They Called Her Rebbe
WINKLER, GERSHON
THEY CALLED HER REBBE GERSHON WINKLER Scholars flocked to her out of burning curiosity, auwl by the wisdom tliat filtered from live mysterious silhouette behind the partition. For the 3,000 Jews...
...From that moment on, people were drawn to her presence, and even those who had considered the young recluse strange now found her endearing...
...Biebcr, p. 75...
...According to some sources, Manish went to Rabbi Mordechai of Tchernobyl (1770-1837) for advice on how to deal with Chana Rochel...
...At first, the phenomenon of Chana Rochel was considered by most as a harmlessly passing fad, but by the time she was in her thirties, her popularity had swelled enough to make her opponents nervous...
...Soon, rabbinic authorities began to convene meetings to decide the course of action needed to dissuade this daring woman, who by her life choice and conduct had not only challenged the long-established roles for men and women, but also the long-established authority of an all-male rabbinic body...
...5. Ibid, p. 74...
...She responded to these letters, countering their textual prools and interpretations with her own...
...Merish...
...She judged the people in religious, national and civic matters (Judges: 4:4-5...
...On Sabbath afternoons, her dwelling was packed with women and men who gathered to hear her teachings of the weekly Torah portion...
...In fact, the ancient rabbis held that there were as many female prophets as male prophets (Midrash Shir Hashirim Rabbah 4:22...
...They came mostly from Hebron, Tzfat and Tiberias, regions she frequented for their mystical fame...
...Most other versions of the story say her following faded when she asked her husband to leave barely a week after the wedding because he anticipated marital intimacy in spite of Uieir agreement, and then demanded that the rabbis annul the marriage...
...that women could take the initiative and transcend the boundaries of tradition...
...But this never happened since it was against custom for a betrothed couple to spend any personal time together until their marriage...
...It was one of his last predictions before he died in 1815...
...To the disappointment of the mohelimwho vied for the honor of circumcising the prophesied saint, the Werbermachers * had a baby girl 5 whom they named ; Chana Rochel...
...Her only friend besides the sacred writ was a boy she encountered during one of her meditative walks along the Lug River, and with whom she enjoyed deep conversations...
...But Chana Rochel of Ludomir was born in an age when even the fledgling Reform movement would not consider ordaining a woman...
...As a I child, Ghana Rochel ; shied away from z play with others her S age, preferring Jewish study and ritual practice instead...
...The opposition was indeed pacified by the marriage...
...And against the religious and cultural tides of her era and environment, she stood firm in her aspiration to study and master the Talmud, the Kabbalah and other rich sources of her tradition that had always been readily accessible to men...
...Though Manish felt saddened as he watched his daughter turn further away from the traditional role of women, he clung to the lingering hope that the upcoming marriage to b^er childhood sweetheart would change'all that...
...Falling upon her mother's grave, she cried herself to sleep, and when she awoke, she experienced herself renewed and refreshed, as if her soul had been cleansed of all the pain that had held her back for so long from fully becoming what she wanted to become...
...While there was no room for a woman rebbe in the nineteenth century—as in the twentieth century among the Orthodox—there*was nevertheless no clear prohibition against it...
...2. Ruddock, Charles: "Hannah the Rebbe of I.tidomeria: A Hassidic True Story"—Aiiirriran Judaism (Spring HMi8...
...The couple was kept apart, and the boy went off to study in die yeshiv-ah of Volozhin until the wedding day...
...Chanah Chawah...
...In 1858'-—her life as rebbe shattered by scandal, manipulation and excommunication—Chana Rochel decided to setde in Israel...
...After Manish Werbermacher, a humble, learned shopkeeper in Ludomir, and his wife tried for a decade to conceive, they went to the Seer to receive a blessing...
...liana Rochel died in 1892, though one source dates her death as 1905"— and nobody knows where she was buried.''® 1. Bieber, Mordechai: "Ha'almah m'luttmir"— Rnlmmot, n.s...
...Refiising to be engaged to just anyone her father chose, Chana Rochel chose the young boy she had met in the woods...
...For the 3,000 Jews of the small town of Lublin, in the mountains of eastern Poland in the early nineteenth century, Jacob Isaac ha-Hozeh, the "Seer of Lublin," was not only a chasidic master and scholar, but a miracle worker who could predict the future...
...The Talmud records that Beruria, the wife of Rabbi Meir, was frequently involved in halachic discussions, and her ruling on a matter was on occasion accepted over that of the male rabbis (Tosefla Kelim, Bava Kamma 4:9...
...1977), p. 2fl0...
...p. 37-38...
...Her defiance only further enraged the rabbis...
...To no avail, rabbis wrote letters to her requesting that she desist from her rabbinic practice and live as "is befitting the daughters ol Israel...
...Chana Rochel had other plans...
...p. 74-75...
...their edicts against her soon erupted into violence between their followers and hers.1 Many of her opponents also declared that she was possessed bv a dvbbuk, a disembodied soul sentenced to wander in limbo, and tried to force her to an exorcist...
...When she was visited by a male petitioner, she exercised extreme modesty and held her session from behind a partition...
...1 Other accounts indicate that the rabbi admonished him for having introduced his daughter to studies in which women were customarily forbidden to engage, at which point young Chana Rochel interrupted and challenged the rabbi to a debate about the role of women in Judaism.-By all versions of the story, however, the rabbi urged Manish to get his daughter betrothed immediately in the hope that marriage would "tame" the yourig girl from her "unwomanly" pursuits...
...The Besht would probably also have approved of Chana Rochel had she lived in his time...
...Still...
...the daughtei of Rabbi Mordechai of Tchernob\ 1 and a peer of Chana Roc hoi's...
...Deborah the prophetess, for instance, did more than prophesy...
...RaddiK-k...
