PHILADELPHIA — There is an old Jewish joke that goes like this:
A young Talmudic scholar took a vow that before he undertook any
major step in life, he would complete the section of the Talmud
which covers that subject. Before he bought a house, he studied the
tract dealing with laws of real estate ownership and obligations to
one’s neighbors, etc. When the night of his wedding arrived, the
crowd was assembled but he had not yet appeared. Frantic, the
family found him in a room only about halfway through the 165-page
tome about the marriage procedure.
“You must perform the procedure to annul your vow,” his parents
said. “You can’t keep a whole roomful of people waiting.”
“You’re right,” he responded. “But first I must study the
(185-page) volume covering the laws of vows and their
annulment.”
So it goes with writers of opinion. The idea of a vacation is
impossible. The observing eye and the inquiring mind come along for
the ride. The only way you can tell that a columnist is on the road
is when the locus of his articles shifts — or he begins to write
about the lack of hygiene in rest rooms at service stations. My own
peregrinations have continued inching me northward, taking me to
the city of brotherly love, where you can still buy a nice steak
for a picture of Ben Franklin.
The highlight of my visit was the Liberty Bell, no longer
functional as a cymbal but still quite poignant as a symbol. Yet I
felt that my trip would not be complete without adding a somewhat
idiosyncratic destination, the Rothenberg Tower on Walnut Avenue
between 15th and 16th Streets in downtown Philadelphia. This office
building, eighteen stories plus a penthouse, houses the law firm of
Allen L. Rothenberg, long the Number One personal-injury firm in
Pennsylvania. The practice has offices in New York and New Jersey
as well and includes Allen, his wife Barbara, and four of their
children (with two more expected to join after completing law
school).
What fascinates me about this family, well beyond their being a
modern success story, is the incredible historic symbolism of their
high-achieving operation being based in that tower. You see, the
Rothenbergs have a family tradition that they are direct
descendants of Rabbi Meir of Rothenburg (1215-1293). He was a great
scholar, considered the foremost legal authority among the Jews of
Western Europe in his era. He was also a capable liturgical poet,
and the dirge he wrote upon witnessing the public burning of the
Talmud in Paris in 1242 is still recited in synagogues once a
year.
His name is frequently quoted in feminist publications, because
he wrote very severe letters against wife-beating and mandated that
no woman had to remain in her husband’s home if he was striking
her. He also authorized an escalating series of punishments for a
husband who would not stop the violence on his own, from social to
financial and eventually to corporal.
In 1286, Emperor Rudolph I had him kidnapped and held hostage in
the Ensisheim Tower. There is some dispute among historians whether
he was taken for ransom or to get the Jews to agree to an official
status as “serfs of the state.” In any case, the Jewish community
had raised funds sufficient to effect his release. But he sent a
message from the tower (he was allowed some visitors) that ransom
should not be paid lest this practice become widespread as a means
of extorting money from the Jews.
He lived out the rest of his life in the tower, dying in 1293.
The powers that be vindictively refused to release his bones for
burial and they remained in the tower until 1307. One of his
students finally succeeded in getting the remains transferred to
his custody; tradition has it that money changed hands to enable
that to happen. The anniversary of the date of his belated burial
was celebrated by Jews of that region (Rothenburg is in the Alsace
area) for many generations.
With a great sense of irony, the Rabbi of Rothenburg reedited
his commentary on a chapter of Mishna entitled “Tower.” The
manuscript was smuggled out of the tower by one of his visitors and
is published at the end of every set of Talmud to this day. He
concludes with a wry and eerily prophetic postscript: “I added this
commentary on ‘Tower’ while held in Ensisheim Tower, thanks to God
Who did not withhold His kindness from me… and will never abandon
me… all the days of my life — and even after I die.”
The Encyclopedia Britannica calls it the Ensisheim
Fortress but Tower is a better fit, particularly since the captive
used that term himself. Now, almost 700 years after his body left
the tower, a lonely traveler through history like myself can drift
into downtown Philadelphia and see a towering reminder that
justice, although delayed, has not been denied.
