הרב שלמה לוריא

Rav Shlomo Luria (5270/1510–12 Kislev 5334/1573), the Maharshal, was among the great poskim and Talmud commentators of Ashkenaz and a leader of its Jewry in the sixteenth century. He came from the Luria line, which traced its descent to Rashi; his father, Rav Yechiel, was niftar while he was young, and he was raised in the home of his mother’s father, Rav Yitzchak Klauber, from whom he learned Talmud. He studied in Lublin under Rav Shalom Shachna and in Ostroh under Rav Kalman Haberkasten, whose daughter he married. He headed the yeshiva in Brisk and served there as dayan, and was held to be among the first to plant deep Torah learning in Lithuania.

In 5304/1544 he was chosen rav of Ostroh in place of his father-in-law, and by royal decree was made rav of all Volhynia. In 5313/1553 he moved to Lublin as av beit din and rosh yeshiva; after a dispute with the son of Rav Shalom Shachna over the method of “chilukim” he left to open his own yeshiva, whose shul stood until the Second World War. He was a relative of the Rema, Rav Moshe Isserles, with whom he exchanged letters — at times pointed, yet in mutual regard — among them their famous discussion of whether one may study philosophy. He was niftar in Lublin at sixty-three.

His Yam Shel Shlomo, arranged by the order of the tractates, was his life’s halachic work: he objected to setting down rulings without their derivation, and so brought the views of all the poskim on each matter before deciding. Planned on sixteen tractates, it reaches us on seven. His Chochmat Shlomo corrects the girsa of the Bavli, and an abridged form of it is printed at the close of the tractates in nearly every edition of the Gemara. He wrote as well Yeriot Shlomo on Rashi’s Chumash commentary, Amudei Shlomo on the Semag, glosses on the Sha’arei Dura, and his responsa, the Teshuvot Maharshal. Among his talmidim were Rav Yehoshua Falk, author of the Sma; Rav Shlomo Ephraim of Luntschitz, author of the Kli Yakar; and Rav Mordechai Yaffe of the Levushim.