Bereishit

This year the vote went to the Gur Aryeh a supra-commentary of the famed Maharal MiPrague.

As my readers still in Exile will not be able to read this and I also have just finished taking down the sukkah at night, I will write a short bio and commence next week iyh with Noach.

The Maharal ( Morenu Harav Loewe) Judah Loewe ben Bezalel, was probably born in Poznań, Poland, to Rabbi Bezalel (Loew), whose family originated from the Rhenish town of Worms. His birth year is uncertain, with different sources listing 1512, 1520 and 1526.

His uncle Yaakov ben Chaim was Reichsrabbiner (“Rabbi of the Empire”) of the Holy Roman Empire, his brother Chaim of Friedberg a famous rabbinical scholar. There is no documented evidence of his having received formal religious education, leading scholars to conclude that he was an extremely gifted autodidact.

His family consisted of his wife, Pearl, six daughters, and a son, Bezalel, who became a Rabbi in Kolín, but died early in 1600. He was independently wealthy, probably as a result of his father’s successful business enterprises. He accepted a rabbinical position in 1553 as Landesrabbiner of Moravia at Mikulov (Nikolsburg), directing community affairs but also determining which tractate of the Talmud was to be studied in the communities in that province. He also revised the community statutes on the election and taxation process. Although he retired from Moravia in 1588 at age 60, the communities still considered him an authority long after that.

One of his activities in Moravia was the rallying against slanderous slurs on legitimacy (Nadler) that were spread in the community against certain families and could ruin the finding of a marriage partner for the children of those families. This phenomenon even affected his own family. He used one of the two yearly grand sermons (between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur 1583) to denounce the phenomenon.

He moved back to Prague in 1588, where he again accepted a rabbinical position, replacing the retired Isaac Hayoth. He immediately reiterated his views on Nadler. On 23 February 1592, he had an audience with Emperor Rudolf II, which he attended together with his brother Sinai and his son-in-law Isaac Cohen; Prince Bertier was present with the emperor. The conversation seems to have been related to Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism, ) a subject which held much fascination for the emperor.

In 1592, the Maharal moved to Poznań, where he had been elected as Chief Rabbi of Poland. In Poznań he composed Netivoth Olam and part of Derech Chaim.

According to Jewish tradition, the Maharal’s family descended patrilineally from the Babylonian Exilarchs (during the era of the geonim) and therefore also from the Davidic dynasty.

The story of the Golem was wrongly attributed to the Maharal many years after his passing! It was taken from Rabbi Elijah, the Baal Shem Tov of Chelm who was Rabbi Yaakov Emden’s great-grandfather. You can read the story in his Megilat Sefer, available in English translation through Amazon.

Both Rabbi Emden (Shu”t II:82) and his father the Chacham Tzvi were asked if a Golem can be counted into a minyan and both replied negatively. My Rebbe, Rabbi Leperer zatzal joked that if not then Anglo-Jewry was in serious trouble!

Towards the end of his life he moved back to Prague, where he died in 1609. He was buried in the Old Jewish Cemetery, Prague.