A dispute arose between two families that regularly abused and insulted one another. When complaints reached the community, its leaders issued an ordinance forbidding the families to continue this conduct.

Before the ordinance was issued, a woman from one of the families rose and swore that her family wouldn’t accept the community’s decree. They therefore continued exchanging insults.

A member of the opposing family then reminded one of them that he had abandoned Judaism during a period of persecution. Another person warned the speaker to be silent because an ordinance prohibited mentioning this, although he didn’t tell him who had issued the ordinance.

It later became known that Rabbenu Gershom had decreed that anyone who reminded a penitent of his former apostasy should be placed under a ban. One scholar therefore ruled that the offender had fallen under Rabbenu Gershom’s ban forever. He argued that no scholar of the present generation was equal in authority to Rabbenu Gershom and therefore no one now living could release the offender.

Others argued that the offender hadn’t been told that Rabbenu Gershom had issued the decree and had never previously known of it. Moreover, he lived in a different town. They asked whether, if he was indeed under the ban, the scholars of the present generation could release him after he accepted the community’s judgment, since Rabbenu Gershom surely hadn’t intended the exclusion to last forever.

I have considered their arguments. Some deserve consideration, while others don’t apply to this case, and I shall therefore answer them.

If trustworthy witnesses establish that Rabbenu Gershom deliberately imposed a more serious penalty than that attached to ordinary ordinances, using the explicit language of shamta [a severe ban], and if he decreed that this insult must never be directed either against penitents themselves or against their descendants, we mustn’t treat his ban lightly. We have no scholar as great as he was who can annul such a decree.

On this point I agree with the scholar who ruled strictly. If a great rabbi placed a person under a ban during his lifetime and that person remained rebellious and never came before him to secure release, the ban can’t later be annulled. The same would apply if Rabbenu Gershom expressly intended this decree to remain in effect forever.

The argument that someone banned in one town isn’t necessarily banned in another applies only when the ban was imposed to protect the personal honor of the one who pronounced it. A ban imposed for the honor of Heaven applies everywhere. Scripture says, “There is no wisdom, understanding or counsel against the Lord,” placing great and small on the same level in such a matter.

This is especially true of Rabbenu Gershom, the Light of the Exile, from whose teachings we all live. The Jews of the German lands are the pupils of his pupils.

His decree concerned the honor of Heaven. The Torah itself prohibits verbal oppression. A person may not tell a penitent, “Remember your former deeds,” just as one may not tell the child of converts, “Remember the deeds of your ancestors.”

You say that the other family called you illegitimate and directed other insults against you. The community had already forbidden them to do so, but they swore beforehand that they wouldn’t accept its decree. They relied upon an erroneous ruling that one oath can’t take effect upon another obligation, and they then violated the communal ordinance.

Their oath didn’t release them from the decree. When they swore to disregard the community’s decision, they swore falsely because their oath required them to violate a religious duty and to refuse the authority of the elders who guard the law.

They therefore deserve lashes for the improper oath and exclusion for violating the communal decree, which applied to them against their will. This is so even if they lived in another town because the decree was issued for the honor of Heaven.

Their misconduct, however, didn’t permit you to insult their ancestors after their deaths. Repentance reaches to the Throne of Glory, and the sages said that even the completely righteous can’t stand in the place occupied by penitents. Scripture therefore says, “Peace, peace, to the far and to the near.”

You also argue that later generations are weaker than earlier ones and that our ban is no more severe than their reprimand. Yet the maidservant of Rabbi Judah the Patriarch once pronounced a ban, and the sages didn’t disregard it for three years.

Later authorities may possess less honor than earlier ones, so perhaps a person needn’t observe the outward restrictions of a ban for more than thirty days before seeking release. The authority to release a person, however, remains with the judges of every generation. Scripture directs people to “the judge who shall be in those days,” because they can only approach a judge living in their own time.

Therefore, unless witnesses establish that Rabbenu Gershom expressly imposed an eternal ban, we should judge that righteous man favorably. We shouldn’t assume that he left later generations with an offender whom no one could release, since another person might lose his temper, violate the decree and leave the entire community unable to associate with him forever.

Even if Rabbenu Gershom said, “Whoever violates this decree shall be under a ban,” his intention was that the offender’s contemporaries should impose the customary discipline appropriate to their generation. The offender should appease the injured person, publicly ask forgiveness, accept lashes and walk barefoot as a sign of submission. Afterward, ten members of the congregation may act as Rabbenu Gershom’s representatives and release him.

When the sages said that someone who calls another person a slave should be placed under a ban, they didn’t mean that the offender was to remain excluded forever. They meant that the community should discipline him sufficiently to correct his conduct.

Communities have long relied upon this principle when releasing people from bans pronounced in earlier generations. They act according to the needs and circumstances of their own time.

The case involving the scholar banned by Rav Judah doesn’t prove otherwise. Rav Judah personally banned that man during his own lifetime because of his bad reputation. The offender could have repented and asked Rav Judah for release while Rav Judah was alive, but he didn’t do so.

Rabbenu Gershom’s decree was different. It wasn’t a personal ban imposed upon a known offender. It was a protective ordinance governing misconduct that might occur in the future, so its enforcement was necessarily entrusted to future generations.

I also accept your argument that the offender wasn’t told that Rabbenu Gershom had issued the decree. Those who establish communal ordinances don’t normally intend to punish people who violate them unknowingly. Their curses are directed against those who know of the decree and deliberately reject it.

A person who wasn’t told who issued the ordinance hasn’t shown contempt for that authority. Even if we decide to act strictly, he should be subject only to the ordinary penalty attached to an unidentified communal ordinance, rather than to the special authority of Rabbenu Gershom’s ban.

If the warning came from one of his opponents, it might not count as adequate notice. He could reasonably have thought that the warning was merely another attempt by his enemy to silence him.

You have also said that the community, fearing further trouble, annulled all the ordinances imposed upon the families. You believe this annulment included Rabbenu Gershom’s decree.

One rabbinic court, however, can’t annul the decision of an earlier court unless it is greater in wisdom and number. Heaven forbid that I should presume to release a person from Rabbenu Gershom’s ban on my own authority.

The offender must accept the community’s judgment and appease the person he insulted. The community may then release him from the ban.

Peace,

Solomon son of Isaac