הרב יעקב קרנץ

Rav Yaakov ben Zev Wolf Kranz (5501/1741–17 Tevet 5565/1804), known to all as the Dubno Maggid, was the most famed darshan of his age. Born in the town of Zhetl near Vilna, he married at eighteen and settled in Mezritch, where he sat in the beit midrash teaching halacha to the bachurim and would darshan for the community on the parsha without taking payment. He spoke in Yiddish, and wove into his words the meshalim and stories that carry his name. From Mezritch his path led to Zolkiev in Galicia and then to Dubno in Volhynia, where he sat for eighteen years and earned the title by which he is known; in his later years he settled in Zamosc, and there he was niftar.

Though maggidim were many in his day, he stood above them. He was a contemporary of the Vilna Gaon, who asked that the Maggid say his derashot before him as well. Unlike other preachers he had no taste for portraits of Gehinnom or for mussar delivered through fear; he did not care to pilpul or to draw things out, and his words were plain, sharp, and to the point. Moshe Mendelssohn, who met him, called him the “Jewish Aesop” — a name that did not please him.

His best-known mashal tells of a boy who painted a target around every arrow after he had already shot it — the Maggid’s own answer for how he always found the parable to fit. He published nothing in his lifetime; his five works were brought to print after his passing by Avraham Dov Ber Flahm, who found the notes he had left in Mezritch and issued them with the blessing of the Maggid’s son, Rav Yitzchak. They are Ohel Yaakov on the Torah, Kol Yaakov on the Five Megillot, Kochav miYaakov on the haftarot, Emet leYaakov on the Haggadah shel Pesach, and Sefer haMidot.