Gershom ben Judah

Gershom ben Judah, (c. 960 -1040) best known as Rabbeinu Gershom (רבנו גרשום, "Our teacher Gershom") and also commonly known to scholars of Judaism by the title Rabbeinu Gershom Me'Or Hagolah ("Our teacher Gershom the light of the exile"), was a famous Talmudist and Halakhist. Less than a century after Gershom's death Rashi said of him, "all members of the Ashkenazi diaspora are students of his." As early as the 14th century, Asher ben Jehiel wrote that Rabbeinu Gershom's writings were "such permanent fixtures that they may well have been handed down on Mount Sinai." He is most famous for the synod he called around 1000 CE, in which he instituted various laws and bans, including prohibiting polygamy, requiring the consent of both parties to a divorce, modifying the rules concerning those who became apostates under compulsion, and prohibiting the opening of correspondence addressed to someone else. Born in Metz in 960, Gershom was a student of Yehuda HaKohen ben Meir (Sir Léontin), who was one of the greatest authorities of his time. Having lost his first wife, Gershom married a widow named Bonna and settled at Mainz, where he devoted himself to teaching the Talmud. During his lifetime Mainz became a center of Torah and Jewish scholarship for many Jewish communities in Europe that had formerly been connected with the Babylonian . He was the spiritual guide of the fledgling Ashkenazic Jewish communities and was very influential in molding them at a time when their population was dwindling. Students came from all over Europe to enroll in his yeshiva, and later dispersed among various communities in Germany and beyond which helped spread Jewish learning. He had many pupils from different countries, like Eleazar ben Isaac, Jacob ben Yakar, Elijah ben Menahem, and Isaac ben Eliezer Halevi. The fame of his learning eclipsed even that of the heads of the academies of Sura (city) and Pumbedita. His life conformed to his teachings. He had a son, who forsook his religion at the time of the expulsion of the Jews from Mainz in 1012.

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Gershom ben Judah

Jewish diaspora

The Jewish diaspora (təfūṣā) or exile (Hebrew: גָּלוּת gālūṯ; Yiddish: golus) is the biblical dispersion of Israelites or Jews out of their ancient ancestral homeland (the Land of Israel) and their subsequent settlement in other parts of the globe. In terms of the Hebrew Bible, the term "Exile" denotes the fate of the Israelites who were taken into exile from the Kingdom of Israel during the 8th century BCE, and the Judahites from the Kingdom of Judah who were taken into exile during the 6th century BCE.

Marriage

Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognized union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children (if any), and between them and their in-laws. It is nearly a cultural universal, but the definition of marriage varies between cultures and religions, and over time. Typically, it is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually sexual, are acknowledged or sanctioned.