הרב דוד הלוי סגל

Rav David HaLevi Segal (c. 5346/1586–26 Shevat 5427/1667), known for all generations as the Taz after his Turei Zahav, was among the greatest poskim of Ashkenaz — one of the three crowns, with the Shach (Yoreh Daya), and Magen Avraham (Orach Chayim, et al), that sit on the pages of the Shulchan Aruch as the main “Nosay Keilim”. Born in Ludmir, he learned under his elder brother Rav Yitzchak HaLevi, and married Rivka, daughter of the Bach, Rav Yoel Sirkes, whose commentary on the Tur appears on the outside margin, to the Beit Yosef’s (Rabbi Yosef Karo) commentary that appears on the inside margin. His early rabbanut in Potylicz was served in bitter poverty; from there his path led through Poznan to Ostroh in 5401/1641, where he headed a famous yeshiva and wrote his life’s work.

The Turei Zahav — its name a play on the “turei zahav” of Shir HaShirim — appeared on Yoreh De’ah in Lublin in 5406/1646, the very year the young Shach’s Siftei Kohen appeared; the exchanges between the two giants, the Shach’s Nekudot HaKesef and the Taz’s replies, became part of the architecture of psak. Alone among the nosei keilim he wrote on all four chelkei Shulchan Aruch, and in 5443/1683 the Vaad Arba Aratzot ruled that the kehillot of Poland follow the Taz. The gezeirot of tach v’tat drove him from Ostroh — at the fortress of Olyka he lived through the siege whose deliverance he fixed as a local Purim, “Purim Alik” of 26 Sivan — and after refuge in Moravia he returned to become rav of Lvov, where he served until his passing.

His last years knew grief and vigilance in equal measure: two of his sons were killed in the Lvov riots of 5424, and when the Shabtai Tzvi (false messiah) frenzy swept the world in 5426 he sent his son and stepson to Turkey to examine the man — and set himself against the movement. Beside the Turei Zahav he left Divrei David on Rashi on the Torah and responsa printed in the collections of the acharonim. He was niftar in Lvov at eighty-one; his shul stood until the Nazis destroyed it, and after the Soviets razed his resting place, a matzeivah was rebuilt anew in our own generation.