נתנאל וייל

Rav Nesanel Weil (5447/1687–30 Nisan 5529/1769), known in English sources as Nathaniel Weil, was a rosh yeshiva in Prague and the rav of Karlsruhe, and is known for all generations by his sefer, the Korban Nesanel on the piskei haRosh. He was born in Stühlingen to Rav Naftali Tzvi Hirsch Weil, a seventh-generation descendant of the Mahariv, Rav Yaakov Weil. His father was killed when he was five years old; his mother Miriam brought him to Fürth in 5457/1697 and sent him from there by wagon to Prague, to his father’s brother Rav Lipman, who raised him as a father. Though still a boy, he was admitted to the shiurim of Rav Avraham Broda, rosh yeshiva of Prague, who saw what was in him and arranged his shidduch with his own niece Feigele; the chatunah was in 5468/1708, and Rav Nesanel followed his rebbe to Metz and then to Frankfurt, learning in his yeshiva until Rav Avraham’s petirah in 5477/1717. He then returned to Prague, where he stood at the head of a large yeshiva and taught thousands of talmidim while drawing a meager salary as assistant rav — and where he began, with his son Rav Yedidyah Tiah, to write his pirush on the Rosh.

When the decree of Maria Theresa in 5505/1744 drove the Jews from Bohemia, Rav Nesanel left Prague, and in 5505/1745 became rav of the Schwarzwald district, with his seat at Mühringen; there he wrote the greater part of the sefer with his son Shimon Hirsch. In 5510/1750 he was called to the rabbanut of Karlsruhe, and there completed the pirush in the spring of 5514/1754 with his son-in-law Rav Naftali of Prague. The Korban Nesanel — explaining the words of the Rosh on Sedarim Moed and Nashim, clarifying his girsaot and tracing the sources of his rulings — was printed in Karlsruhe in 5515/1755, and was later set beside the Rosh in editions of the Shas, among them the Slavita printing and the Vilna Shas, where every lomed of the Rosh meets it to this day.

Rav Nesanel served Karlsruhe some twenty years. He was niftar on 30 Nisan 5529/1769 at Rastatt and was buried in Karlsruhe; his son Rav Yedidyah Tiah Weil was appointed rav of the city in his place, and his son Shimon Hirsch printed his remaining sefarim — Netiv Chayim, notes on Shulchan Aruch Orach Chaim and its nosei keilim, the Taz and the Magen Avraham, and Torat Nesanel, his teshuvot and halachic derashot.