Poland
In a 1500s, a domain famous as Poland
encompassed areas of a benefaction nations of Poland, Lithuania, Belarus,
Ukraine, and Russia. According to legend, Jews roving easterly from Germany
in a 900s perceived a Heavenly summary Po-Lin, that is not usually a Hebrew
name for Poland, though also means settle here. Settle they did, minting coins
with Hebrew inscriptions in Poland as early as a 1100s. At first, Jews
traveled to Poland to shun harm and a ravages of a Black Death.
Later, Jews came from a south and east, presumably ruins of Khazar Jews.
Polish kings, wanting people to live their immeasurable territories, and realizing
the mercantile bonus that Jews move to a country, welcomed them. Indeed, despite
occasional outbreaks of anti-Semitism, life in Poland was distant some-more pleasing for
Jews than anywhere else. The Polish cities of Cracow, Warsaw, Poznan, Kalisz, Jews
traveled to Poland to shun harm and a ravages of a Black Death
Brisk, and Grodno became vital Jewish centers. By 1500, between 20,000-30,000
Jews lived in Poland. At a finish of a 1500s, Great Poland contained 52 Jewish
communities, Little Poland 41, and a eastern regions 80. During a 1600s, it
is estimated that four-fifths of a world’s Jews resided there.
Torah Life
By a 1500s, Ashkenazic Poland became the
Torah core of universe Jewry, a position it hold until a Holocaust. Producing
the biggest scholars, yeshivas, and sefarim, Poland played a widespread purpose in
Torah grant adult to a contemporary era. Great movements within
traditional Judaism, such as Chassidus and Mussar, originated in Poland. Due to
the relations deficiency of oppression, and a finish miss of acclimatization with
the unattractive, back Polish enlightenment and society, Jewish devout life
flourished in Poland. Even typical people spent many hours investigate Torah,
creating a multitude where Torah was paramount. Some good Polish scholars of the
1500s include:
Rabbi Moshe Isserles (Rema)
Born in Cracow, Rema was regarded
as a personality of Ashkenazic Jewry. His biggest fulfilment was his critical
notes on a Shulchan Aruch of Rabbi Joseph Karo. The Shulchan Aruch reflected
Sephardic practice, and in countless instances Ashkenazic tradition differed. Rema
humbly called his records Mapah, a tablecloth for a Shulchan Aruch, a set
table. He forked out where Ashkenazim diverged, so enabling them to be loyal
to their traditions though also advantage from Rabbi Joseph Karo’s masterpiece.
Incredibly, Rema wove his records into a content of a Shulchan Aruch, thus
preserving a firmness of a strange work. Sephardim review a Shulchan
Aruch though Rema’s notes, while Ashkenazim review a same content with those
notes, and both readings make ideal sense. No other author in story can
boast of such a literary accomplishment. Rema died in Cracow, and his grave and
synagogue still exist today, miraculously flourishing a Holocaust
unscathed.
Maharsha (Moreinu Harav Rav
Shmuel Aidels)
This scholar, financially
supported by his rich mother-in-law Aidel, took her name as an honorific.
Maharsha’s explanation on a Talmud is a sine qua non of comprehensive logic, and
its investigate is compulsory for transparent bargain of Gemara, and quite of
Tosafos. The Chazon Ish, a heading Lithuanian academician in Eretz Israel of the
20th Century and who upheld divided in 1953, wrote that if one does not study
Maharsha’s work, he has though a extraneous believe of a subject during hand.The issues he raises bear an supernatural similarity to current
times
Maharsha also wrote a explanation on a non-legal passages (Aggadah) of the
Talmud, which, nonetheless created in a really opposite style, is indispensable for
understanding those sections. A glance of some of a amicable and religious
problems of Polish Jewry in a 1500s can be seen in a famous matter of
Maharsha, nonetheless a issues he raises bear an supernatural similarity to current
times:
“Many
people are unknowingly of a perplexing laws of a Sabbath, and constantly violate
it. On Saturday nights, many Jews see it as a eremite requirement to waste
time in whimsical pursuits, and incite on Sunday too late to recite a Shema.
During propagandize vacations, youths spend immeasurable amounts of time in a travel in
purposeless pursuits. Everyone wants to flourish their resources by building
palatial mansions, wearing costly clothing, and [engaging] in all manners of
conspicuous consumption. People are prejudiced in financial affairs, and rabbis
who pronounce out per a excesses of multitude are scorned.”
Rabbi Shlomo Luria (Maharshal)
This venerable scholar, a
contemporary of Rema and Maharsha, also wrote a explanation on Talmud in which
he frequently disagrees with Maharsha.
One of Maharshal’s obvious works, Yam Shel Shlomo, is a halachic
compendium on many Talmudic tractates. A really famous statute contained therein
is a requirement that a Jew contingency scapegoat his or her life rather than
falsify even one word of a Torah.
Rabbi Joel Sirkes and Rabbi Meir of Lublin
Rabbi Joel, popularly famous as
the Bach after his research of a Tur called Bayis Chadash, is one of many
Acharonim called by a pretension of his many critical erudite work rather than
by his name. For example, Rabbi Israel Meir Kagan is famous as a Chafetz
Chaim, a pretension of his masterpiece on a laws of lashon hora — immorality gossip.
Rabbi Meir, called Maharam, is best famous for his explanation on a Talmud.
Maharam’s explanation is identical to that of Maharsha, though is created is a much
simpler style. Maharam, too, plays an critical purpose in bargain a topic
at hand.
