Mozart, R’ Abish Frankfurter, and the Get of Cleves
With a title like that, of course, it has to be more awesome comments from the Rav.
The Rav is dropping a huge bunch of hints here about ‘real Jewish history’, and when I have a bit more time, I hope to follow at least some of them up.
In the meantime, I will repost an old article I wrote a few years ago about the ‘Tiferet Yisrael’ and the Get of Cleves, after this post, to get the ball rolling.
Enjoy!
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Excerpt of a shiur given in Beer Sheva, Wednesday, Parshat Vayechi 5785
So, the Rebbe [Rebbe Nachman] explains that the melody comes from the two birds.
There are two birds, and they influence the melody. And how is this?
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If a person sings a composition, like Beethoven, who was deaf. The last 10 years, he was already deaf, in the end he didn’t hear anything. He used to write scores, but according to his thoughts. [I.e. he only heard the music playing in his head, because he was deaf.]
And Mozart – he didn’t have a burial.
It’s written: “And he is even deprived of burial.”[1]
It’s written in Kohelet that in end, he doesn’t even have a burial. No-one knows where he’s buried, they buried [Mozart] with the poor, with those who couldn’t afford to pay to be buried. They threw them into some corner, there, without gravestones. They buried them without anything.
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So, Mozart – he was the greatest composer!
At age 7, he’d already received / comprehended all the melodies, because there were melodies in the church. He comprehended everything. He was writing scores at age 7. He was the greatest composer of all time. In the end – he is even deprived of burial. Because he didn’t have the money to pay for it.
And they didn’t say any eulogies over him.
Many of the composers committed suicide.
They jumped into the Rhine, they jumped into the Vistula, they jumped into the Thames, this is in London, or the Seine, in Paris.
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So, there was [the River Maine] in Frankfurt, that’s where the Pnei Yehoshua was.
And he didn’t agree to sign on the get (bill of divorce), because the inkwell turned over. All those who were against the get [were prevented from becoming the Rav of Frankfurt]. This was in Frankfurt.
There was R’ Abish of Frankfurt, there was the get of Cleves, there was the get of Galuna. The get of Cleves involved the whole planet, all the tzaddikim in Europe [wrote their opinion on it].
So, the Nodah be’Yehuda said that the get of Cleves[2] wasn’t a get. He was against it, because she [the bride] was his cousin, so he possulled (disqualified) the get. This was the get of Galuna, there was a difference of almost ten years [between the get of Cleves and the get of Galuna.]
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After this, there was the get of Cleves.
She [the bride] was called Leah, he was called Itchele ben R’ Eliezer Neihuiz.
And he already had some sort of connection with another woman, so he wanted to cancel [the shidduch], he was against the shidduch, he didn’t agree to the shidduch, under no circumstances, no.
But they made him a shidduch, they did it in Elul, on Tuesday or Wednesday, there was the chuppah. And then on Shabbat, he disappeared, he ran away. He didn’t want the shidduch. They organised a search throughout all the villages, and they found him sleeping by some non-Jew.
And he’d stolen all the dowry! And he paid him $100, to sleep by this non-Jew, when they went to look for him.
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And then he [the groom] said to R’ Shimshon of Copenhagen – he was from Copenhagen, he was from Denmark.
He was called Shimshon Copenhagen, this was the uncle of his bride. He told him that he needed to give a get, and if not, he was going to disappear, no-one would be able to find him, and then she would be an agunah for the rest of her life.
And then the grandfather of the Tiferet Yisrael, he was also called Yisrael, Yisrael Lipshitz, so he wrote the get. R’ Yisrael wrote the get, and the [dayanim who organised the get], they were the chassidim of R’ Abish of Frankfurt.
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R’ Abish, up until the age of 12, he didn’t know how to learn. Until the age of 12!
Then, they found a shidduch for him, some orphan girl, poor thing. But now, he knew that he would have to give over some sort of drasha before the wedding, so he went to the forest and he wept for three hours.
He travelled there in a wagon, he went with a wagon.
They didn’t have Mercedes, and not Audis, and not Lincolns, and not Limousines. So he went, he went with a wagon, and the wagon came to a stop in in some forest. So, he descended from the wagon, at age 12, and he started to cry out to Hashem, that He should open his mind for him.
Suddenly, [after this happened], he went into some synagogue and he saw that he understood everything that was being learned. He even came up with his own kooshiot (questions on the text) – he knew how to come up with kooshiot! He knew how to ask questions.
So suddenly, the saw that he knew how to learn, so they wanted to cancel the shidduch.
[R’ Abish] said, I am not cancelling the shidduch.
This was R’ Abish of Frankfurt.
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And R’ Abish used to go and collect tzedakah for his yeshiva in Frankfurt.
He used to go from house to house, to travel do a different city, and go around as though he was a simple man. He used to travel like a simple person.
