din anywhere in the kingdom. This was a terrible blow, for it took away his entire livelihood. In time the sentence was eased. His seforim were censored rather than burned, and he was permitted to serve as Rav anywhere except Prague itself. He then spent two years paying off the fine.

He recorded his sufferings in Megillas Eivah, whose name he explained as an acronym for Eicha Yashva Badad HaIr, an echo of Megillas Eicha, which we read on Tisha B'Av. In its preface he wrote that whoever reads it and shares his sorrow would be saved from all trouble and suffering in that merit. It has been translated into English as The Feast and the Fast, published by Moznaim in 1984 by Rabbi C. U. Lipschitz and Dr. Neil Rosenstein. Since 1881 it has usually been printed together with a second section attributed to his son Shmuel.

A fast and a feast for all generations

Rav Heller instructed his children and all their descendants, until the coming of Mashiach, to fast on the 5th of Tammuz until after Maariv. Because the day falls in summer, he asked only that the fast last until nightfall. When it falls on Shabbos it is to be postponed to Sunday. Those who find it difficult may fast until after davening Minchah Gedolah, and anyone who is weak, pregnant or nursing may redeem the fast with a gift of no less than the value of three large Viennese coins.

He wrote that he had hesitated over whether to establish the 28th of Menachem Av, the day of his release, as a yom tov. He felt his joy was still incomplete, since he had been left penniless, stripped of his honor and rabbinate and deeply in debt. At that time he came across the introduction to Yosef Lekach, the commentary on Megillas Esther by Rav Eliezer Ashkenazi (1513-1586). It asks why the Chashmonaim did not establish festival days for their miraculous victory, and answers that their joy was incomplete because so many had died and the Beis Hamikdash had been ransacked. He saw his own situation in those words.

Years later, after his honor was restored, he did establish a feast. On Sunday, the first of Adar Rishon, 5404 (1644), he was formally installed as Av Beis Din of Krakow, and he directed his family to observe that day as a personal celebration of thanksgiving, a day for his children and descendants, and their spouses, to praise Hashem. He saw a hint in the years themselves, shaphat (1629) for the year of harsh judgment, and Das, ת״ד (1644), for the year of redemption, in the words V'haDas nitna b'Shushan haBirah. His descendants still read Megillas Eivah and celebrate the story of his life with a special Purim gathering.

Nemirov, Ludmir and Krakow

In 1631 he was appointed Av Beis Din in Nemirov, where he served for three years. In 1634 he moved to the larger city of Ludmir in Volhynia. During his years in Volhynia and Poland he was among the leaders of the Vaad Arba Aratzos.

In Ludmir he resolved to renew the old enactments of the earlier geonim against buying and selling the position of Rav through the government's local ministers. This practice, he wrote, went back to the days when the position of Kohen Gadol was bought and sold in the time of the Second Beis Hamikdash. The sages had imposed bans, curses, oaths and fines, but breach after breach had weakened the law until people treated it as a joke. Rav Heller added a new safeguard, forbidding the hiring of anyone who had acquired a position in this way.

On the 18th of Iyar, in Vizhnitz, he gathered with the communal leaders of Volhynia, Ludmir, Ostrog, Kremenetz and Lutzk to renew the ordinances for all four provinces. He then travelled to Lublin and Yaroslavl on market days, where the proclamation was signed and ratified by the Vaad Arba Aratzos together with thirty of the greatest leaders. It was read in all the shuls of Yaroslavl and at the fair in Kremenetz. In 1640 he worked to have the synod renew its decrees against simony in the rabbinate. The more he acted, the more his enemies worked against him, and they tried everything to remove him from the rabbinate.

His enemies failed in the end, and he was cleared. His former honor was restored on the first day of Chol HaMoed Sukkos 5404, when word came that he would be appointed Rosh Yeshiva together with Rav Yehoshua in Krakow. He arrived in Krakow on the 27th of Cheshvan (some versions say the 28th) and was received with honor. He became one of the two chief rabbis of Krakow, serving alongside Rav Yehoshua Heschel, author of Maginei Shlomo, who headed the yeshiva. Four years later Rav Yehoshua Heschel passed away, and Rav Heller succeeded him as head of the yeshiva as well. He remained Rav of Krakow through the Chmielnicki uprising of 1648, until his passing.

Teachings and seforim

The Tosafos Yom Tov became one of the standard commentaries on the Mishnah and is studied to this day. It complements the Bartenura, and the title means additions to the Bartenura, as the Tosafos are to Rashi. His main halachic work was Ma'adanei Yom Tov, a commentary on the Rosh's summary of the Gemara, a work that many German Jews of his day held to be the most authoritative statement of halachah, and his introduction endorses that view. His halachic rulings, mainly on ritual matters, are quoted by many later rabbanim, especially those of Prague.

