When the Maharam died in prison, the Rosh knew the Maharam's captors would be after him next, so he fled to Provence and ultimately to Toldedo, Spain. An Ashkenazi Jew surrounded by Sephardim, he encountered radically different approaches to Torah learning and secular subjects. Harmonizing the two paths in some instances and handing down uncompromising legal rulings in others, the Rosh represents an ideal of Jewish leadership in his wisdom of knowing when to be hard and when to be soft.