Suddenly, some rich man had his silver staff stolen from him, so he ran after him [after R’ Abish], and gave him murderous blows. He thought it was him [who had stolen the staff], because R’ Abish had just left his house. But it already had been stolen beforehand, apparently.
Someone else stole it, some other beggar.
The rich man gave R’ Abish murderous blows, until he saw that he’d broken his bones, like he should have. And R’ Abish said: I don’t know anything!
The rich man let him go.
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Eventually, this rich man got to Frankfurt, and R’ Abish was precisely in the middle of his drasha [in the Frankfurt synagogue], and he saw that the person he’d beaten up was the Rav of Frankfurt.
He used to go around like a simple person, to collect money. He didn’t want to collect ‘like a rabbi’.
So, the rich man fainted three times.
They threw cold water on him, until he was able to come and ask for forgiveness [from R’ Abish]. So R’ Abish said: No, no, it wasn’t me! He thought that he’d come to beat him up again.
So, the rich man wanted to ascend the bimah, to ask for forgiveness [before the whole congregation], so R’ Abish screamed out: No! It wasn’t me! No!
So, this was R’ Abish of Frankfurt.
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[The Rav returns to the story of the Get of Cleves].
Because they were his chassidim.
So they told him [R’ Abish] that the groom wasn’t normal, that he ran away, and that he wasn’t sane [so the get wasn’t kosher, and the bridge was an agunah].
Because there were three simanim (indications) of [madness].[3]
There is wandering around by yourself at night. If a person is going to do hitbodedut [by himself at night] that’s something else. But stam, to wander around by yourself at night, this is [madness].
And there is tearing off his clothes, and losing whatever he is given. So, you need all three of these simanim together [to rule that someone is insane].
In any case, the Nodeh be’Yehudah said that he was totally normal, and that the get was a binding get. [So the woman could remarry.]
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Here, this is the story, here we have the whole story in its entirety.
We will read the story of the Get of Cleves.
So now, there was a machloket (controversy), over whether [the groom] should be called ‘insane’ or sane, because he ran away during Shabbat.
They went to find him, to call the groom and escort him to the synagogue. And the bride was called Leah Gushuisen from BROND[4] And he was called Itzhik ben R’ Eliezer Mannheim. The wedding was on the 8th of Elul 5522 (1762)
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After this, R’ Abish died, be’emet (in truth).
In 5529 (1769) he died – R’ Abish, because he’d said that the get was not a get. And the get really was a get. But he didn’t want to get married.
She said that until all the rabbis will agree! [That she was divorced, she wasn’t going to remarry].
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She [the bride] was a girl of 16.
So on the first Shabbat after the wedding, the groom took all the dowry money, and ran away with the dowry. $100, 100 zlotys, 100 guildens, 100 guildens.
The groom said [we he’d run away]. Because he was facing a death sentence, because he’d been with the housemaid, and at that time, whoever was with [a woman] without being married, they would kill him.
They would hang him, mamash.
If someone would make a complaint, that someone had come to her, then they used to hang him [i.e. the accused man]. They simply hung him, they gave him a death sentence.
So, he needed to leave the country, [and that’s why he ran away on Shabbat]. He wanted to travel to London.
In the end, he opened up a synagogue there, in the name of R’ Itzhik Hamburger.
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TBC
Translated from Shivivei Or, 394.
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FOOTNOTES:
[1] The Rav is quoting this verse from Kohelet 6:3: “If a man begets a hundred children and lives many years – great being the days of his life – and his soul is not content with the good – and he is even deprived of burial, I say: The stillborn is better off than he.”
[2] The Hebrew transcriber puts the words (Galuna] in brackets here.
[3] See Tractate Hagigah 3b.
[4] This was possibly misheard by the transcriber, and could be ‘BROD’, or some other location.
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UPDATE:
Here is where you can see that post on the Tiferet Israel:
And here is a discussion of the Get of Cleves that mentions the Sha’agat Aryeh (also mentioned in this post above….):
https://www.torahleadership.org/categories/bleichmentalincompetence.pdf
Here is the Hebrew Wiki page for the ‘Get of Cleves’ – it starts to fill in lots of the details:
The divorce from Kliwa – Wikipedia
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The bride is from BONN, not BROND.
R’ Abish of Frankfurt is R’ ABRAHAM ABISH of LISSA – Hebrew Wiki page for him here:
Avraham Abish of Frankfurt – Wikipedia
There are a ton of ‘Sabbatean’ linkages with him, this one snippet is just the tip of the iceberg:
He stood at the right hand of Rabbi Yehonatan Eybeschutz in the amulet polemic.
Looks like Marvin Antelmann was right after all, that all this was cooked-up to cause huge division between the rabbis just as the Sabbateans, Frankists and Reformers were mounting their big assault against Torah Judaism….
TBC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MH5OcKEh_gA