אברהם בן בנימין זאב בריסקר

Rav Avraham ben Binyamin Zev of Brisk (niftar 5460/1700), known in English sources as Abraham Brisker, was a talmid chacham and mechaber of Poland-Lithuania. After the expulsion of the Jews of Lithuania in 5415/1655 he made his way to Vienna, where he learned under the mekubal Rav Shabtai Sheftel Horowitz; when Vienna’s Jews were expelled in turn in 5430/1670, he settled in Brisk (Brest-Litovsk), married a daughter of Rav Eliyahu Lipschutz, and continued learning under Rav Mordechai Guenzburg and Rav Tzvi Hirsch. He represented Brisk at the gathering of the Va’ad Arba Aratzot in Lublin in 5443/1683.

He wrote three sefarim: Asarah Ma’amarot (Frankfurt an der Oder 5440/1680), on the ten utterances with which the world was created, as counted in Pirkei Avot; Zera Avraham (Sulzbach 5445/1685), derashot joining the parshiyot of the week with other pesukim, midrashim, and peirushim in the way of peshat — in which he also tells of his trials, his wanderings, and his longing, never fulfilled, to settle in Eretz Yisrael; and Perush al Eser Atarot (Frankfurt an der Oder 5458/1698), a kabbalistic work on the Aseret HaDibrot. Teshuvot of his are found in the collections of the poskim of his generation.