Mishpacha magazine (Hebrew) had a great profile article on Rav Yehoshua Maman. Rav Maman is a 92 year old brilliant Moroccan Rabbi, descended from a line of great rabbis and with lineage traced back to the Rambam, who moved to Israel in 1968, right as he was about to be appointed as Chief Rabbi of Morocco. He said that he felt drawn to Eretz Yisrael and preferred to move rather than stay and be Chief Rabbi.
Many interesting anecdotes about his life and details we were related. One particular anecdote struck a chord with me.
The story goes like this:
Right after he moved to Israel, the Chief Rabbi of Israel, Rav Yitzchak Nissim offered him the job of being the head of a special beis din for gittin issues.
Rav Maman refused the job.
The reason Rav Maman gave for refusing the job was that as a dayan (and chief rabbi of a few different major cities) for 22 years in Morocco never once did he process a divorce - he successfully established shalom bayit in the house and avoided the need for the get. Only once did he do a get, yet after 3 months he succeeded in effecting shalom bayit between them and got them back together.
So after 22 years of not giving a get but effecting shalom bayit, he could not fathom coming to Israel and making a parnassa out of facilitating people give gets. He said, "Here in Eretz Yisrael I should make a living out of dismantling families?..."
...and with lineage traced back to the Rambam, who moved to Israel in 1968...
ReplyDeleteRafi,
Thanks for illustrating the importance of good grammar. The Rambam did not move to Israel in 1968, and was certainly never up for the chief rabbinate of Morocco. The word "and" before "who moved to Israel" might have been a good idea.
thanks. I actually added the Rambam line after I had written the paragraph, and then I did not re-read the whole paragraph to make sure the wording fit. When I added it, it fit with the next words and I left it at that...
ReplyDeleteI'll let you off with a warning this time.
ReplyDeleteahhh... the joys of misplaced par something or others....
ReplyDeletethank you Rafi for this funny flub and Yoni for pointing it out.