...Another version has it that the marriage failed because her husband was afraid to go anywhere near her...
...Chana Rochel agreed to marry her elderly secretary, but for appearances only...
...Still clinging to the Seer's prediction, Manish succumbed easily to his daughter's uncanny interest in Torah studies and her intellectual capacities for higher learning, and taught her from books otherwise taboo for women, such as the Talmud and its pilpulistic commentaries...
...On the contrary, there are indications it was once taken for granted that women could do rabbinics...
...The onh known exceptions were Yente the Seer (eighteenth century) and Chana Rochel...
...As she matured, however, he withdrew his tutelage, hoping she would shift her interests toward where he felt they belonged: marriage and family, like all other women of the community...
...Yente tile Seer was declared "legitimate" bv none other Ulan the Beshl...
...Chana Rochel was not...
...Vet these women caused no uproar because the}' were the daughters or wives of revered male rabbis...
...Pearl Shapirah, the daughter of the Maggid of Ko/hnii...
...p. 72...
...When Manish passed away, Chana Rochel, then 19, insisted on reciting the mourner's Kaddish at the synagogue from the segregated women's section, which was tolerated...
...Though many of Chana Rochel's life choices clashed with the religious tradition of her time, she did what she could to honor the sensitivities of her very Orthodox community, short of negating her own right to be a rebbe...
...4. Bicber...
...Scholars, too, flocked to her out of burning curiosity, awed by the inspiring wisdom that filtered through the partition from the mysterious silhouette behind it...
...2 (1940), p. 74...
...Following her betrothal at age 13," she looked forward to more conversations with her fiance...
...Sensing from her correspondence with her fiance that he was feeling less comfortable with her rebbe-like pursuits, she realized that marriage would sabotage her religious and scholastic aspirations, so she called it off...
...In this she endeavored and succeeded, without the approval of a male rabbinic authority and without the credibility of a renowned rebbe for a husband or father...
...At Bosh Chodesh, the onset of the new moon, she prayed at the Tomb of Rachel...
...In the laws concerning rabbinic rulings, The prohibition of a rabbi ruling on <halachah while intoxicated applies to both men and women" (Sefe) Hinuch, no...
...Eplirainr lini'tiv hayartud (Haifa: Metzudali, 1959), p. 39-40...
...7. Tanbenhaus...
...Feinkmd, p. 36...
...6. Ashkenaxy, Shlomo: Dot dor u 'manhigtiv (Tel Aviv: Don...
...158...
...TanhenlKius...
...Though she may have intended to live out her self-imposed exile quietly and anonymously, it wasn't long before her Israeli sisters and brothers discovered her gifts of teaching and healing...
...Ibid...
...She began to teach and to counsel as capably as any of the male rebbes, and gathered an increasing number of followers from across the Ukraine— men and women, young and old, the unlearned and the scholarly alike...
...Bv the age of 40 Chana Rochel was linalh threatened by outright excommunication, which extended to her followers and to "any perscSn who would draw near lo this satanic spirit who masquerades about as a rebbe in the guise of a woman...
...The master predicted that they would have a child who would become a great rabbi...
...She also requested to lead the service, an honor accorded male mourners, but was refused.8 The house Manish left her was converted into a small synagogue of her own, which became known as "The Green Shul," and there Chana Rochel held sessions of learning and counsel, praying in the ritual garb ordinarily worn only by men, such as the taffi/and the tefillin, and holding court...
...3. Feiukind, Mo|/es/: l:ia\en-reblieyim an tmihmtr pnzlmilihhliytfri hi /mint (Waisaw, 1937), p. 32...
...Throngs of people began to converge upon Mea Shearim in Jerusalem to benefit from her counsel and blessings...
...One version has it that the rabbi told him to "leave her be, for she needs now to be where she is in her spirit quest...
...Daily, she meditated at the Western Wall in taltit and lejillin...
...There were, lor example...
...But Chana Rochel was undaunted and continued studying on her own, venturing into the mystical texts of the Kabbalah...
...As a longtime friend and supporter of Chana Rochel, Rabbi Aaron of Ichernobyl tried to undo the bans by persuading her to marry and establish a "normal" Jewish home, assuring her i hat this would pacify her opponents...
...According to one source, the Rebbe of Nishbitz declared her endowed with ruach ha-kodesh, divine inspiration,0 but a number of other rabbis came and visited her court as if they were visiting a freak show...
...Malka, the wife of Rabbi Sholom Rokeach, and their daughter l'.idcl: and more...
...The idea ol a female expositor of the tradition was not unheard ol during those limes in Eastern Europe...
...the daughter of Rabbi Elimclcch of L\zhansk, Freida and Devorah Leah, the daughters of Rabbi Schneur Zalnian of Liadi: Rachel Ashkcna/.i, ihe daughter of Rabbi Vehoshua Heschel of Apt...
...Ashkena/y, p. 250...
...One version has it that the Tchernobler Rebbe then ordered Chana Rochel to surrender her laUit and lejillin to her husband, which she reluctantly did.1" Thereafter, her charisma waned and her flock dwindled...
...Even the i abbis who supported her rationalized that she was possessed by a dybbuk, albeit a righteous dybbuk...
...Her life demonstrated that even within Orthodox law and practice there should be space for a woman to be all she could...
...8. Bicber...
...Rabbi Israel fia'al Shetn fov, lather of the chasidic mo\emeni, e\en though Yente eventually stopped living with her husband...
...There was simply no place for a woman in religious academia and leadership—unless, of course, the woman in question was the daughter or wire oi a renowned and re\ered sage...
...However, the forced separation threw Chana Rochel into a deep depression' and she longed desperately for her mother, who had died when she was nine...
...9. Taubenhaus p. 40...
Vol. 18 • December 1993 • No. 6
