Mordechai Jaffe

Mordechai ben Abraham Jaffe (born around 1530 in Prague ; died March 7, 1612 in Poznan ) was a Jewish scholar, rabbi , Rosh-yeshiva and decisor . He became known as the author of the ten-volume work Levusch Malchut , after which he is also called Lewusch . He is considered one of the leading Talmudists and Kabbalists of the 16th century.

Life

Jaffe was born in Prague. He went to Lublin at a young age to study with Solomon Luria . Later he went to Krakow to see Moses Isserles . Apparently at the instigation of Isserles he studied astronomy and philosophy at the same time , as well as Kabbalah with Mattathias ben Salomo Delakrot .

After a stay of several years, he returned to Prague and in 1553 became head of the yeshiva there . He soon noticed that the students showed no interest in actually understanding the Talmud , but rather engaged in subtle discussions . Jaffe therefore decided to spend as little time as possible with these students and devoted himself to writing books.

This is how his main work Levusch Malchut (“Clothing of the Kingdom of God [God])” was created, which was initially intended as a summary of Bet Josef , the main halachic work by Josef Karo . As a basis, he adhered to the "three pillars of authority": Alfasi , Maimonides and Asher ben Jechiel . While working on this book, the Jews were expelled from Bohemia in 1561, and Jaffe settled in Venice, where he initially continued his preoccupation with Karo's work, but then began to comment on works by Maimonides and Menachem Recanati .

After a stay of more than ten years, Jaffe left Italy for Poland-Lithuania , which at the time was the most important center of Jewish learning in Europe. Here he was appointed chairman of the court and head of the yeshiva in Grodno , Lithuania . He later got a similar position in Lublin , and then in Kremenets . In Poland, Jaffe signed the main decisions of the Council of the Four Countries . In 1592 he returned to Prague, where he succeeded Rabbi Loew as the judge who assumed the same position in Posen. In 1599 Judah Löw and Jaffe exchanged positions, and Jaffe remained in Posen until his death.

plant

Jaffe worked on his main work Levusch Malchut for almost 50 years. In the foreword to this he describes the work as “the middle way between two extremes: Karos Bet Josef and on the other side his Schulchan Aruch and Isserles' Mappa , both of which are too short.” The work contains ten volumes, the Lewuschim (“Bekleidungen ") to be named. The first five deal with the halachic laws in Bet Joseph , the sixth with Rashi's commentary on the Bible, the seventh with sermons on the occasion of weddings and holidays , the eighth is a commentary on the Leader of the Undecided , the ninth comments on a treatise on the laws of the Jewish calendar by Maimonides, and the last deals with Menachem Recanati's Kabbalistic commentary on the Bible. The last three volumes were described by Jaffe as "rabbinical official gowns," adding that they "should be studied by every student in the appropriate order: philosophy, astronomy and Kabbalah." From the mouth of a leading figure in Polish and Lithuanian Judaism in the 16th century, these words testify to the influence of the Renaissance on Jewish scholars of the time. Jaffe viewed Kabbalah as "the crowning jewel of spirituality".

The "Lewuschim" appeared between 1590 and 1604 in various editions in Lublin, Prague and Cracow. They were initially criticized by almost all contemporary rabbis, but received an extremely honorable mention from Elias Schapiro, who published a commentary on the first volume of "Levuschim" in Prague at the end of the 17th century.

literature

• Encyclopaedia Judaica , Second Edition, Vol. 11, p. 68.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Paul R. Mendes-Flohr : Jewish identity - The two souls of the German Jews . Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 2004, ISBN 3-7705-4007-7 , p. 92
2. ^ Ronald L. Eisenberg: Essential Figures in Jewish Scholarship , Rowman & Littlefield, 2014, ISBN 978-0-7657-0993-6 , p. 182

Web links

Commons : Mordechai Jaffe  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Mordechai Jaffe in chabad.org