Lublin, Poland

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Jacob ben Ephraim

Jacob ben Ephraim (died in Lublin 1648) was a Polish rabbi. At first he occupied the post of rabbi and instructor at the yeshivah of that city, whence he was called to officiate as rabbi in Brest. There he entertained in 1631 R. Yom-Ṭob Lipman Heller, who speaks of him with great respect, and mentions his officiating as rabbi in the two cities cited ("Megillat Ebah," p. 28). From Brest he returned to Lublin as rabbi, and remained there till his death.

Jacob was known as "the Gaon Rabbi Jacob of Lublin"; for he was the teacher of the most eminent Polish rabbis of his time, who studied in his yeshivah and profited by his extensive knowledge of Halakah. Only a few of his responsa have been preserved: these are to be found among the responsa of the Geone Batra'e. Some novellæ by him and by his son R. Höschel, on Yoreh De'ah, Eben ha-'Ezer, and Ḥoshen Mishpaṭ, are still in manuscript.

Joshua Falk

"Drisha" redirects here. For the center for advanced Talmudic studies for women, see Drisha Institute.

Joshua ben Alexander HaCohen Falk (1555–1614) was a Polish Halakhist and Talmudist, best known as the author of the Beit Yisrael commentary on the Arba'ah Turim as well as Sefer Me'irat Enayim (סמ"ע) on Shulkhan Arukh. His name also occurs as the Hebrew acronym רפ"כ ("RaFaC") ("Rabbi Falk Cohen" and מהרו"כ ("Ma-HaRWaC") ("Morenu ha-Rab Walk Cohen").

Biography

He was a pupil of his relative Moses Isserles and of Solomon Luria, and became the head of the yeshiva of Lemberg. Many celebrated rabbis were his pupils, among them being Joshua Höschel ben Joseph of Kraków, the author of "Maginne Shelomoh". Falk was a great authority on rabbinical matters. At the meeting of the Council of Four Lands in 1607, during the Kremenetz fair, many of his proposals were approved. In 1611 Falk and Enoch Hendel ben Shemariah issued a bill of divorce at Vienna which occasioned lengthy discussions among the celebrated rabbis of the time, including Meir Lublin and Mordecai Yoffe (see "She'elot u-Teshubot MaHaRaM", Nos. 123 et seq.). He was Rosh Yeshiva in Lemberg and served on the Council of Four Lands.

Falk was opposed to the reliance on law codes to the exclusion of study of the original sources. Towards this end he composed a series of commentaries on the most influential codes, Rabbi Jacob ben Asher's Tur and Rabbi Joseph Karo's Shulkhan Arukh. He spent his early life composing extensive analytical commentaries on the Talmud, which were later lost in a fire.

Falk died at Lemberg (now Lviv, Ukraine) March 29, 1614.

Note on the name "Joshua Falk"

Until the early 19th century, the names of most Central European Jews consisted of a Hebrew first name, a German second name, the patronymic "ben ... " (son of ...) and, if an upper one, the class - HaCohen (or "Katz") or HaLevy. The German name was chosen to fit the Hebrew one: thus "Zvi" or "Naftali" went with "Hirsch", and "Zev" or "Binjamin" with "Wolf". Those whose given name was Yehoshua, Josua, or Joshua had the second name of Falk, Valk, Walk, Wallik or Wallich. (One theory is that "Falk", here, derives from the German for falcon: just as a falcon circles its prey, so Joshua circled and explored the Holy Land before swooping down on it. Some derive "Valk" from an acronym of Leviticus 19:18: "ve'ahavta lere'akha kamokha" - "Love thy neighbor as thyself"). The name Falk was thus not a family name until the 19th century, when it was adopted by those whose immediate ancestors had "Falk" as a second name. Encyclopedias will therefore have several entries under "Falk", where "Falk", strictly, is not a surname. References to Rabbi Falk are therefore often via "Yehoshua Falk ben Alexander HaCohen" or "Joshua Falk ben Alexander Katz" or "Joshua Falk Katz".

Works

Beit Yisrael is a twin commentary on the Tur, composed of the Perishah, a straightforward explanation, and the Derishah, deeper discussions on specific problems. The Perishah clarifies the rulings of the Tur, by tracing them to their sources in the Talmud and Rishonim. The Derishah is devoted to extensive analysis and comparison of the various interpretations and decisions proposed by various Talmudic authorities.

