2021-06-18 18:42:13
1541: Jacob Pollak, the Rabbi who popularized the use of “pilpul” in Polish Talmudic academies died in Lublin.
(I have to chuckle at this one. I'm pretty sure jew authorities even back to the time of Jesus were known for their hairsplitting, disingenuous style of interpreting holy books)
The formal definition of pilpul: jew term from "pepper," loosely meaning "sharp analysis", refers to a method of studying the Talmud through intense textual analysis in attempts to either explain conceptual differences between various rabbi rulings or to reconcile any apparent contradictions presented from various readings of different texts.
Taking his methods of the study of the Talmud from Germany, where it had been neglected in the sixteenth century, to Poland, initiated a movement which in the course of time dominated the Talmudic schools of the latter country, he was regarded by most of his contemporaries as one of the generation's best.
In an early well known case,
Pollak's widowed mother-in-law, a wealthy and prominent woman, who was even received at the Bohemian court, had married her second daughter, who was still a minor, to the Talmudist David Zehner. Regretting this decision, she wished to have the marriage annulled; but the husband refused to permit a divorce, and the mother, on Pollak's advice, sought to have the union dissolved by means of a declaration of refusal, "mi'un" (since her mother had arranged the marriage and she was still a minor, the marriage could simply be annulled) on the part of the wife, permitted by Talmudic law.
However, another rabbi had issued a ruling some 50 years earlier about such a case which said that she would have to give him a bill of divorce and most jews agreed with him.
When, therefore, Pollak declared the marriage of his sister-in-law null and void (his reasoning is not given), all the rabbis of Germany protested, and even excommunicated him, thus necessitating his trek to Poland.
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