He married people and divorced them.

He released bachelors from the duty of marrying their deceased brothers' wives.

He superintended a slaughtering department, licensed men as competent killers, examined the sharpness of their knives that the victims might be put to as little pain as possible, and inspected dead cattle in the shambles to see if they were perfectly sound and free from pulmonary disease.

But his greatest function was _paskening_, or answering inquiries ranging from the simplest to the most complicated problems of ceremonial ethics and civil law.

He had added a volume of _Shaaloth-u-Tshuvoth_, or "Questions and Answers" to the colossal casuistic literature of his race.