הרב אברהם גומבינר

Rav Avraham Avele HaLevi Gombiner (c. 5397/1637–3 Tishrei 5443/1682), known to all by his sefer as the Magen Avraham, was among the greatest acharonim and the author of one of the two chief commentaries on Orach Chaim of the Shulchan Aruch. He was born in Gombin, Poland. When he was about eighteen, in the years of turmoil that followed the gezeirot of tach v’tat, his father — the dayan Rav Chaim HaLevi — was killed by Cossacks. He learned under Rav Yitzchak of Pozna, and by 5420 had come to Kalisz, where he first taught young bachurim; as his greatness became known, older talmidim gathered to him and he served as their rosh yeshiva , and afterward as a dayan on the beit din of Rav Yisrael Shapira. In his humility he would not accept a position that displaced another man.

He began the Magen Avraham in 5425/1665 and labored over it six years, finishing in 5431/1671. His brother Rav Yehudah set out for Amsterdam in 5433 to print it but was niftar on the road, and the work returned to its author, who revised and widened it. His only son, Rav Chaim, met great hardship in bringing it to press: the manuscript fell into strangers’ hands, and only a cherem from the Vaad Arba Aratzot secured its return. After some time, the printer Rav Shabtai Bass took on the cost, and it appeared after the author’s passing, set beside the Taz under the joint name Maginei Eretz. Terse and often sealed, it drew a library of commentaries to open it — the best known being the Machatzit HaShekel of Rav Shmuel HaLevi Kellin — and works such as the Shulchan Aruch HaRav and the Mishnah Berurah lean on it as a central posek.

Beside his commentary he left Zayit Ra’anan on the Yalkut Shimoni, a Magen Avraham on the Tosefta of Nezikin, and Shemen Sason on the Torah, most of which was lost; two of his piyutim also survive, one for Shavuot and a kinah for Tisha B’Av. His shitah on the zmanei hayom — the reckoning of the day’s halachic hours from dawn to nightfall — is followed to this day by many who are stringent for it. He was buried in Kalisz; among his talmidim were Rav Meir Eisenstadt, the Maharam Ash, and Rav Eliyahu Shapira, author of the Eliyah Rabbah.

Although he died at the young age of 45, he had accomplished so much , and the Magen Avraham is studied by all as a main commentary (nosay keilim) on the Shulchan Aruch.