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Judah Loew ben Bezalel
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Judah Loew ben Bezalel
Judah Loew ben Bezalel (Hebrew: יהודה ליווא בן בצלאל; c. 1524 – 17 September 1609), also known as Rabbi Loew (alt. Löw, Loewe, Löwe or Levai), the Maharal of Prague (Hebrew: מהר״ל מפראג), or simply the Maharal (the Hebrew acronym of "Moreinu ha-Rav Loew", "Our Teacher, Rabbi Loew"), was an important Talmudic scholar, Jewish mystic, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who, for most of his life, served as a leading rabbi in the cities of Mikulov in Moravia and Prague in Bohemia.
Loew wrote on Jewish philosophy and Jewish mysticism. His work Gur Aryeh al HaTorah is a supercommentary on Rashi's Torah commentary. He is also the subject of a later legend that he created the Golem of Prague, an animate being fashioned from clay.
His name "Löw" or "Loew" is derived from the German Löwe, "lion" (cf. the Yiddish Leib of the same origin). It is a kinnui, or substitute name, for the Hebrew name Judah or Yehuda, as the Biblical character Judah was likened to a lion in Genesis 49:9. Lavi from that verse on Judah, is a lioness, hence his name Yehudah Lavi. In Jewish naming tradition, the Hebrew name and the substitute name are often combined as a pair, as in this case in which the combined name is Judah Loew. When Loew wrote his classic supercommentary on Rashi's Torah commentary, he entitled it Gur Aryeh al HaTorah in Hebrew, meaning "Young Lion [commenting] upon the Torah".
Loew's tomb in Prague is decorated with a heraldic shield with a lion with two intertwined tails (queue fourchee), alluding both to his first name and to Bohemia, the arms of which has a two-tailed lion.
Loew was probably born in Poznań, Poland, — though Perels lists the birth town mistakenly as Worms in the Holy Roman Empire — to Rabbi Bezalel (Loew), whose family originated from the Rhenish town of Worms. Perels claimed that his grandfather Chajim of Worms was the grandson of Judah Leib the Elder and thus a claimant to the Davidic line, through Sherira Gaon. However, modern scholars such as Otto Muneles have challenged this. Prior to the publication of Perels' genealogy in 1853, traditions existed of the Maharal's descent from the House of David, not through Yehudah Leib the Elder or Hai Gaon, but through Rashi and his ancestor Yokhanan the Sandlar (died 140 C.E.).Loew's birth year is uncertain, with different sources listing 1512, 1520 and 1526. His uncle Jakob ben Chajim was Reichsrabbiner ("Rabbi of the Empire") of the Holy Roman Empire, and his older brother Chaim of Friedberg was a famous rabbinical scholar and Rabbi of Worms and Friedberg.
Sources in the Lubavitch tradition say that at the age of 12, Loew went to yeshivahs in Poland and studied under Rabbi Yaakov Pollak. After Pollak left Poland, Loew spent 2 years wandering from place to place and then went onto the yeshivah of Rabbi Yitzchak Clover/Wormz, himself a student of Pollak. He learnt together in yeshivah with the Maharshal who was 17, 2 years his elder. He learnt together with the Maharshal and Rema for a further 3 years. Rav Yitzchok Clover was in fact the grandfather of the Maharshal. The Maharshal left Poland and the Maharal remained and studied with the Rema for 2 more years. Maharal was 6 years his senior. He spent 20 years studying before he married.[citation needed]
Loew 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 1573 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.
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Judah Loew ben Bezalel
Judah Loew ben Bezalel (Hebrew: יהודה ליווא בן בצלאל; c. 1524 – 17 September 1609), also known as Rabbi Loew (alt. Löw, Loewe, Löwe or Levai), the Maharal of Prague (Hebrew: מהר״ל מפראג), or simply the Maharal (the Hebrew acronym of "Moreinu ha-Rav Loew", "Our Teacher, Rabbi Loew"), was an important Talmudic scholar, Jewish mystic, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who, for most of his life, served as a leading rabbi in the cities of Mikulov in Moravia and Prague in Bohemia.
Loew wrote on Jewish philosophy and Jewish mysticism. His work Gur Aryeh al HaTorah is a supercommentary on Rashi's Torah commentary. He is also the subject of a later legend that he created the Golem of Prague, an animate being fashioned from clay.
His name "Löw" or "Loew" is derived from the German Löwe, "lion" (cf. the Yiddish Leib of the same origin). It is a kinnui, or substitute name, for the Hebrew name Judah or Yehuda, as the Biblical character Judah was likened to a lion in Genesis 49:9. Lavi from that verse on Judah, is a lioness, hence his name Yehudah Lavi. In Jewish naming tradition, the Hebrew name and the substitute name are often combined as a pair, as in this case in which the combined name is Judah Loew. When Loew wrote his classic supercommentary on Rashi's Torah commentary, he entitled it Gur Aryeh al HaTorah in Hebrew, meaning "Young Lion [commenting] upon the Torah".
Loew's tomb in Prague is decorated with a heraldic shield with a lion with two intertwined tails (queue fourchee), alluding both to his first name and to Bohemia, the arms of which has a two-tailed lion.
Loew was probably born in Poznań, Poland, — though Perels lists the birth town mistakenly as Worms in the Holy Roman Empire — to Rabbi Bezalel (Loew), whose family originated from the Rhenish town of Worms. Perels claimed that his grandfather Chajim of Worms was the grandson of Judah Leib the Elder and thus a claimant to the Davidic line, through Sherira Gaon. However, modern scholars such as Otto Muneles have challenged this. Prior to the publication of Perels' genealogy in 1853, traditions existed of the Maharal's descent from the House of David, not through Yehudah Leib the Elder or Hai Gaon, but through Rashi and his ancestor Yokhanan the Sandlar (died 140 C.E.).Loew's birth year is uncertain, with different sources listing 1512, 1520 and 1526. His uncle Jakob ben Chajim was Reichsrabbiner ("Rabbi of the Empire") of the Holy Roman Empire, and his older brother Chaim of Friedberg was a famous rabbinical scholar and Rabbi of Worms and Friedberg.
Sources in the Lubavitch tradition say that at the age of 12, Loew went to yeshivahs in Poland and studied under Rabbi Yaakov Pollak. After Pollak left Poland, Loew spent 2 years wandering from place to place and then went onto the yeshivah of Rabbi Yitzchak Clover/Wormz, himself a student of Pollak. He learnt together in yeshivah with the Maharshal who was 17, 2 years his elder. He learnt together with the Maharshal and Rema for a further 3 years. Rav Yitzchok Clover was in fact the grandfather of the Maharshal. The Maharshal left Poland and the Maharal remained and studied with the Rema for 2 more years. Maharal was 6 years his senior. He spent 20 years studying before he married.[citation needed]
Loew 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 1573 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.
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