The Dubner Maggid
Jacob Kranz of Dubno, the Dubner Maggid (d. 1804), author of "Ohel Ya'aqob", adopted the Midrash's method of explaining by parables and the incidents of daily life, such as the relations between the man of the city and the "yeshubnik" (village man), between the bride, the bridegroom, and the "mechuttanim" (contracting parents), and compared their relations to those between Israel and God. He drew also moral lessons from the "Arabian Nights" and from other secular stories in illustrating explanations of a midrash or a Biblical text. Moses Mendelssohn named Kranz the "Jewish Æsop".
His most famous parable is about how he finds appropriate parables: Walking in the woods a man sees many trees with targets drawn on them. Each target with an arrow in the center, and a little boy with a bow. the little boy acknowledges that he had shot all the arrows. When further questioned he answers: 'First I shoot the arrow, then I draw the target'.
Kranz's pupil Abraham Dov Bär Flahm edited and published the Dubner Maggid's writings, and a host of other maggidim adopted this method. In the same period there were Jacob Israel of Kremnitz, author of "Shebet' mi-Yisrael," a commentary on the Psalms (Zolkiev, 1772); Judah Löw Edel of Slonim, author of "Afiqe Yehudah," sermons (Lemberg, 1802); Chayyim Abraham Katz of Moghilef, author of "Milchama ve-Shalom" (Shklov, 1797); Ezekiel Feiwel of Deretschin, author of "Toledot Adam" (Dyhernfurth, 1809) and maggid in Wilna (Levinsohn, "Bet Yehudah," ii. 149).
In modern times, a descendent of the Dubner Maggid, Moshe Kranc wrote down several parables of his, along with modern interpretations, in a book about business and Jewish stories: "The Hasidic Masters' Guide to Management" (The Dubner Maggid was not Hasidic, but followed Lithuanian Jewish Orthodox spirituality. There are stories of his relationship with the Vilna Gaon).
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