אהרן בן משה תאומים

Rav Aharon Teomim (c. 5390/1630–2 Av 5450/1690) was rav of Worms and of Krakow, a darshan of renown, and in the end a korban of the lawlessness that stalked the kehillot of his century. Born in Prague to Rav Moshe, av beit din in Moravia, and orphaned young, he was raised in the house of his grandfather Rav Shimon Teomim of Vienna. For eleven years he served as darshan of Prague, and in 5430/1670 the great kehillah of Worms chose him as its rav and rav of the district — passing over the young Rav Yair Chaim Bacharach, son of the late rav, in keeping with the practice against appointing a rav from within; the future Chavot Yair‘s sharp critiques of Rav Aharon’s sefarim carry the memory of that wound.

Seventeen years into his rabbanut the Nine Years’ War brought siege to Worms, and he was driven out; after three years of wandering he reached Krakow in Nisan 5450/1690 as its newly chosen rav. He had held the seat barely three months when, traveling to Chmielnik for the gathering of the Vaad Arba Aratzot, he was seized by the men of a Polish noble — apparently to extort the kehillah — and so brutally mistreated under arrest that he died on the way to interrogation, on 2 Av 5450. He was buried in nearby Pinczow, and the memorial registers of Krakow preserved a special Kel Malei Rachamim for the rav who died in the community’s service.

His Torah survived him: the Matteh Aharon on the Haggadah — vowed during a grave illness one Pesach night and written in gratitude for his recovery — was reprinted again and again in the decades after his death; his derashot on the Torah, Bigdei Aharon, appeared posthumously, and his responsa stand in the Chavot Yair and the Even HaShoham.