הרב שמואל די מדינה

Rav Shmuel di Medina (5266/1506–2 Cheshvan 5350/1589), known by the acronym the Maharashdam, was among the central poskim of the Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth century — a dayan, rosh yeshivah and author of responsa who worked in Salonika, then one of the great Jewish centers of the empire. He was born in Salonika to a family descended from the exiles of Spain, tracing itself to Medina del Campo in Castile; orphaned young, he was raised in the home of his elder brother, of whom he wrote that the brother had been a father to him. In English sources his name appears as Samuel de Medina.

His principal teachers were Rav Yosef Taitatzak and Rav Levi ibn Chaviv, the author of the responsa of the Ralbach, both of whom he called “my great teacher.” Among his own talmidim were Rav Avraham di Boton, author of the Lechem Mishneh, Rav Yosef ibn Ezra, and his grandson Rav Shmuel Chayun, author of the responsa Bnei Shmuel. In his lifetime he was reckoned one of the leading poskim of the Ottoman lands, and she’eilot were sent to him from communities across the Balkans, Italy and Eretz Yisrael — among them Sofia, Venice, Rhodes, Ancona, Adrianople and Constantinople. A mark of his standing was that Rav Yosef Karo turned to him for his opinion in a dispute with the Mabit over young scholars ruling on halachah, and the Maharashdam wrote a psak siding with Rav Karo.

His central work is the She’elot u-Teshuvot Maharashdam, among the important responsa collections of the Ottoman chachamim — close to a thousand teshuvot arranged by the order of the Turim, part printed in his lifetime and the whole edited after his passing by his son Rav Moshe di Medina. Beyond its halachah it is a source for the life of the Jews of Salonika, its questions touching communal ordinances, taxation, commerce and the standing of anusim and their descendants. A volume of his derashot for the moadim and Shabbatot, Ben Shmuel, was printed in Mantua in 5382/1622. He asked that his name not be written on his matzeivah, only the pasuk from Tehillim, “Great peace have they who love Your Torah.” He was niftar in Salonika (Greece).