Rabbi Shabtai HaKohen - Shach - "Siftei Kohen"

The Daughter of the "Siftei Kohen"

Having lost both her father and mother, the lonely girl wandered through the cities of Poland, yet even in the hardest of times she did not abandon the faith of her fathers and stood firm through the most difficult trials.

For the Jewish communities of Europe, this was a terrifying time. Internecine wars raged everywhere, and the leader of the rebels — Bogdan Khmelnitsky — and his cohorts, venting their fury upon the Jews, spared neither women nor children. Entire communities perished in the pogroms carried out by the will of the wicked Khmelnitsky in 1648-1649 (5408-5409 on the Jewish calendar).

During this terrible time, Rav Shabtai Kohen, known to us as the Shach (an acronym for the title of his book "Siftei Kohen"), sat at the bedside of his gravely ill five-year-old daughter. Not long before, his beloved wife — the girl's mother — had died, and now his only daughter was fighting desperately for her life. He sat by the girl's bed studying Torah. Rav Shabtai was so absorbed in the text that he heard and noticed nothing around him. Suddenly, beneath the window of his house, a heart-rending cry rang out: "The bandits are coming! Save yourselves, whoever can!"

Without wasting a moment, Rav Shabtai grabbed his sick daughter, wrapped her in a blanket, and rushed out of the house. Behind him rang the screams of people being beaten and the smell of a fire starting to spread.

Where is my daughter?

The fear of being caught was so strong that the wretched father ran with all his might, without looking back, without allowing himself to catch his breath. His only wish was to save himself and his little daughter from the marauders. The girl was too weak to endure this flight; from the jolting she lost consciousness, and her breathing grew more and more labored with every passing minute. Rav Shabtai heard the clatter of hooves behind him and understood that he would not be able to escape. Without stopping, he began looking around for some shelter for himself and the child. But the girl slipped from his shoulder. He no longer had the strength or the time to flee — the riders were too close. The poor father laid the girl on the ground, covered her with branches, hid himself some distance away, and began to pray that neither he nor the child would be noticed.

When the riders had galloped off and the danger had passed, he came out of his hiding place to retrieve the child. But the girl was nowhere to be found! The poor father was terrified. He began digging through the snow, hoping to find his treasure, but it was all in vain... In despair he fell to the ground and wept.

In the Royal Palace

At that very same time, while Rabbi Shabtai was fleeing from his pursuers with all his might, a royal hunt was taking place in the forest. Hearing the clatter of hooves approaching from behind, Rabbi Shabtai had assumed he had been overtaken by Khmelnitsky's band, and hid. In fact, the riders were none other than the Polish King and his retinue. Seeing a little girl wrapped in a blanket lying in the snow, the King thought she was dead. He ordered someone to check, and when one of the soldiers pulled back the blanket, it turned out the child was still breathing. Among the King's retinue was the court physician. He attended to the girl, revived her, and the King ordered that the child be taken to the palace.

Once in the palace under the doctors' care, the girl struggled for her life for a long time, but eventually the illness receded, and the child got back on her feet.

The royal couple were astonished to learn that the little one refused to eat food from their table, and that her only sustenance was vegetables, fruit, and bread. The King wanted to arrange a future for the poor orphan and began searching for adoptive parents for her, but the princess, the King's only daughter, persuaded her father to keep the girl in the palace. The princess declared that she needed a friend, and the little girl was perfectly suited for that role.

After thinking it over, the King agreed. In his heart, he hoped that in time the girl would forget her roots, and then she could be baptized and formally adopted.

The King's daughter and the daughter of the author of "Siftei Kohen" grew up side by side, like two sisters. They were very much alike in both character and interests; the one thing that set them apart was their taste in food.

Rumors of a Jewish girl living in the palace of the King of Poland who refused to eat non-kosher food reached the local Jewish community as well.

One day the girls went out to stroll in the palace garden. Growing tired, they sat down on the grass. Suddenly the Shach's daughter yanked her friend and protector's hand so hard that she cried out and jumped up. A moment later it turned out that the girl had saved the princess from a terrible fate: right where the King's daughter had chosen to rest lay a poisonous snake.

This incident bound the princess even more closely to her friend.

Time passed, and the girls grew up into beautiful young women. The Shach's daughter captivated everyone with her beauty, intelligence, and charm.

