Yahrzeit/Hillula of Rabbi Eliezer Papo - Pele Yoetz

Rabbi Eliezer bar Yitzchak Papo (Pele Yoetz, Chesed le-Alafim)

Yahrzeit - 20 Tishrei

Resting place - Silistra, Bulgaria

Rabbi Eliezer Papo was born in the Bosnian city of Sarajevo, where he also studied in yeshivas and later taught in them. He received an education that was outstanding for its time, not only in Torah study but in secular subjects as well, distinguishing himself, among other things, in the field of medicine, and he also left behind numerous works on philosophy. Among his students were figures whose names are recorded among the greatest cultural leaders of our ancient people. It suffices to mention one of the spiritual leaders of religious Zionism, Rabbi Yehuda-Shlomo-Chai Alkalai (1798–1878).

For nearly 20 years, until Papo left Sarajevo, Alkalai was one of his most gifted students. Half a century before Theodor Herzl, Alkalai wrote in his works that the Jewish people would never find peace in the world until they gathered upon the land of their forefathers. It was he who appealed to Sir Moses Montefiore and to the Rothschild banking family, calling on them to use their influence and wealth to develop the Holy Land. And it was he who first foretold the revival of Hebrew as a spoken language among the Jews. Together with Rabbi Shmuel Mohilever of Mohilev, he became one of the leaders of the religious wing of the settlement movement.

By the age of thirty, Papo, already a scholar known throughout Europe, accepted an invitation from the Jewish community of Silistra and moved to that city. He served there as rabbi for seven years. Despite the relatively short span of his active creative life, Rabbi Eliezer Papo left behind a rich philosophical and literary legacy. Unfortunately, he lived to see only one of his books published - "Pele Yoetz" ("Wondrous Advisor"). The book consists of two parts - the first was published in Istanbul in 1824, and the second two years later in Bucharest. "Pele Yoetz" is a concise encyclopedia of Jewish ethics, explaining the fundamental concepts of Judaism: emunah (faith), geulah (redemption), deveikut (closeness to G-d), kavanah (inner intent when performing a mitzvah), tzedakah (charity), kedushah (holiness), mussar (ethics), and many others. Quotations from this book have spread throughout the Jewish world. Let us cite just a couple of them.

"The constant study of Jewish ethics serves as the ladder by which a person can ascend the mountain of G-d and attain purity of soul" ("Mussar").

"A person's life in this world is fleeting and illusory, whether he is blessed with good fortune or is going through hard times, for a person cannot truly know what is good for him" ("Geulah").

Rabbi Papo remained in history as a halachic authority and teacher of Jewish ethics - mussar. The book "Pele Yoetz" is still considered a masterpiece of mussar literature in all the communities of the Diaspora. It has gone through more than 20 editions in Hebrew, Yiddish, Ladino, and Arabic. Here is one of his central ideas, which underlies the article "Mussar".

"The constant study of Jewish ethics serves as the ladder by which a person can ascend the mountain of the Almighty and attain purity of soul. But even one to whom the Almighty has granted the good fortune of dwelling among those who sit permanently in the house of study, so that he may master the most complex laws of the Torah, must still devote as much time as possible to books of ethics. The higher a person's spiritual level, the more his heart is awakened, and the more he strives to put into practice all that he has learned, investing his soul in what he does."

In 1826, Eliezer Papo moved across the Danube and began working in Romania. There, news reached him of a cholera epidemic in Silistra. The first cases appeared in the camp of the Russian troops besieging the city after the outbreak of yet another Russo-Turkish war. The epidemic spread rapidly, claiming dozens of lives among both the Russian troops and the civilian population. History had already seen many cases by that time of a cholera outbreak turning a once-thriving city into a deserted wasteland. Professional medical help was needed, and above all, the intervention of an experienced epidemiologist. And such a man appeared. It was Eliezer bar Yitzchak Papo, who by then already held the position of Chief Rabbi of Bucharest.

Papo arrived in Silistra at a most timely moment. No one had invited him; the Turkish authorities were entirely indifferent to the fate of the city's Christian and Jewish population, let alone the Russian soldiers. Papo came to the center of the epidemic driven solely by a noble desire to help those who were suffering, fully aware of the danger he was placing himself in. He quickly identified the source of the disease. The infection was in the waters of the Danube.

Papo immediately established "quarantine zones" and ensured that all water used by both the troops and the civilian population was boiled. Field hospitals were set up, and timely care was provided to the sick. The Russian army's medical service was weak, with mostly young and inexperienced doctors, so Papo's help proved invaluable. The spread of the infection was halted. The city was saved. But Eliezer himself could not escape the deadly infection: in 1828 he caught it from the patients he was treating and died. He was only 43 years old.

May the merit of the tzadik protect Am Yisrael!