Besides these, he wrote Darkei Hora'ah, Malbushei Yom Tov, Ma'adanei Melech, Pilpula Charifta and Lechem Chamudos on the Rosh, Toras Ha'asham on the Rema's Toras HaChatas, Tzuras HaBayis on Yechezkel's prophecy of the Third Beis Hamikdash, and a commentary on the Rambam's Parshas HaChodesh in Kiddush HaChodesh and on Bechinas Olam. He wrote Tuv Taam on Rabbeinu Bachaya, a kabbalistic work based on the teachings of the Ramak, although for most of his life he opposed the popularization of Kabbalah and the use of kabbalistic reasoning in halachah. He also left sermons and responsa, and two sets of piyyutim, one in 1621 and one in 1650 after the Cossack massacres of 1648–1649.

He was unusually well versed in the secular sciences for a rav of his generation, and his works show an interest in arithmetic, astronomy and natural science.

Later years and passing

In the pogroms of Ta"ch V'Ta"t (5408 and 5409, 1648–1649) the Tosafos Yom Tov fasted and prayed to be shown why such calamities had struck. It was revealed to him that idle talk in shul during davening had damaged the letter vav, turning dibur (speech) into dever (plague). He then composed, or at least instituted in his kehillos, a special tefillah to strengthen awareness of the power of silence in shul.

When he lay ill near the end of his life, two names were added to his own, as is customary for the sick, and so the names Gershon Shaul appear on his matzeiva.

The Tosafos Yom Tov passed away in Krakow on Wednesday, the 6th of Elul, 5414 (1654). He gave so much to the poor that, as Rav Zelig Margoliyos testifies in the introduction to Chibburei Likkutim, when he passed away there was no money left to buy shrouds. His matzeiva stands in the old Jewish cemetery in the courtyard of the Rema shul in Kazimierz. It calls him the great gaon of his generation, lists Tzuras HaBayis, Tosafos Yom Tov, Ma'adanei Melech, Lechem Chamudos and Toras Ha'asham among the seforim he wrote, and records that he served the kehillos of Vienna and Prague, and at the end of his days established the yeshiva in Poland, and was called to the Heavenly Yeshiva on Wednesday, the 6th of Elul, 5414.

Legacy

Rav Heller founded a long line of rabbanim, among them many famous rabbinic figures and chassidic rebbes. His son Rav Moshe of Prague printed Megillas Eivah. His son Rav Avraham of Prague was a rosh yeshiva in Skola and an ancestor of Rav Moshe Aharon Heller, Av Beis Din of Sniatyn, of Rav Meshulem Feivish of Zbaraz, author of Yosher Divrei Emes, and of Rav Shmuel Heller of Tzfas. His son Rav Yehuda Leib Heller was killed al kiddush Hashem, and his yahrzeit is on the 15th of Tishrei. Rav Liva of Brisk and Rav Alexander of Prague appear as his sons in some editions of Megillas Eivah and not in others.

His son-in-law Rav Yosef Yaakov Kahana, rosh yeshiva in Turinsk, married Raizel, and was an ancestor of Rav Yehuda Kahana, Av Beis Din of Sighet and author of Kuntres HaSfeikos, and of Rav Aryeh Leib, author of the Ketzos HaChoshen. Rav Shmuel Bash of Prague married Dobrish, and Megillas Eivah describes their shidduch and her untimely death. Rav Yoel of Brisk, a descendant of Rav Yoel Sirkis, the Bach, married another daughter, and was an ancestor of Rav Mordechai Yosef Leiner, founder of the Izhbitza-Radzyn dynasty. Rav Tzvi Hirsch married Rivka, and was an ancestor of the Eichensteins and Safrins of the Zidichov and Komarno dynasties.

Rav Zeev Wolf Slovis Segal married Nissel and was an ancestor of the Maharam Schick. The marriage of their son Nosson, named for the Tosafos Yom Tov's father, to the daughter of Rav Moshe, Av Beis Din of Chelm, is described in Megillas Eivah. Rav Aharon Frankel Mirels married his cousin Rechel Nachele. His father, Rav Koppel, was a son of Avraham Heller, the Tosafos Yom Tov's uncle.

It is told that the Ohr HaChaim HaKadosh, in his Chefetz Hashem, cited a sign that proves one learned Torah lishma, namely that he reached the same conclusions as the Ramban, the Ran and the Tosafos Yom Tov.