רבנו גרשום מאור הגולה

Rabbeinu Gershom, the Light of the Exile, is the spiritual father of Ashkenazi Jewry, and the one who lit up the diaspora as the center of Torah passed from Babylon to Europe. In the city of Mainz in Germany he founded a study house to which students streamed, and from it came Torah that nourished all the sages of Ashkenaz and France after him, among them Rashi and the Tosafists.

But his name became known in every Jewish home for his enactments, the 'ban of Rabbeinu Gershom,' which protected human and family dignity: the prohibition of marrying two wives, the prohibition of divorcing a woman against her will, and the prohibition of reading another's letter. Through these ordinances Rabbeinu Gershom shaped a Jewish society of dignity, in which the weak is protected from the strong.

The title 'Light of the Exile' tells everything: in a generation of darkness and exile, he was the light around which a community united. And when his son converted under duress and died, Rabbeinu Gershom sat a double mourning for him, out of a love of Israel that did not give up on any soul, even one that had fallen.

What do we learn from him? That greatness in Torah is measured also by protecting the dignity of the weak, and that a wise enactment can change the face of society for generations. Rabbeinu Gershom teaches that the true light is not only in study but in compassion, and that one who lights up the exile does so both in the depth of law and in the tenderness with which he guards the human being.