Rabbi Katz also wrote:

1. •Sefer Me'irat Einayim, a commentary to the Choshen Mishpat section of the Shulkhan Arukh, containing all the decisions of the Rishonim, with an index of their sources.
   

2. •Sefer ha-Hosafah a supplement to the Darhkei Mosheh of Moses Isserles, printed with the Choshen Mishpat, Dyhernfurth, 1796;
   

3. •Kontres 'al Diney Ribbis, a discourse on the laws relating to the prohibition of usury, followed by some "takkanot" (ordinances by the Rabbis), Sulzbach, 1692;
   

4. •Novellae on Talmudic treatises.
   

Shneur Zalman Fradkin

Shneur Zalman Fradkin of Lublin (1830-1902), also known as the Toras Chessed (after his main work) or The Liader (after his place of birth), was a famous Chabad posek and gaon. He was a disciple of the third Chabad-Lubavitch Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn (also known as the Tzemach Tzedek).

Early life

Fradkin was born in Liadi, Vitebsk Region, Russia, the city of the founder of the Chabad movement, Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, after whom Rabbi Fradkin was named.

The sixth Chabad Rebbe, Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn, recalled that the local book dealer in Lubavitch would not let Fradkin see the books before purchasing them, because after flipping through the pages he had already memorized the whole book.[1]

After marrying, Fradkin traveled to study from Rabbi Eliyahu Yosef of Drivin, where he became a great scholar. He resolved not to be sustained from the position of rabbi, but after losing all his possessions, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn instructed him to apply for the position of rabbi in Polotzk, Poland, to which Fradkin was later appointed in 1855.

Rabbi Fradkin and the Rebbes of Chabad

Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn gave Fradkin an honored position among his followers, calling him a gaon, and having him take part in matters of the Beth din. He said that Rabbi Fradkin was so knowledgeable that he knew how many times the letter vav appears in the Talmud.

The fifth Rebbe of Lubavitch, Rabbi Sholom Dovber Schneersohn, also held Fradkin in high esteem, and said of him, “even in the earlier generations he would have been considered a gaon!”

In Lublin

After staying in Polotzk for thirteen years, in 1868 Fradkin was appointed as rabbi of Lublin. This was a great honor, for only very few were allowed to be appointed as rabbis there.

Toras Chessed

Fradkin was a great posek, as can be seen from the testimony of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn: “I am busy and unable to respond ... pose the question to Rabbi Zalman of Polotzk (i.e., Rabbi Fradkin); you can rely on him.” Fradkin gathered the thousands of his responsa into his monumental work, Toras Chessed, published in two volumes (Warsaw, 1883, Jerusalem, 1909).

Demise

In the month of Adar, 5662, he declared to the astonishment of his students: “I can no longer tolerate this world of falsehood!” He died soon after, on 5 Nissan 5662 (1902), and is buried in the Chabad section of the Mount of Olives.

Jacob Glatstein

Jacob Glatstein (1896–1971) was a Polish-born American poet and literary critic who wrote in the Yiddish language. His name is also spelled Yankev Glatshteyn or Jacob Glatshteyn.

Early life

Glatstein was born August 20, 1896, in Lublin, Poland. Although his family identified with the Jewish Enlightenment movement, he received a traditional education until the age of 16 and an introduction to modern Yiddish literature. In 1914, due to increasing anti-semitism in Lublin, he immigrated to New York City, where his uncle lived. He worked in sweatshops while studying English. He started to study law at New York University in 1918. He worked briefly at teaching before switching to journalism. He married in 1919.

Career

In 1920, together with Aaron Glanz-Leyles (1889–1966) and N. B. Minkoff (1898–1958), Glatstein established the Inzikhist (Introspectivist) literary movement and founded the literary organ In Sich. The Inzikhist credo rejected metered verse and declared that non-Jewish themes were a valid topic for Yiddish poetry. His books of poetry include Jacob Glatshteyn (1921) and A Jew from Lublin (1966). He was also a regular contributor to the New York Yiddish daily Morgen-Zhurnal and the Yiddisher Kemfer in which he published a weekly column entitled "In Tokh Genumen" (The Heart of the Matter).

