8 - The Appointment and Removal of Rabbi Solomon Eli’ezer Mercado Alfandari in Damascus

Summary

An elder to whom something happened is not removed from his greatness, but rather we say to him: Be honoured and sit at home.

JT Mo’ed katan 3: 1

The Ruling Regarding the Deposition of the Rabbi of Hamadan

Once it became clear to Rabbi Yitshak Abulafia that the leaders of the Damascus community and its Torah scholars were bent on removing him from office, he attempted to forestall this process by issuing a halakhic ruling prohibiting this removal.He described the events surrounding his own position in detail but disguised the identifying features. He wrote as if he were not an interested party but presenting a quite separate case: specifically, of the wish of the Jews of Hamadan in Persia to depose their rabbi, who had served that community for more than twenty years, and to appoint another rabbi in his place. The match between this account and the process described in the last chapter confirms the view that this halakhic ruling, allegedly addressing the issue in Hamadan, in fact concerned Rabbi Abulafia's own deposition from office in Damascus. In it, Abulafia sharply criticized those who organized themselves to bring about their rabbi's deposition, especially his rabbinic colleagues, whose attitude towards him was tantamount to excommunication:

I was asked by the holy community of Teheran—may the Rock preserve them and give them life—the following question: Reuben had been accepted as judge and righteous teacher in the holy community of Hamadan—may God protect it—for twenty years or more. And during all those years that the above-mentioned has been on the rabbinic seat, he has judged the poor with righteousness and nobody ever had any suspicion of him, and all the people answered ‘holy’ after his word. And indeed, he was in truth and justice a person who was great in Torah, and his name was known in the gates, in all the cities of Israel in the kingdom of Persia, as is known. But then several people, who are not decent, turned against him as enemies; the Torah scholars in that city, his scholarly brethren, upon seeing that they were not appointed as judges and rabbis, were also jealous of him and hated him for no reason: they hated him because of their jealousy, and could not speak peaceably unto him.