הרב יעקב כולי

Rabbi Yaakov Culi (c. 5449/1689–19 Av 5492/August 9, 1732), whose name is also written Kuli or Chuli, was a chacham and shadar of Yerushalayim, a dayan in Constantinople, and the author of the Ladino Me’am Loez. He was born in Yerushalayim to Rav Machir, son-in-law of Rav Moshe ibn Chaviv, and so grew up as the grandson and talmid of that gaon. His father raised him from childhood to a life of self-denial, contentment with little and little sleep. His first labor was on his grandfather’s writings, which he prepared in Tzfat, and in 5474/1714 he traveled to Kushta — Constantinople — to bring them to print. There he came to know Rav Yehuda Rosanes, the chief rabbi of the city and author of the Mishneh LaMelech, who appointed him a dayan of his beit din.

In 5487/1727 he published his grandfather’s Shammot BaAretz, notes on various sections of the Talmud. That same year Rav Yehuda Rosanes was niftar, leaving his writings in great disorder, and Rav Yaakov was entrusted with setting them in order — a labor of several years. In 5488/1728 he brought out the Parashat Derachim, midrashic and halachic in content, and in 5491/1731 the Mishneh LaMelech itself on the Rambam, to which he added glosses of his own, marked there with the words “amar hamagiah.” In the same year he edited his grandfather’s Ezrat Nashim, at the head of which stand two responsa of his own.

His best known work is the Me’am Loez, an encyclopedic commentary on the Torah in Ladino that gathers the Talmud, the Midrash and the early rabbinic literature into a treatment of Jewish life in all its aspects. In Kushta he met Rav Yehuda Mizrachi, a very wealthy lover of Torah, who agreed to fund the printing of a thousand copies of the volume on Bereishit, on condition that Rav Yaakov take his fee as a shadar from the proceeds and the rest go to designated tzedakah. He completed Bereishit and about two-thirds of Shemot before he was niftar, and the work’s popularity led other rabbanim of Turkey to carry on the remaining volumes. The Chida wrote of him that he was a swift scribe, expert in Shas, poskim and mefarshim, and that the Me’am Loez was written to bring merit to the many. He also wrote Mishneh Kesef on the Rambam, published by Machon Ahavat Shalom in 5779/2019, and a halachic work, Simanim D’Oraita, which was never printed.