I will not abandon my faith!

Gradually, the priests at court began to try to persuade the Jewish girl to abandon her faith, but the rabbi's daughter stood her ground: despite all the kindness of the royal family and all the years spent in the palace, she had not forgotten her roots, and would never, for anything in the world, agree to betray her people and the memory of her parents. The priests would not let up on her, and it became clear that she had only one way out: to flee the palace.

As soon as this decision was made, the young woman was presented with a perfect opportunity to carry out her plan: a fire broke out in the palace. The very wing where her room was located burned down. In the general chaos, no one noticed that the King's ward had made her way out of the burning part of the building and rushed to the fence of the royal garden. Despite the general panic and danger, the young woman did not forget to lock the door of her room, so as to create the illusion for the royal family that she had burned alive. If Their Majesties and the princess believed she was dead, no one would look for her, and she could finally live as a Jewish girl should.

Over the years Rav Shabtai had moved between many communities and cities, but wherever he was, he never lost hope of finding his lost child. Once, during his travels, he found himself in Poland, in a town not far from the royal residence. The local Jews told him about a Jewish girl being raised in the King's palace. Hearing the description of her appearance and her age, Rabbi Shabtai was filled with hope: it seemed to him that he had finally found his daughter. But the joy suddenly turned to grief: word had spread through the town of the fire in the palace and that the King's ward had burned to death. Rabbi Shabtai understood that this time his hope of a reunion was lost forever.

The Rescue of the Polish Jews

Hard trials fell to the lot of the brave Jewish girl. First, after fleeing the palace, she fell into the hands of bandits, who decided not to let such a tasty morsel slip away and approached the local Jewish community with a proposal to ransom the girl. The Jewish community doubted they would be able to ransom her — so large was the sum demanded. But one of the wealthy Jewish townsmen agreed to put up all the money on condition that she settle in his house, and that when she grew up she would become his wife.

And so it happened. Many years passed. The Shach's daughter learned that the prince who had married her royal childhood friend, having inherited the throne of the Kingdom of Poland, had issued decrees imposing heavy taxes on the Jews of the realm and demanded from them an enormous sum for the royal treasury. And if the Jews did not pay, exile awaited them.

When it became clear to our heroine that there was no other way, she went to the castle and requested an audience with the princess — now the queen — the friend and protector of her youth. The young woman told her how she had left the castle and what had happened to her since, and asked the queen to intervene and cancel the terrible decree directed against all the Jews of Poland. The queen, who remembered her friend and rescuer well, persuaded her husband to rescind the decree. She also sent rich gifts to her compassionate and courageous friend from her youth.

The Long-Awaited Reunion

Several years later, Rav Shabtai came to the city where his daughter lived. Representatives of the community asked him to speak words of Torah in the synagogue, and when the Jews heard Rav Shabtai's words, they realized that a great sage stood before them. The Shach's daughter, hearing of the important guest, persuaded her husband, who was respected throughout the community, to invite the rabbi to dine with them. The meal was magnificent, but neither the hostess nor the guest recognized in each other their own flesh and blood. During the feast, the host asked the guest to speak words of Torah. He began chanting lines from the Gemara, and to everyone's astonishment, the hostess fainted. When she was revived, the guest recounted that long ago he had had a little daughter, but she had been lost. And when he had already despaired of finding her, it turned out she had been living in the royal palace all along, but he never managed to meet her, because there had been a fire in the palace, and the girl had perished. Hearing her guest's story, the lady of the house understood why the rabbi's chanted words had affected her so deeply: her father was sitting before her! And the very words with which he had begun his learned discourse were the same passage he had once studied, many years before, at the bedside of his sick five-year-old daughter. It is impossible to describe the joy with which the young woman cried out: "Father! I am your daughter! I was the one who was lost in the forest that day!"

The husband, the father, and the guests were stunned by what they had witnessed and gave thanks to the Al-mighty for His kindness. And people said: "It is no wonder such miracles happened to her — for in her entire life, even as a very small girl, she never once ate forbidden food!"

From that day on, Rabbi Shabtai ceased his wanderings and settled near his daughter, his son-in-law, and his grandchildren. Rabbi Shabtai bar Meir HaKohen published many books, which were printed with the funds of his daughter and son-in-law.