Glatstein was interested in exotic themes, and in poems that emphasized the sound of words. He traveled to Lublin in 1934 and this trip gave him insight into the growing possibility of war in Europe. After this trip, his writings returned to Jewish themes and he wrote pre-Holocaust works that eerily foreshadowed coming events. After the Second World War, he became known for passionate poems written in response to the Holocaust, but many of his poems also evoke golden memories and thoughts about eternity.

Glatstein died November 19, 1971, in New York City.

Awards

He won acclaim as an outstanding figure of mid-20th-century American Yiddish literature only later in life, winning the Louis Lamed Prize in 1940 for his works of prose, and again in 1956 for a volume of collected poems titled From All My Toil.

Selected Works

1. •Untitled book of poems in Yiddish, 1921;
   

2. •Free Verse (Freie Fersen, 1926);
   

3. •When Yash Set Out (Venn Yash Is Gefuhrn, 1938) resulted from his 1934 trip to Lublin;
   

4. •Homecoming at Twilight (Venn Yash Is Gekumen, 1940), another work reflecting his 1934 trip to Lublin;
   

5. •Emil un Karl, a book published in 1940 and written for children. The book is about two boys in pre-WWII Vienna: Karl, a Christian from a Socialist family, and his friend Emil, a Jew. Glatstein wanted children to understand the changes taking place in Europe, where Vienna was no longer the same Vienna ("vienn is shoyn nisht di aygene vienn fun amol").;
   

6. •The Joy of the Yiddish Word (Die Freid fun Yiddishen Vort, 1961); and
   

7. •A Jew of Lublin (A Yid fun Lublin, 1966)
   

Alter Mojze Goldman

Alter Mojze Goldman (17 November 1909 – 1988) was a Polish Jew who was active in the French Résistance during World War II.

He was born in Lublin after the death of his father. He fled to France at the age of fifteen because of anti-Semitism. However, he was disappointed with reality in France and tried Germany. There, he was horrified by what he saw and returned to France, becoming a miner. He joined a military unit in Algeria and thus obtained French citizenship. He was disgusted by the violence he witnessed and returned to France, becoming a tailor and playing basketball in a Jewish sports club. There, he became a communist and a militant, but he was revolted by the assassination of Leon Trotsky and the excesses of Joseph Stalin.

He went to Spain, where he tried to join the French unit in the International Brigades fighting with the Spanish Republicans, but was rejected. In 1939, he was mobilized in the French military and was decorated. When he was demobilized, he went south to the unoccupied part of France (Lyon), where he joined the FTP-MOI Resistant Communist movement, composed of immigrants.[1] His unit was involved in urban sabotage efforts.

In Lyon, he met Janine Sochaczewska, who became the mother of his illegitimate son Pierre Goldman, born 22 June 1944. They separated after the liberation, and she worked in the Polish embassy and returned to Poland in 1947. At that time, Alter took Pierre so that he would not grow up in the country that had seen the elimination of so many Jews.

In June 1949, Alter married Ruth Ambrunn, another Jewish Résistance fighter, born in Munich in 1922. Pierre was legitimized as their son. The couple had three children together: a daughter, Evelyne, and two sons, Jean-Jacques Goldman, the pop singer, and Robert Goldman, a songwriter.

Goldman was elected to the Légion d'Honneur on 19 November 1988 for his role in the Résistance. He died barely a month later at the age of seventy-nine.

Zadok HaKohen

Rabbi Zadok ha-Kohen Rabinowitz of Lublin (in Hebrew: צדוק הכהן מלובלין) (Kreisburg, 1823 - Lublin, Poland, 1900), (or Tzadok Hakohen or Tzadok of Lublin), was a significant Jewish thinker and Hasidic leader.[1][2]

Biography

He was born into a Lithuanian Rabbinic family and then became a follower of the Hasidic Rebbe, Rabbi Mordechai Yosef Leiner of Izbica, and of Yehudah Leib Eiger[3] (grandson of the famed Rabbi Akiva Eiger and another student of Mordechai Leiner), whom he succeeded in 1888.[4] He is a classic example of a Litvish Jew turned Chasidic.

