דוד בן נפתלי פרנקל

Rav David ben Naftali Hirsch Fränkel (5467/1707–12 Nisan 5522/1762), known also by the family name Mirels, was the rav of Berlin and the author of the Korban HaEidah, the pirush through which Ashkenaz returned to the learning of the Talmud Yerushalmi. He was born in Berlin, where his father Rav Naftali Hirsch served as rav. From 5497/1737 he was rav of Dessau, keeping in his house a small yeshiva of some thirty talmidim, and in 5503/1743 he was called to Berlin as rav and av beit din, where he served until his petirah.

In Berlin he founded, in 5504/1744, the beit midrash on the Heidereutergasse, where Gemara with Rashi and Tosafot was learned; it stood for some two hundred years and drew lomdim from across Germany, many of whom became rabbanim of its kehillot — in later generations Rav Azriel Hildesheimer was among those who learned there. He also labored over the sefarim of the Rambam, taking part in the printing of a new edition of the Mishneh Torah in 5499–5501 and of the Moreh Nevuchim in Jessnitz in 5502/1742, after some two hundred years in which it had not been printed.

The Korban HaEidah was a running pirush on the Talmud Yerushalmi, written in the manner of Rashi’s pirush on the Bavli, at a time when most of Klal Yisrael learned the Yerushalmi only as a side source next to the Talmud Bavli. It appeared in three chalakim — on Seder Moed (Dessau 5503/1743), on Seder Nashim (Berlin 5517/1757), and on masechtot of Seder Nezikin (Berlin 5520/1760) — together with his Shiyarei Korban, chiddushim and tosafot that stand to his pirush as the Tosafot stand to Rashi. In his footsteps Rav Moshe Margalit wrote the Pnei Moshe, and the two pirushim were printed together in the Vilna edition of the Yerushalmi, where they stand to this day as the classic mefarshim of the Talmud Yerushalmi.