Moses Isserles

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Moses Isserles is commonly known by the Hebrew acronym for Rabbi Moses Isserles, "Rema" (Hebrew: רמ״א). He is not to be confused with Meir Abulafia, known as "Ramah" (Hebrew: רמ״ה), nor with Menahem Azariah da Fano, known as "Rema MiPano" (Hebrew: רמ״ע מפאנו).
Rabbi
Moses Isserles
(Rema)
Kingdom of Poland
Died10 May 1572(1572-05-10) (aged 42)
Kraków, Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
ReligionJudaism
NationalityPolish
Parents
BuriedKraków, Poland

Moses Isserles (

Ashkenazi rabbi, talmudist, and posek
(expert in Jewish law).

Biography

Isserles was born in

Rema Synagogue" in Kraków in her memory (originally his house, built by his father in his honor—which he gave to the community). He later married the sister of Joseph ben Mordechai Gershon
Ha-Kohen.

He returned to Kraków about 1550, establishing a large

Lag Ba'omer, his Yahrzeit
(date of death).

Rabbinical eras

Not only was Isserles a renowned Talmudic and

Guide for the Perplexed, and then only on Shabbat and Yom Tov - and furthermore, it is better to occupy oneself with philosophy than to err through Kabbalah.[6]

Isserles had several children: "Drezil (named after his maternal grandmother), wife of R. Bunem Meisels. A daughter whose name is unknown to us.... A son, R. Yehuda.... A third daughter... who is totally unknown to us."

Remuh Cemetery
in Kraków.

Genealogy

A reputed descendant of

King David through Rashi, he has many notable descendants, among which are included members of the Meisel family, alongside Rabbi Yakov Kuli Slonim, son-in-law of the Mittler Rebbe, the composers Felix Mendelssohn and Giacomo Meyerbeer, the pianist Julius Isserlis, the cellist Steven Isserlis, the author Inbali Iserles, the mathematician Arieh Iserles and the statistician Leon Isserlis
.

Approach

Remuh Cemetery
, Kraków

Isserles is perhaps best known for his halakhic works, chief among them his notes to the

Yosef Karo. He is noted for his approach to customs (minhagim): "it should be remembered that R. Isserles did not regard the Jewish Minhag lightly. On the contrary, he too expressed reverence and respect for it, and whenever possible endeavored to uphold it and also to explain its origin. Only, unlike many great Talmudic scholars, he refused to follow it blindly. When convinced of the unsound basis of a Minhag, he was ready to repudiate it regardless of its acceptance by the people."[8]

Furthermore: "The Talmud is, of course, the great reservoir to which R. Isserles turns as the first step in attempting to solve a problem. The question at hand is immediately referred to an identical or similar case in the Talmud. The second step is the weighing of the opinions of the ראשונים, i.e.

Mordechai, Ashri and Tur, and the latter is followed especially when the Tosafists agree with him. At this point, the Responsa of still later authorities are cited extensively in accordance with the well-established principle of הלכה כבתרא, paying due attention even to the opinions of contemporaries and to customs of Polish Jewry which the ב”י omitted. Thus, Isserles, in his responsa as well as in the ד”מ and his commentary on the Shulchan Aruch, served as a supplement and offered his community the code of Law adjusted to its authorities, customs, and needs. He spread the “cloth” over the table prepared by his contemporary, the ב”י."[9]

Isserles, like

Sinai...".[3]

Writing to a friend who had become a rabbi in Germany, Isserles expressed his preference for living in Poland over Germany: "You would be better off living with us in Poland on stale bread if need be, but safe".[10][11]

Works

Isserles is renowned for his fundamental work of Halakha (Jewish law), entitled ha-Mapah (lit., "the tablecloth"), an inline commentary on the Shulchan Aruch (lit. "the set table"), upon which his "great reputation as a halakist and codifier rests chiefly."[12]

Darkhei Moshe

Sephardim—comparing these with rulings of other halakhic authorities. The Beth Yosef was published while Isserles was at work on the Darkhei Moshe. Recognizing that Karo's commentary largely met his objectives, Isserles published the Darkhei Moshe in a modified form. "In publishing the דרכי משה, R. Isserles rendered a great service to Ashkenazic Jewry, for he reestablished its Talmudic authorities as the deciding factor in determining a law."[13]
An abridgement of the original work is published with the Tur; the complete version of the Darkhei Moshe is published separately.