As a young man he gained widespread acclaim as an illuy (a brilliant talmudist). Rabbi Zadok refused to accept any rabbinic post for most of his life. He eked out a living by his wife running a small used clothing store. Upon the death of Eiger in 1888, Zadok Hakohen agreed to take over the leadership of the Hasidim. It was then that he began to give his public classes that would take place on Shabbat, Holidays, Rosh Chodesh and special occasions. The transcriptions of those classes were compiled into his work known as Pri Tzadik.

Rabbi Zadok was a prolific writer in all areas of Judaism, halakhah, Hasidut, Kabbalah, angelology, ethics; he also wrote scholarly essays on astronomy, geometry, and algebra.

One of his lone surviving students was Rabbi Michael Mokotovsky, whose son was Rabbi Avraham Eliyahu Mokotovsky, better known by his penname Eliyahu Kitov.

Ideas

Zadok HaKohen's radical philosophy of Judaism very much continues the thinking of his teacher Rabbi Mordechai Yosef Leiner. Zadok HaKohen was much more of a prolific writer than Leiner ever was. It is therefore difficult to determine where Rabbi Zadok's radicalism is a mere articulation of ideas left somewhat veiled (albeit possibly purposely) in the writings of Leiner and where Rabbi Zadok is actually breaking new ground.

Tzidkas HaTzaddik

You can learn a lot about a person from his dreams. What we dream is a reflection of who we are. It is the measure of our aspirations and goals, and of those values we hold dear and place above all else.

One does not squelch the evil inclination but rather helps channel its energies positively.

Pri Tzaddik, Genesis

Humanity's first sin was not Adam and Eve's eating of forbidden fruit, but rather the way they ate it. The Tree of Knowledge, says he, was not a tree or a food or a thing at all. Rather it was a way of eating. Whenever a person grabs self-conscious pleasure from the world, he falls, at that moment, from God consciousness, and eats from the Tree of Knowledge.[5]

Takkanas HaShavim

Zadok HaKohen said that the Oral Law developed to its full potential after the victory of the Hasmoneans over the Greek culture, a culture characterized by deep analysis and hair-splitting argument. These virtues were converted to a holy nature with the victory of Israel over Greece. This was the fulfillment of the verse “God will give beauty to Yefet and this beauty will dwell in the tents of Shem” (as per Megillah 9b). After the victory, Jews could begin the successful integration of science, logic and philosophy into our natural world, into the world of the Written Law. Only then could the Oral Law truly begin to flourish.

Works

1. •Resisei Layla
   

2. •Takkanas HaShavim
   

3. •Tzidkas HaTzadik
   

4. •Machashavos Charutz
   

5. •Sichat Malachei HaShareit
   

6. •Divrei Sofrim
   

7. •Poked Akarim
   

8. •Pri Tzadik (Compiled by his students from his weekly classes)
   

9. •Otzar Hamelech (comments on the Rambam, and a long Tshuva on Tumas Ohel)
   

Kitty Hart-Moxon

Kitty Hart-Moxon, OBE (born 1926) is a Polish-English Holocaust survivor. She was sent to the Auschwitz labour camp in 1943 at the age of 16, where she survived for two years, and was also imprisoned at other camps. Shortly after her liberation in April 1945 by American soldiers, she moved to England with her mother, where she married and dedicated her life to raising awareness of the Holocaust. She has written two autobiographies entitled I am Alive and Return to Auschwitz.

Early life

Kitty Hart-Moxon was born Kitty Felix in 1926, in the southern Polish town of Bielsko. She had one brother, Robert, who was five years older. Her father operated an agricultural supply business.

As a child, Hart-Moxon represented Poland as part of the Youth Swimming Team in 1939. She won a bronze medal and was the youngest selected on the squad.

During a holiday when Kitty was 12, her parents decided to leave Bielsko because of its proximity to the German and Czechoslovakian borders. The house was emptied in response to the anti-Semitic mood which had swept the town. To escape the danger of proximity to Germany, Kitty’s family moved to Lublin, in central Poland. They left on 24 August 1939. On 1 September 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland.

