הרב שלמה אפרים לונטשיץ

Rav Shlomo Ephraim of Luntschitz (5310/1550–7 Adar 5379/1619), known for all generations as the Kli Yakar after his peirush on the Torah, was rav and rosh yeshiva of Prague and one of the great darshanim of Polish Jewry. Born in Luntschitz in Poland to Reb Aharon, he first bore the name Ephraim alone; the name Shlomo was added during a grave illness before Purim of 5361/1601, from which he rose to write his most famous work. In his youth he learned in Lublin under the Maharshal, Rav Shlomo Luria, whom he calls his teacher; he later headed a yeshiva in Lvov and went out among the most famous darshanim of the generation.

In 5364/1604 he was called to Prague, carrying the rabbanut and the head of the yeshiva beside the Maharal in the Maharal’s last years; after the Maharal’s petirah in 5369/1609 he served alone, and from 5374/1614 the Shelah served in the rabbanut with him. He stood among the heads of the Vaad Arba Aratzot and is signed on most of its decisions of those years — and in a step out of the ordinary, the Vaad itself financed the printing of his Kli Yakar.

The Kli Yakar — its name from the passuk in Mishlei, a vessel of precious worth — appeared in Lublin in 5362/1602: a peirush on the Torah threaded through with mussar, printed in editions of the Chumash to this day. Around it stand his drashot: Ir Giborim (Basel 5340/1580), Olelot Ephraim for the moadim and semachot (Lublin 5350/1590), Orach LeChaim for Shabbat Shuvah and Shabbat HaGadol (Lublin 5355/1595), Siftei Daat, a continuation of the Kli Yakar (Prague 5370/1610), and Amudei Shesh (Prague 5377/1617), known for its words against the derech of pilpul; a further work, Rivevot Ephraim, never reached print. He also composed two selichot in memory of the upheavals that struck Prague’s Jews in 5371/1611. In his drashot he was a mochiach without fear: he rebuked rabbanim, parnasim, and men of wealth alike, spoke against hollow Purim revelry and tefillah without kavanah, and opposed setting young children to Gemara before their time. In the preface to his sefer he comments on his poverty and simple means.

Among his talmidim were Rav Yom Tov Lipman Heller, the Tosafot Yom Tov, and Rav Shabtai Sheftel Horowitz, son of the Shelah and author of Vavei HaAmudim; his son Rav Tzvi Hirsch filled his place at the head of the Prague yeshiva. He was niftar on 7 Adar 5379/1619 and rests in the old beit hakevarot of Prague, near the kever of the Maharal.