A
member of the other family, irritated, reproached one of his
enemies with having been baptized. Now Rabbenu Gershom, under
penalty of excommunication, had forbidden people to recall his
apostasy to a converted Jew. Rashi was asked to remove this
prohibition; but he declined, not wishing to intervene in the
internal administration of a strange community. "What am I that
I should consider myself an authority in other
places?... I am a man of little importance, and my
hands are feeble, like those of an orphan. If I were in the
midst of you, I would join with you in annulling the
interdiction." From this it is evident that the strongest weapon
of the rabbinical authorities against the intractable was, as in
the Church, excommunication; but that sometimes individuals
asserted, and even swore in advance, that they would not yield to
the decree against them. Rashi considered that this oath, being
contrary to law, was null and void.
Rashi, guided by the same feelings, was pitiless in his
condemnation of those who fomented trouble, who sowed discord in
families, sometimes in their own households. A man, after having
made promise to a young girl, refused to marry her and was upheld
in his intrigues by a disciple of Rashi. Rashi displayed great
severity toward the faithless man for his treatment of the girl,
and he was not sparing even in his denunciation of the
accomplice.
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