For some time now, Rabbi David Halevi Segal, author of the Turei Zahav (Taz, 1586 to 1667), had been restless. True, his rabbinate was thriving. His community in Ostroh, in western Ukraine, accepted his authority without question. The rulings of the rabbinical court he headed were accepted by all. His book had been received throughout the Jewish world and had become a guiding light for every rabbi and halachic decisor. And yet he felt incomplete.

For years he had longed to do what many great Jewish sages had done before him — leave their homes and go into "exile," wandering from town to town, feeling the pain of the Divine Presence's exile in their own displacement and discomfort.

He dressed in worn-out clothes, packed a loaf of bread and a few books into a beggar's sack, took a walking stick in hand, and quietly left Ostroh.

Though no longer young, he wandered on foot from town to town, village to village. On Mondays and Thursdays, he fasted, and he never stayed more than one night in the same place. On the other days of the week, he ate only dry bread. Only on Shabbat did he allow himself a cooked meal.

He wandered like this for six months, until his strength gave out. When he finally reached the city of Lemberg (known in Russian as Lvov and in Ukrainian as Lviv), he decided to rest until he regained enough strength to continue his travels. But his body proved to be too weak. So Rabbi David decided to remain in Lemberg and continue his "exile" within the city itself.

He did not want to support himself by collecting charity, so he hired himself out as a menaker — a worker who removes forbidden veins and fats from slaughtered meat. "This is hard, dirty, and degrading work — fitting for what I need," he said to himself.

Before long, he gained a reputation as an expert menaker. He knew the location of even the most hidden veins, and no pocket of forbidden fat escaped his notice.

It happened more than once that, while standing before customers, he would suddenly become absorbed in some difficult halachic question and completely forget what the customers wanted. They would stare at him in wonder until he would snap out of it and quickly try to please the disgruntled customers.

But he suffered far more from his fellow menakrim. Being an expert in the laws of vein-removal and knowing precisely the required length to be removed in both large and small animals (he wrote a decisive commentary on the matter), he could not stay silent when he saw his colleagues' sloppy work. Because of this, they frequently quarreled with him and looked for ways to find fault with his work.

One day a question arose about a cow that had been slaughtered, and Rabbi David ruled it kosher. His peers examined it too and claimed it was not kosher. They argued back and forth until they decided to bring the matter before the rabbi of the city, Rabbi Meir Zak, who ruled in favor of those who had declared it forbidden. But Rabbi David stood by his opinion and brought proofs from the Talmud and rabbinic authorities to support his position.

The rabbi felt this amounted to disrespect toward the local rabbinic authority, and decided to punish the stubborn worker.

"Put him in the shand klutz," Rabbi Meir ordered, referring to the stocks in the synagogue courtyard where the community would shame wrongdoers and troublemakers.

Rabbi David accepted the judgment. He stood there all day, immersed in Torah thoughts. Toward evening, a boy passed by on his way to the ritual slaughterer's house. In the conversation that developed between him and Rabbi David, the boy told him he had been sent to ask whether a chicken was kosher or not, and that the rabbi had declared it forbidden.

The prisoner asked the boy to show him the chicken. He examined it and said to the boy: "Go back to the rabbi and tell him to look in Yoreh De'ah, Laws of Forbidden Fats, such-and-such chapter in the Turei Zahav, such-and-such subsection, and he will understand for himself that the chicken is, in fact, kosher."

The boy returned to the rabbi and relayed what the man in the synagogue pillory had told him to say. The rabbi looked it up in the book and was startled to discover that he had indeed overlooked something explicitly stated in the Turei Zahav.

At that moment, the rabbi realized that the "vagrant" he had punished was in fact a great Torah scholar. He immediately sent the synagogue caretaker to release Rabbi David.

The prisoner was freed, and to show the rabbi he held no grudge, he went to visit him at home. The two sat and discussed Torah matters, and the rabbi became convinced that the man before him was a brilliant scholar.

The rabbi asked him to reveal his identity, and Rabbi David, forced to comply with the rabbi's request, revealed that he was the author of the Turei Zahav and Rabbi of Ostroh. The rabbi was stunned by the revelation. He begged forgiveness from Rabbi David and apologized again and again for having acted so hastily toward him. Rabbi David, in his humility, replied that the rabbi had acted properly, and even apologized himself in case he had, in the heat of the debate, failed to show the rabbi due respect.

The moment Rabbi David left the rabbi's house, the rabbi summoned the city's leaders. He told them the whole story and said, "Know that this man is a great scholar and worthy of sitting in my place on the seat of the rabbinate. My eyes are dim, and behold, G‑d has brought before you a man full of the spirit of the L-rd. Let him rise and come to the place prepared for him."

The leaders of the community kept the rabbi in his position and appointed the author of the Turei Zahav as head of the rabbinical court. And when Rabbi Meir passed away, they seated Rabbi David upon his position.

Adapted from Tzadikim Lemofet, with thanks to Rabbi Hillel Baron