Ghettos

The conditions for Jews living in Lublin deteriorated after the invasion. Eventually, all the Jews in Lublin were moved into a single area of the city, creating the Lublin Ghetto. In the winter of 1940-41, the family attempted to escape to Russia. They made it to the border, but found that it had closed 24 hours previously. They attempted to cross the frozen river by sleigh, but were sighted when they were about three-quarters of the way across and shot at. Forced to return to the Polish side of the river, they abandoned their escape attempt and returned towards Lublin.[1]

The family returned to the vicarage of Father Krasowski, where her father bribed some officials and obtained false documents for her and her mother.[2] With these passports, birth certificates and identity cards, the two were smuggled onto a train of Polish workers bound for Germany. The family split up to increase their chance of survival. Hart-Moxon went with her mother to I.G. Farben in Bitterfeld and commenced working at a rubber factory.[1]

On 13 March 1943, Hart-Moxon and 12 other Jews at the factory, including her mother, were betrayed and were taken to Gestapo headquarters. The family members were interrogated, and charged at trial three days later with "endangering the security of Third Reich" and "illegally [entering] Germany with forged papers".[3] They were told that they would be executed and placed in front of a firing squad. After the squad conducted a mock execution, the victims were told that their sentences had been commuted to hard labor.[1]

Auschwitz II (Birkenau)

On 2 April 1943, at the age of 16, Hart-Moxon and her mother arrived at Auschwitz. They found jobs working with dead prisoners, which was less physically demanding than jobs outside the camp. In order to aid in their survival, they took items from the dead, and traded those and other items with other prisoners. At one point, Hart-Moxon became ill with typhus, but eventually recovered. Throughout their imprisonment Hart-Moxon maintained a variety of jobs, including that of night shift worker responsible for sorting through the confiscated possessions of prisoners arriving by train.

Rumors began in August 1944 that Auschwitz was to be evacuated. Hart-Moxon's mother was selected as one of one hundred prisoners to be removed from the camp. She requested that her daughter be allowed to leave the camp. The commandant, for unknown reasons, obliged. So, in November 1944, Kitty was taken along with several hundred prisoners to Gross-Rosen concentration camp.[1] Every day, the camp occupants were marched to a nearby town to work in the Philips electronic factory.

The death marches

After four months, in response to advances by the Allied Forces, the prisoners of Gross Rosen were forced on what would later be called a death march across the Sudeten mountains. These prisoners were chosen to be moved, rather than executed, because Albert Speer, the German armaments minister, felt that the special skills these prisoners had gained at the Phillips factory would be useful in other German factories for the manufacture of "jamming transmitters and equipment for high-performance aircraft".[4] The prisoners were eventually taken to a train station and shipped across Europe to Porta Westfalica in northwestern Germany. Only about 200 of the original 10,000 prisoners, including Hart-Moxon and her mother, survived the journey.[1]

In Porta Westfalica, the prisoners were sent to work in an underground factory. From there, the two were eventually sent to Bergen-Belsen, at which point they were abandoned in a locked train car and left to die. After being released by a group of German soldiers, they were transported to a camp near Salzwedel.[1]

Liberation

In the second week of April 1945, the SS guards disappeared from the camp. On Saturday, 14 April, Salzwedel was liberated by the American army. Hart-Moxon and her mother began working as translators for the British Army. Later, the two moved to help with the Quaker Relief Team, outside Braunschweigrunswick.[1]

Hart-Moxon and her mother tried to locate their family members soon after they were liberated, but found that everyone else had been killed: her father had been discovered by the Gestapo and shot; her brother was killed in battle; and her grandmother was taken to Belzec concentration camp and died in the gas chambers.[1]

After the war

In 1946, Hart-Moxon emigrated with her mother to England to live with her uncle who had resided there since before World War II. In 1949, she married Rudi Hart, an upholsterer, who had escaped to England before being caught in the Holocaust. They had two sons, David and Peter.