Va’ad Arba Aratzos
With a accede of the
authorities, about 1520 a Jews of Poland orderly an powerful organization
known as Va’ad Arba Aratzos, a Council of a Four Lands. Rabbis were chosen
from a 4 vital Polish provinces — Great Poland, Little Poland, Volhynia,
and Podolia. For a time, rabbis from Lithuania also participated, and the
council was famous as Va’ad Chamesh (five) Aratzos. The Va’ad met twice a year,
in Lublin after Purim, and in Yaroslav before Rosh HaShanah. As these two
cities were vital marketplace centers, they captivated many merchants and scholars.
Major lawsuit was motionless then, such as disputes between merchants or towns,
along with a integrity of that areas would compensate what suit of the
king’s taxes on a larger Jewish community. By agree of any area’s
representatives, decrees germane to all Polish Jewry were also enacted. As
such, a Va’ad had huge prestige, and was deliberate not usually a de facto
Jewish parliament, though also a reproduction of a Great Sanhedrin. As an instance of
the inclusive powers of a Va’ad, one attestation states that:
“It
is banned for any Jew to lease a collection rights for taxes on whiskey or
any other taxes from a king. One who violates this shall be excommunicated
from this universe and a next, and has no tie to a Jewish people. His
bread and booze should be deliberate as that of non-Jews, his massacre is
invalid, no Jew should marry his children and no rabbi should go during such
a ceremony, and he should not be afforded a Jewish burial. All a curses
written in a Scriptures should take outcome on him until he repents of his
evil ways.”
Another
ordinance of a Va’ad taboo rabbis from charity remuneration to obtain a
rabbinical position. The Polish supervision abolished a Va’ad in 1764.
Jewish Economic Activity
In a 1300s, King Casimir the
Great invited Jews to Poland, giving them special mercantile privileges
reconfirmed by successive Polish kings. Not singular by any discriminatory
laws, Jews became a center category of Poland, stuffing a opening in a Polish societyJews became a center category of Poland
that was stoical of rich landowners and landless serfs. Jews became horse
and cattle traders, cloth dyers, steel workers, artisans, tailors, and
jewelers. They owned taverns, lent money, managed a immeasurable estates of the
noblemen, (the barbarous poritzim of many Jewish tales) and collected taxes.
Such a finish Jewish prevalence of Polish mercantile life worried great
resentment among a non-Jew population, an opposition protracted by a people’s
fervent Christianity. These attitudes would after have catastrophic ramifications
for a Jews of Poland.
The Shtetl
The word shtetl is Yiddish for
small town, and in Poland many Jews wound adult settling in little hamlets, both to
escape a overcrowding of a vast cities and to rope together in a vast
stretches of a furious eastern provinces.
Due to a willing vicinity and siege from visitor influences,
shtetl life was gainful to heated Torah investigate and devout achievement;
indeed, many of a biggest scholars were products of a shtetl. Over time,
the mass of a Eastern European Jews was satisfied in a shtetl, and the
beauty of a lifestyle, and devout grandeur, were a source of strength
until a shtetls were irrevocably broken in a Holocaust.
Maharal of Prague
One of a many famous Jewish
thinkers of all time, Rabbi Judah Loew, some-more ordinarily famous as Maharal, held
several prestigious rabbinical posts, many particularly in 16th-century Prague. Best
known for a Kabbalistic origination of a Golem, a clay being with human
characteristics who aided Rabbi Loew in combating blood libels and other plots
against a Jews, a Maharal’s inclusive literary outlay total aspects of
both truth and Kabbalah, and shabby both a Mussar and Chassidic
movements. Maharal’s papers are still renouned today, carrying mislaid nothing of
their surpassing intellectualism or undying appeal. A statue of Maharal was
erected in Prague in 1917 and still stands today.
Prague
Known as a mom city of a Jewish people,
over hundreds of years Prague boasted one of a biggest Jewish communities in
Europe. From a time of a Rishonim, many good scholars lived in Prague. The
city’s many famous site is a Altneushul, built in 1265 and stands as the
oldest synagogue in Europe. The name Altneu might come from a Hebrew Al Tnai,
meaning on condition, signifying that a synagogue was built with the
understanding that it would usually be used until a Messianic era, when Jews
would lapse to Eretz Israel. Maharal was rabbi in this synagogue, and the
Golem is presumably buried underneath a raise of rejected dedicated objects (shaimos)
in a attic, that for hundreds of years Jews have not entered. Other famous
shuls are a Pinkas and Klaus synagogues, both hundreds of years old. The
ancient Jewish tomb has rows of bodies 16 low due to a singular burial
space, and contains some of a gravesites of Prague’s many famous rabbis. The
city transient drop during World War II, and a Nazis, who designed to
establish a Museum of a Extinct Jewish Race in Prague after they destroyed
the Jewish people, left a Jewish entertain intact.
Other Torah Centers
In a 1500s, Frankfurt, Germany;
Salonika, Greece; and Constantinople and Smyrna, Turkey, were all vital Torah
centers. These cities were heavily populated by Jews and captivated great
scholars who welcomed a hurdles of prestigious rabbinical posts. These
cities also contained copy presses for a distribution of Torah works.
Other areas of poignant Jewish race during a time enclosed Italy,
Germany, Holland, and North Africa.
Overall, the
1500s were a time of good change and huge fulfilment in a Jewish
world. It was a century in that a substructure of Jewish life for a next
several hundred years was set.
