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answer is more complicated than for any other
rabbi in Luboml.
According to encyclopedias and rabbinical
anthologies, R. Shimon-Wolf was the fourth rabbi
in Luboml, following R. Moyshe Mess. We would
use the same order, except that according to our
calculations it has no basis, as it conflicts with
other facts and data. Why?
It is clear from all available sources, among
them his tombstone, that the first three rabbinical
posts of R Shimon-Wolf were Turbin, Luboml,
and Lublin. The time he spent in the first two
communities is unknown to us, but we do know
that he was head of the rabbinical court (and head
of the yeshiva?) in Lublin from 1579 until 1585.
By all accounts, since R Shimon-Wolf was
head of the rabbinical court in Luboml before he
went to Lublin , his tenure in Luboml must have
been prior to 1579. But if we assume the accuracy
of all encyclopedias and rabbinical genealogies,
it appears that R. Shimon-Wolf was rabbi in
Luboml after R. Moyshe Mess.
But we are certain (from one of his own
books) that R. Moyshe Mess was rabbi in Luboml
from 1596 to 1597, thus R. Shimon-Wolf would
have been head of the rabbinical court at the end
of the 1590s, a full 20 years after he came to
Lublin. But this is impossible for another reason:
The rabbinate in Luboml at that time was occupied.
In short, the issue is very confused, and it
seems to us that R. Shimon-Wolf was not rabbi in
Luboml after R. Moyshe Mess but after R. Avrom
Pollackand he was there only for a very short
time.
The rabbi and sage R. Shimon-Wolf, son of
Dovid Tevli Auerbach, was one of the most esteemed
rabbis of his time, as can be seen from all
the important posts he later held. In one place he
is referred to as nothing less than "one of the seven
pillars of the world, a light to the Exile"and this
was no exaggeration, as sometimes happens when
rabbinic titles are given, for among the other seven
pillars we find such geniuses and Torah luminarles
as the Maharshe," the Bach, and the author of
°Belot Ephraim, R. Shloyme Ephraim Lunshitz."
Before coming to Luboml, R. Shimon-Wolf
was head of the rabbinical court in Turbin, but
there, too, he remained only a short while.
THE EARLY DAYS 25
That R. Shimon-Wolf was one of the greats of
his time can be deduced from the fact that he ran
a great yeshiva in Lublin at the same time as the
Maharam, who already was considered one of the
greatest gaonim; he was at the same time a rosh
metivta in another yeshiva, while serving as av
bet din [head of the rabbinical court] in the town.
In all the talk of the Maharam being the
competitor of R. Shimon-Wolf, there is no little
exaggeration. True, the Maharam was not one of
the easiest to be around and did not particularly
suffer from modesty. He thought highly of his
own genius and had sharp words even for the
greatest scholars of his day and of previous eras.
There are biting comments in his books directed
at scholars such as the Bet Yosef, the Ramah, the
Maharsha, Rashal baal HaLevushim, and the
Samah. For example, in his responsa (sec. 194)
the Maharam of Lublin says about the Bet Yosef,
"I have not only caught him on this viewpoint,
but I have stacks and stacks of opinions contrary
to his and to the erroneous words he has said."
But in the beginning the Maharam did get
along with R. Shimon-Wolf. They even coordinated
the studies in the yeshivas so that they were
both teaching the same tractate. The two sages
had apparently agreed that on the basis of their
simultaneous innovations a grand intellectual
talmudic structure would later be built, the details
of which are not known.
But this idyll did not last. The disputea
dispute for the sake of Heavenbroke out precisely
because of their simultaneous new interpretations
of the same talmudic tractate.
We learn of this from the well-known
Serotzker Ray, R. Yosef Levinshteyn, who was
related, through his father and mother, to both the
Maharam and R. Shimon-Wolf."
After every session, especially when it was a
difficult one and each rosh yeshiva had to resolve
difficult issues, students from both yeshivas later
asked one another, "How did your rabbi decide
the issue?" When the answer was not identical,
the students began to quarrel, each saying their
rabbi had given the correct answer.
The quarrels among students obviously had
to reach their rabbis. When the communal leaders
saw that a simple compromise could not
prevent the conflict from continually flaring up