While in England, Hart-Moxon became interested in educating people about the Holocaust by telling her life story to the public. This began with her first novel I Am Alive (1961), a fairly short account of her life in Auschwitz. Then, in 1978, Yorkshire Television (YTV), while doing background research on a project about women who risked their lives to save others during the Nazi era, producer Peter Morley's team learned about Hart-Moxon and convinced him to meet her.[5] She didn't fit the parameters they'd set for Women of Courage, but after two visits, Morley was so impressed with Hart-Moxon, he submitted a proposal to YTV to accompany her to Auschwitz for her first visit in 33 years and film it, provided she brought along her eldest son, then a young doctor, for emotional support.[6] In his memoirs, Morley wrote, "This, no doubt, was going to be a very raw film... I felt this to be a unique opportunity to add fresh insight to the infamy of Auschwitz as had been portrayed in both fictional and non-fictional films and television programmes."[7]

The resulting documentary, Kitty: Return to Auschwitz, won international awards[8] and was seen by millions. She began to receive mail by the sackful, some arriving addressed only to "Kitty, Birmingham".[9] The documentary inspired her second novel, titled Return To Auschwitz, which was published in 1981. In 2003, she worked with the BBC to make a second documentary, titled Death March: A Survivor's Story, in which she retraced the death march from Auschwitz-Birkenau back to Germany.[10]

Apart from her work for Holocaust survivors and victims, she also worked as a nurse. She studied through a private nurse training course and at the Birmingham Royal Orthopaedic Hospital, after which she obtained a job at a private radiology firm. Later she helped her husband set up his own upholstery business.

Honours

In the 2003 Queen's Birthday Honours, Hart-Moxon was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services relating to Holocaust education. In 2013 Kitty Hart-Moxon was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Birmingham.[11]

Shalom Shachna

Shalom Shachna (died 1558) was a rabbi and Talmudist, and Rosh yeshiva of several great Acharonim including Moses Isserles, who was also his son-in-law.

Biography

Shachna was a pupil of Jacob Pollak, founder of the method of Talmudic study known as Pilpul. In 1515 Shachna established the yeshiva in Lublin, which had the third largest Jewish community in Poland in this period. Shachna became famous as a teacher, and students came to Lublin from all over Europe to study there. The yeshiva became a center of learning of both Talmud and Kabbalah; the Rosh yeshiva received the title of rector and equal rights to those in Polish universities with the permission of the King in 1567. (This, as well as the great scholarship of those who studied there, have led some to refer to Lublin as "the Jewish Oxford".) Shachna was succeeded as head of Lublin Yeshiva by Solomon Luria (the Maharshal).

Works

Only one of Shachna's writings, the treatise Pesachim be-Inyan Kiddushin has been published - Shachna was known for his modesty, and enjoined his son Israel from printing any of his manuscripts.

External links

1. •Shakna, Shalom, jewishencyclopedia.com
   

2. •The Virtual Jewish History Tour: Lublin, jewishvirtuallibrary.org
   

Joel Sirkis

Joel ben Samuel Sirkis (יואל סירקיש) also known as the Bach (ב"ח) - an abbreviation of his magnum opus, Bayit Chadash - was a prominent Jewish posek and halakhist. He lived in central Europe and held rabbinical positions in Belz, Brest-Litovsk and Kraków from 1561-1640.

Biography

Sirkis was born in Lublin in 1561. At age fourteen he went to the yeshiva of Solomon ben Judah. After remaining there some time he went to Brest-Litovsk, where he attended the yeshiva of Rabbi Phoebus. While still a youth he was invited to the rabbinate of Pruzhany, near Slonim. Later he occupied the rabbinates of Lubkow, Lublin, Medzyboz, Belz, Szydlowka, and finally Brest-Litovsk and Kraków, succeeding in each of the two last-mentioned places his teacher R. Phoebus.

"The Bach" was an adherent of the Kabbalah and an opponent of pilpul. He was also critical of those who relied solely on the Shulchan Aruch for halachic decisions, rather than on the Talmud and the Geonim. He was the father-in-law of Rabbi David HaLevi Segal, who frequently refers to him in Turei Zahav, his commentary on the Shulchan Aruch. Rabbi Sirkis died in Kraków in 1640.

Works

1. •Bayit Chadash (בית חדש - "New House", a reference to Deuteronomy 22:8, abbreviated as Bach - ב"ח), Rabbi Sirkis's best known work, is a major commentary on the Arba'ah Turim of Jacob ben Asher. The work presents and elucidates the fundamental principles of the Torah as recorded in the Mishnah, the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds, and the chief codes.
   

