ישעיה הלוי הורוביץ

Rav Yeshaya HaLevi Horowitz (c. 5318/1558–5390/1630), known for all generations as the Shelah HaKadosh after his sefer, was among the greatest rabbanim of Ashkenaz — and ended his days as rav of Yerushalayim. Born in Prague to Rav Avraham Horowitz, a talmid of the Rema, he learned in Lublin under the Maharam of Lublin and under Rav Yehoshua Falk, and rose through the great rabbanut of Europe: av beit din in Poznan and in Austria, rav of Frankfurt from 5366/1606 until the expulsion of 5374/1614, and then chief rabbi of Prague, the city of his birth. A man of wealth, he poured it into Torah and into the yishuv of Eretz Yisrael; at the Vaad Arba Aratzot in Lublin his signature stands on the decree condemning the purchase of rabbinic office.

After his rebbetzin’s passing in 5380 he went up to Eretz Yisrael — passing through Aleppo and Damascus, where he entered the home of Rav Shmuel Vital to learn in the writings of the Arizal — and in 5382/1622 Yerushalayim received him with great honor as rav of its Ashkenazim. There he began his masterwork; there too he tasted the era’s bitterness, imprisoned in 5385 with fifteen of the city’s chachamim by the tyrant Ibn Farouk until an enormous ransom freed them. He moved to Tzfat and finally to Tiberias, where he was niftar and where he rests.

His Shnei Luchot HaBrit — the Shelah — begun as a tzavaah for his children, grew into an encyclopedia of the whole Torah: halachah, mussar and the hidden wisdom woven into one, “compiled from both Torot, Written and Oral.” Printed by his son Rav Shabtai Sheftel, author of the Vavei HaAmudim, it swept the Jewish world; its teachings — the joy that must fill every deed, the turning of the yetzer itself to good — flowed straight into the wellsprings of chassidut, and the Baal Shem Tov‘s world is unthinkable without it. His siddur, Shaar HaShamayim, carried his kavanot into tefillah; and the mesorah counts the Chozeh of Lublin among his descendants. Few sefarim have earned their author the title the generations gave him: HaKadosh.

There is a widespread practice to say the tefilah of the Shela Hakadosh, which is traditionally said each year, erev chodesh Sivan, that asks for children to be blessed with health, Torah knowledge, and fear of Heaven.