הרב משה בן יצחק יהודה לימא

Rav Moshe Lima (5364/1604–22 Cheshvan 5417/1656), author of the Chelkat Mechokek, was among the great acharonim of Lithuania. Born in Poland to Rav Yitzchak Yehudah, he learned in the Krakow yeshiva of Rav Yehoshua ben Yosef, author of the Maginei Shlomo and the responsa Pnei Yehoshua. From 1631 he served as rav of Slonim, and around 1650 was called to the rabbanut of Vilna, where the Shach sat as a dayan on his beit din. He was a close friend of the Rebbe Reb Heshel of Krakow, and their exchanges of teshuvot were printed in Asefat Geonim. At the end of his life he became rav of Brisk, where he was niftar. The Shach’s father, Rav Meir Katz, wrote of him: “From Moshe to Moshe, none arose like Moshe.”

His life’s work, the Chelkat Mechokek on Shulchan Aruch Even HaEzer, reaches through the first 126 simanim and was published after his petirah by his son Rav Raphael; its words are so compressed that the son added notes to open them. It became one of the foremost nosei keilim on Even HaEzer, and it is printed on the page of nearly every edition together with the Beit Shmuel, the two carrying the joint title Apei Ravrevei.