2. •Hagahot haBach (glosses of the Bach) - suggestions for textual emendations in the Talmud and Rashi, copied from the notes that the author added to his copy of the Talmud. The Bach's notes are marked in the text as a letter in Rashi script within parentheses.
   

3. •Meshiv Nefesh, a commentary on the Book of Ruth, (Lublin, 1616);
   

4. •Teshuvot ha-Bach ("Responsa of the Bach").
   

5. •Beurei ha-Bach le-Pardes Rimmonim, explanations of passages in the Kabbalistic magnum opus of Moses ben Jacob CordoveroExternal links and references
   

6. •Sirkes, Joel B. Samuel, jewishencyclopedia.com
   

7. •Joel Sirkes (the Bach) (Lublin, Poland), jewishhistory.org.il
   

Yaakov Yitzchak of Lublin

Yaakov Yitzchak of Lublin

Chozeh of Lublin

Ohel of the Chozeh of Lublin

Full name

Yaakov Yitzchak Horowitz

Main work

Torat HaChozeh MiLublin

Born

1745

Died

August 15, 1815

Buried

Lublin

Father

Rabbi Avraham Eliezer Halevi Horowitz

Children

Rabbi Tzvi Halevi Horowitz, Rabbi Israel Halevi Horowitz, Rabbi Yosef Halevi Horowitz, Rabbi Avraham Halevi

Yaakov Yitzchak (also Jacob Isaac) Horowitz (Polish: Jakub Izaak Horowicz, Hebrew: יעקב יצחק הורוביץ‎), of Lublin, known as "The Chozeh of Lublin" (Hebrew: החוזה מלובלין‎, The Seer of Lublin), or simply as the "Chozeh", (c. 1745 - August 15, 1815) was a Hasidic rebbe from Poland.

A leading figure in the early Hasidic movement, he became known as the chozeh, which means "seer" or "visionary" in Hebrew, due to his great intuitive powers (he was actually nearly blind[citation needed]). He was a disciple of the Maggid of Mezritch. He continued his studies under Rabbi Shmelke of Nilkolsburg and Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk. He lived for a while in Lantzut before moving to Lublin.

After Yaakov Yitzchak moved to Lublin, thousands of Hasidim flocked to learn from him. Among his discples were such Hasidic luminaries as the Yid Hakodesh ("The Holy Jew"), Rabbi Simcha Bunim of Peshischa, Rabbi Meir of Apta, Rabbi David of Lelov, the Yismach Moshe, Rabbi Tzvi Elimelech of Dinov, Rabbi Naftali Zvi of Ropshitz, the Ma'or Vashemesh, and Sar Shalom of Belz. The Seer of Lublin also gained the reputation of a miracle-worker who could accomplish the tikkun, or repair of the souls, of those who sought his assistance and guidance. During his stay in Lublin Yaakov Yitzchak was opposed by a prominent rabbi, Rabbi Ezriel Horowitz.

Yaakov Yitzchak was a descendant of Isaiah Horowitz (Hebrew: ישעיה הלוי הורוביץ), also known as the Shelah ha-Kadosh (Hebrew: של"ה הקדוש), a prominent Levite rabbi and mystic.

He was injured in a fall from a window on Simchat Torah, and died almost a year later on Tisha B'av [1] from injuries relating to this fall.

On the day he died, August 15, 1815 (9th of Av, 5575, on the Hebrew Calendar), he allegedly prophesized that 100 years from that day (according to the Hebrew Calendar), the Russians would lose their reign over Poland. On July 20, 1915 (9th of Av, 5675 on the Hebrew Calendar), the Austrians conquered Lublin, and the Chozeh's prophecy was noted in the Polish newspapers.

Works

His writings are contained in four books:

1. •Divrei Emet
   

2. •Zot Zikaron
   

3. •Zikaron Zot
   

4. •Zikaron Tov
   

In a compilation of these works, entitled Torat HaChozeh MiLublin, his commentaries are arranged alphabetically according to topics and according to the weekly Torah portion.

Mordecai Yoffe

Mordecai ben Avraham Yoffe (or Jaffe or Joffe) (c. 1530, Prague – March 7, 1612, Posen; Hebrew: מרדכי בן אברהם יפה) was a Rabbi, Rosh yeshiva and posek. He is best known as author of Levush Malkhut, a ten-volume codification of Jewish law that particularly stressed the customs of the Jews of Eastern Europe. He is known as "the Levush", for this work.

