עקיבא פרנקפורט

Rav Akiva ben Yaakov (c. 5280/1520–14 Iyar 5357/1597), known as Rav Akiva Frankfurter and, after his father-in-law’s family, as Akiva Günzburg, was a central figure of the kehillah of Frankfurt, serving there as shochet, dayan, darshan and paytan, and known as a mekubal. He was born to Rav Yaakov, apparently in Neuss, and was a grandson of Rav Akiva ben Elazar of Frankfurt, himself a paytan. Coming to Frankfurt, he learned under the rav of the city, Rav Eliezer Treves, and was counted among the men of his yeshiva. He married Ella, daughter of the wealthy Rav Shimon ben Eliezer Günzburg-Ulma, and after her passing married her sister Frumet.

In 1548, after the passing of his uncle Getz, who had been shochet (butcher) in Frankfurt and left four orphans, Rav Akiva took his place and moved into his uncle’s house to raise them; his terms gave him only half the income of the shechitah. He did not hold the post long. By 1564 he was a member of the yeshiva, and soon after he was appointed darshan of the kehillah; in 1574 the communal board granted him in perpetuity a fine house with courtyard and garden, and he undertook in return to give a derashah every Shabbat. Each year on Shabbat Chazon he would name the count of years that had passed since the churban, and it left a deep impression on those who heard him.

He used his considerable wealth for tzedakah with an open hand, and his power of speech to rouse the kehillah to found chevrot for tzedakah and for the care of the sick. The network of chevrot he built in Frankfurt became the model that other cities followed, and a tradition holds that giving tzedakah for the elevation of his neshamah is a segulah for finding a lost object. In his learning he was drawn to the Mesorah in the manner of the Chasidei Ashkenaz, linking pesukim one to another and uncovering the meanings beneath them; his talmid Rav Yaakov ben Yitzchak of Zuzmir wrote in the hakdamah to his Perush al HaMesorah that it was from Rav Akiva that he learned the wisdom of the Mesorah.

Among his other talmidim were Rav Eliyahu Loanz, who brought his master’s piyutim and tefillot to print — Techinot B’Chol Yom and Zemirot v’Shirim l’Shabbat, both Basel 5359/1599 — and Rav Yosef Yuzpa Han Nordlingen. He signed his piyutim with the acrostic Akiva ben Yaakov, and among them are a kinah on the burning of Poznan in 5350/1590 and the Chanukah piyut Ani LaHashem Azamer, sung to the tune of Maoz Tzur. His passing was mourned well beyond Frankfurt; the Maharal of Prague delivered a hesped for him that was printed in two editions, and he was buried in the old Jewish cemetery on Battonnstrasse (Germany).