Moses Isserles

Moses Isserles (or Moshe Isserlis) (1530 - 1572), was a rabbi and Talmudist, best known for his fundamental work of halakha (Jewish law), titled the Mapah (HaMapah), a component of the Shulkhan Arukh; he is also well known for Darkhei Moshe, a commentary on the Tur. Isserles is also "the ReMA" (or "the RAMA") רמ״א, the Hebrew acronym for Rabbi Moses Isserles.

Biography

Rabbi Isserles was born in Kraków; he studied in Lublin under Rabbi Shalom Shachna, who became his father in law. Isserles later founded the Kraków yeshiva. He became a world-renowned scholar and was approached by many other well-known rabbis, including Yosef Karo, for Halachic decisions. He was one of the greatest Jewish scholars of Poland, and was the primary halachic authority for European Jewry of his day. Not only was Isserles a renowned Talmudic and legal scholar, he was also learned in Kabbalah, and studied history, astronomy and Greek philosophy.

Works

Darkhei Moshe is a commentary on the Tur - as well as on the Beth Yosef, Yosef Karo's commentary on the Tur and the work underlying the Shulkhan Arukh. Isserles had originally intended the Darkhei Moshe to serve as a basis for subsequent halakhic decisions. As such, in this work he evaluates the rulings of the Tur - which was widely accepted among the Ashkenazim and Sephardim - as compared 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 these objectives, Isserles published the Darkhei Moshe in a modified form. An abridgement of the original work is published with the Tur. The complete version of the Darkhei Moshe is published separately.

HaMapah is written as a gloss to the Shulkhan Arukh of Yosef Karo, discussing cases where Sephardi and Ashkenazi customs differ. (Hamapah is the "tablecloth" for the Shulkhan Arukh, the "set table".) Karo had based his normative positions on three authorities: Maimonides, Asher ben Jehiel (the Rosh), and Isaac Alfasi (the Rif). Of these, only Asher ben Jehiel had non-Sephardic roots, having lived most of his life in Germany before moving to Spain, but even so his work is largely Sephardic in orientation. Isserles thus created a series of glosses, in which he supplemented Karo with material drawn from the laws and customs of Ashkenazi Jewry. All editions of the Shulkhan Arukh since 1571 include Hamapah embedded in the text (introduced by הגה Hagahah, gloss), and distinguished by a semi-cursive, "Rashi", script. Today, "Shulkhan Arukh" refers to the combined work of Karo and Isserles.

Isserles also wrote Torath ha-Chatath (mainly on kashrut, the dietary laws), Torath ha-Olah and Mechir Yayin (both philosophical). In addition, he authored a work of responsa (Teshuvot Rema).

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See also: Moses Isserles, 1530, 1571, 1572, Acronym, Asher ben Jehiel, Ashkenazi, Germany, Halakha, Hebrew language