יעקב יהושע פאלק

Rav Yaakov Yehoshua Falk (28 Kislev 5441/1680–14 Shevat 5516/1756), known for all generations as the Pnei Yehoshua after his chiddushim on Shas, was rav of Lvov, Berlin, Metz and Frankfurt am Main; English sources call him Jacob Joshua Falk. He was born in Krakow to Rav Tzvi Hirsch, a dayan of the city, and to Miriam, granddaughter of Rav Yehoshua Heschel, author of Maginei Shlomo — and the child was named Yehoshua after him. He learned in Krakow by Rav Gavriel Eskeles, and after the family moved to Reisha by his mother’s brother, Rav Shmuel, av beit din of Reisha. He married Leah, daughter of Rav Shlomo Segal Landau of Lvov, and received semichah from the Chacham Tzvi.

On 3 Kislev 5463/1702 the gunpowder magazines of Lvov blew up, wrecking his house and setting fire through the city; his wife Leah and his little daughter Gittel were killed, and he lay trapped beneath the rubble. Lying under the debris, as he writes in his introduction, he vowed that if he were brought out he would give his life to Torah and carry on what the grandfather of his grandmother had begun in Maginei Shlomo — answering the questions of the Baalei HaTosafot on Rashi — and the moment he finished, a path opened before him between the fallen pillars. The Kotzker Rebbe said of him that before he began the sefer he had learned Shas thirty-six times.

He served in the Galician towns of Tarla and Lisko, and from Lisko was called to fill the place of Rav Tzvi Hirsch Ashkenazi in Lvov after his passing in 5478/1718. At the close of 5490/1730 he was called to Berlin, and after he ruled against one of the heads of the city, that man hounded him out. In 5494/1734 he was received as rav of Metz, and in 5501/1741 chosen chief rav of Frankfurt am Main. In the machloket between Rav Yonatan Eybeschutz and Rav Yaakov Emden he stood with the latter, against most of his city, and had to leave Frankfurt in 5511/1751; he lived thereafter in Worms. He agreed to return before Pesach 5513/1753, but his opponents kept him from giving the drashah on Shabbat HaGadol, and he left for nearby Offenbach am Main.

At Offenbach he fell ill, and as Frankfurt was agreeing to take him back his sickness grew heavy; he was niftar on 14 Shevat 5516/1756 and brought to rest in Frankfurt, and though he had asked that no hesped be said, Rav Yechezkel Landau eulogized him. Pnei Yehoshua was printed in four parts, the earliest of them in Amsterdam in 5499/1739 and the rest in Frankfurt from 5512/1752 onward. It explains the sugyot of Shas by way of iyun, chakirah, sevarah and pilpul, above all on Rashi and Tosafot, from whom he was descended. His chiddushim on Bava Batra stayed in manuscript. His firstborn, Rav Nathan, av beit din of Dobromil, brought his father’s sefarim to press.