She was more of a talmich chochom than he

We never get to hear the end of these stories!

Rav Moshe Shternbuch, Raavad of the Eida Hachareidis, recently tested a group of Toldos Ahron avreichim on hilchos Shabbos and related the following incident to them:

There was recently an avreich before him in beis din who had previously been one of the elite students in the Chevron yeshiva. When he got married, as an elite bachur, he commanded a high price for the shidduch and his father in law had promised him an apartment in Yerushalayim.

It turned out as some time passed that this avreich knew very little of the halachos of Shabos, and often had to ask his wife what the halacha is in different situations that arose, as she had learned hilchos shabbos in school. this fellow was a brilliant mind in lomdus, but knew nothing of practical halacha.

The father in law, realizing his son in law was not quite as elite as expected and that his daughter knew more than his son in law and is more of a talmid chochom than he, decided to cancel the apartment he was buying for the son in law.

We do not know how the court case ended up, as Rav Shternbuch did not tell us. This is what I would really like to know. It is somewhat reminiscent of the story of the Taz suing his father in law the Bach for failing to support him with the meat he needed to be able to learn and had been promised as a dowry. the Bach had lost his money and was unable to afford the meat for his son in law and offered him lung meat instead. In that case I recall the Bach won, with the beis din deciding the lung meat is considered meat. 

Rav Shternbuch used the story to encourage this group of avreichim to study hilchos shabbos well, and to write down notes so as to embed the halacha in memory. 

Ahhhh, when the biggest insult is that his wife knows more than he does....

sources: Kikar, Hamechadesh, Behadrei

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