יחיאל בן שלמה היילפרין

Rav Yechiel ben Shlomo Heilprin (c. 5420/1660–5506/1746) was the rav and rosh yeshivah of Minsk and the author of the Seder HaDorot, the great chronicle of the generations of Klal Yisrael. Son of Rav Shlomo Heilprin, rav of Sokolov and Lubartov, he was a descendant of the Maharshal, and he writes in the Seder HaDorot that a sefer yuchasin in his possession traced his line through Rashi, back through Rabbi Yochanan HaSandlar and Rabban Gamliel to David HaMelech. He first served as rav of Hlusk, where the takanot of the chevra kadisha remained written in his hand, and from 5471/1711 until his petirah he was rav of Minsk and stood at the head of its yeshivah.

His way in learning was the way of pshat, set against pilpul, and many talmidim gathered around him. In those years Rav Aryeh Leib Ginzburg, later famed as the Shaagat Aryeh, founded a second yeshivah in Minsk, and a machloket over the derech halimud spread between the two batei midrash until the latter left the city. Rav Yechiel taught that knowing the order of the generations of the Tannaim and Amoraim is itself a need of halachah, for the posek must know who was the rav and who the talmid. On principle he withheld haskamot from new sefarim, departing from his practice only a handful of times; he was known also as a mekubal.

The Seder HaDorot is built of three parts: Yemot Olam, a history from the creation of the world down to the author’s own day, drawing on the Yuchasin, the Shalshelet HaKabbalah, and the Tzemach David; an alphabetically-arranged seder of the Tannaim and Amoraim with the era of each; and a catalogue of mechabrim and their sefarim that greatly enlarges the Siftei Yeshenim of Shabbetai Bass. His grandson Rav Yehudah Leib Heilprin first brought it to print in Karlsruhe in 5529/1769, and it has gone through many editions since.

Beside it he wrote Erchei HaKinuyim, a lexicon of names and terms of the Tanach and Talmud, and further works in halachah and kabbalah that remained in manuscript, some printed only in our own day; his hagahot on the Shas are printed in the gilyon of the Vilna Shas. By his tzavaah the rabbanut of Minsk passed to his son Rav Moshe, av beit din of Dolhinov.