Biography

Yoffe was born in Prague; he could count amongst his ancestors Rashi and before him Hillel, Elnathan (governor of Judea) and ultimately back to King David. His father, Abraham b. Joseph, was a pupil of Abraham ben Abigdor.

Levush studied under Moses Isserles and Solomon Luria; Mattithiah b. Solomon Delacrut was his teacher in Kabbalah. Yoffe also studied philosophy, astronomy, and mathematics (apparently at the instance of Isserles [1]).

He was Rosh Yeshiva in Prague until 1561, when, by order of the emperor Ferdinand, the Jews were expelled from Bohemia. Yoffe then went to Venice and studied astronomy (1561-71). In 1572 he was elected rabbi of Grodno; in 1588, rabbi of Lublin, where he became one of the leaders of the Council of Four Lands. Later Yoffe accepted the rabbinate of Kremenetz. In 1592 he was called as rabbi to Prague; from 1599 until his death he occupied the position of chief rabbi of Posen.

In addition to his Torah study, writing and teaching he was involved with communal needs, and attended the fairs at Yaroslav and Lublin, where community leaders and rabbis from large communities met to discuss matters of general interest. These meetings were the forerunners of the Council of the Four Lands and the Council of Lithuania.

Works

Levush Malchut ("Robes of Royalty") is a work of practical halacha, accompanied by the reasons behind the various halachic decisions according to logic and earlier sources, and includes sections on Torah commentary, philosophy, and Mysticism. This work was divided into ten sections known as "levushim" (garments, or "attires").

While still in his youth, Rabbi Yoffe had the idea to compile a book on Jewish law, which would be used for making halachic decisions. The appearance of Caro's Shulchan Arukh, a digest of his Beit Yosef, led Yoffe to consider whether he should continue writing his own work. On reflection, he concluded that there was room for it since it would contain "those laws observed by the Ashkenazi Jews of Bohemia." When Moshe Isserles' Gloss to the Shulḥan Arukh (called Mappah) appeared in Cracow in 1578, Yoffe felt that Isserles had been too brief as had Caro in the Shulḥan Arukh, and decided to resume his original work, "that will be midway between the two extremes: the lengthy Beit Yosef of Caro on the one hand, and on the other Caro's Shulḥan Arukh together with the Mappah of Isserles, which is too brief [2]." In all, Yoffe worked on this book almost 50 years. However, after completing his book he was confronted by another Rabbi who had also written a similar work, although not as extensive as Yoffe's. They reached an agreement to publish Yoffe's book and to present the other Rabbi's additional comments in glosses (hagahos) throughout the book [see introduction to his Levush].

The work is organised as follows. The first five "attires" are devoted to the laws expounded in Yosef Caro's Beit Yosef; the sixth, Ha-Orah is an elucidation of Rashi's biblical commentary; the seventh, Simḥah ve-Sason, contains sermons for holidays and weddings. Yoffe collectively termed the last three, "rabbinic robes," considering that these should be learned by "every student in that order – philosophy, astronomy, and Kabbalah. [3]", these are: the eighth, Pinnat Yikrat, is a commentary on Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed; the ninth, Eder Yakar, is a commentary on the laws of the Jewish calendar according to Maimonides and an additional commentary on Abraham bar Hiyya's geographical-astronomical Tzurat ha-Aretz; the tenth, Even Yikrat, is on Menahem Recanati's commentary on the Torah.

The Levush is an exception among the codifiers in treating ritual-legal matters from a Kabbalistic standpoint; his approach, to a certain extent, "tended to draw together the Talmudists and cabalists, otherwise in danger of an open breach" [4].

External links and references

1. •

   

   Media related to Mordecai Yoffe at Wikimedia Commons
   

2. •Mordecai Jaffe, jewishencyclopedia.com
   

3. •Rabbi Mordechai Yoffe (The Levush), chabad.org
   

4. •Yoffe, Mordecai Ben Abraham, jewishvirtuallibrary.org
   

5. •Jaffe, Mordecai Ben Abraham, The Levush in the Pedigree of Jaffe-Family