HaMapah

HaMapah (המפה) is written as a

Yaakov Moelin, Israel Isserlein and Israel Bruna
.

All editions of the Shulchan Aruch since 1578 include HaMapah embedded in the text (introduced by the word: הגה Hagahah, meaning "gloss"), and distinguished by a semi-cursive "Rashi script". Isserles' HaMapah was "considered to be an interpretation and supplement to Karo's work, while also challenging its claim to universal authority by introducing Ashkenazic traditions and customs that differed from the Sephardic ones. Rather than challenge the status of the Shulhan ‘Arukh, however, Isserles established the status of the Shulhan ‘Arukh as the authoritative text. In most of the editions since 1574, the Shulhan ‘Arukh was printed with HaMapah, thus creating an interesting tension that was realized on the printed page. It was an act of integrating the Sephardic tradition and its accommodation into the Ashkenazi world, the confirmation of the authority and its undermining appearing on the same page."[14]

The citations "indicating the sources in earlier authorities of the decisions in the annotations to the Shulchan Aruch, were not placed by Isserles. This may be seen from the fact that many times incorrect references are given. An anonymous scholar placed them at the end of each comment and gradually they have been mistaken as being indications of the author himself."[15]

Isserles' weaving "his comments into the main text as glosses, indicates, besides upholding the traditional Ashkenazi attitude to a text, that the work itself, meant to serve as a textbook for laymen, had been accepted in Rema's yeshivah at Krakow as a students' reference book. Instead of the Arba‘ah Turim, the main text for the study of posekim in the Ashkenazi yeshivah up to Rema's day, he chose to use the new book, which was free of accumulated layers of glosses and emendations, up-to-date and lucid, and arranged along the same lines as the old Turim so that it could easily be introduced into the yeshivah curriculum. This was the crucial step in altering the canonical status of the Shulhan Arukh."[16]

Today, the term "Shulchan Aruch" refers to the combined work of Karo and Isserles. This consolidation of the two works strengthened the underlying unity of the

Jewish people, with the notable exception of Yemenite Jews who still follow the Rambam (Maimonides
).

Ancestry

Published works

Other works

Isserles also wrote:

Notes

  1. ^ Elon 1973, pg. 1122; Goldwurm 1989, p. 75
  2. ^ Mishor 2010, Foreword, p. 15
  3. ^ a b Mishor 2010, p. 15
  4. ^ Torath ha-Olah 3:7
  5. ^ Shulkhan Aruch, Yoreh De'ah, 246:4
  6. ^ Responsa No. 7
  7. ^ Siev 1943, pp. 16–17.
  8. ^ Siev 1943, p. 77.
  9. ^ Siev 1943, pp. 57–58.
  10. ^ Kraushar, Alexandra (1865). Historya żydów w Polsce [History of the Jews in Poland]. Warsaw: Druk Gazety Polskiéj. p. 242. Byłoby Ci lepiej życ u nas w Polsce choćby o suchym chlebie ale bezpiecznie." [You would be better off living with us in Poland on stale bread if need be, but safe.]
  11. ISBN 978-0-8276-0016-4
    .
  12. ^ Lew 1968, p. 68.
  13. ^ Siev 1943, p. 63.
  14. ^ Raz-Krozkin 2006, "From Safed to Venice: The Shulhan ‘Arukh and the Censor”, p. 98.
  15. ^ Siev 1943, p. 45.
  16. ^ Reiner, 1997, p. 97.

References

External links

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