Biography
Rav Avigdor ben Yitzchak Kara (niftar 9 Iyar 5199/25 April 1439), known in English sources as Avigdor Kara, was a dayan, rosh yeshiva, mekubal and paytan in Prague. He sat first as a dayan in Regensburg and afterward came to Prague, where he served alongside the two other dayanim of his generation there: Rav Yom Tov Lipman Muhlhausen, author of Sefer Nitzachon, and Rav Menachem ben Yaakov Shalem. His years were years of poverty, and kehillot gathered collections on his behalf; his constant travels cost him many of his manuscripts.
After the killings among the Jews of Prague on the eighth day of Pesach 5149/1389, he composed the selichah Et Kol HaTela’ah — “all the hardship that has found us” — which entered the Ashkenazi machzorim and is said on Yom Kippur. He also wrote a bilingual poem in Hebrew and Yiddish, Echad Yachid uMeyuchad, on the ikkarei emunah, which many kehillot of Ashkenaz sang in honor of a chatan called up to the Torah. Eight of his piyyutim survive, and he is counted among the last of the Ashkenazi paytanim. A fifteenth-century note in the margin of the Vienna manuscript of Sefer Maharil tells that he was close with Wenceslaus IV, king of Bohemia, and held discussions with him on matters of faith.
In Kabbalah he wrote Kodesh Hilulim and Even Sapir, and across his sefarim and his teshuvot he joins Kabbalah to Jewish philosophy; the teshuvot were preserved in manuscript and brought to print in 2007. Rav David Gans cites him. He was buried in the Old Jewish Cemetery of Prague, where his matzeivah is the oldest one still standing in its place, and a copy of it is kept in the National Museum in Prague.
Where traditions differ. The kabbalistic sefarim Sefer HaKanah and Sefer HaPeliah were long ascribed to him, but later authorities hold that he was not their author. Sources also differ on his tie to Rav Yehuda Livai the Elder of Prague, described in some accounts as his uncle and in others as the brother of his wife.
רבי אביגדור קרא היה דיין, ראש ישיבה, מקובל ומשורר בפראג.
Avigdor ben Isaac Kara was a mystic, poet, philosopher and rabbi from Prague and a forerunner of the Jewish renaissance. He was chief rabbi of the Prague Jewish community and a Kabbalist, and attended audiences with Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia during which they discussed religious matters. He was friends and colleagues with Yom-Tov Lipmann-Muhlhausen and Menahem ben Jacob Shalem. Kara's frequent travels led to the loss of many of his manuscripts. His uncle was said to be Judah Leib the Elder. He led a life of poverty and collections were taken up on his behalf from Jewish communities. He sought financial assistance in the aftermath of the 1389 Easter attack in Prague.
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