הרב יאיר חיים בכרך

Rav Yair Chaim Bacharach (5398/1638–1 Tevet 5462/1702), called after his sefer Chavot Yair, was among the great Acharonim of Ashkenaz. He was born in Lipnik in Moravia; his given name was Chaim, and Yair was added after an illness. He came of distinguished stock: his father Rav Moshe Shimshon Bacharach was av beit din and darshan in Worms and Prague, and his grandmother Chava Bacharach — a learned woman who wrote chiddushim and was a great-granddaughter of the Maharal of Prague — raised him in his childhood. At twelve he moved with his father to Worms; he was ordained at about twenty-three in Frankfurt and served for a time as rav of Mainz.

In 5426/1666 he was chosen rav of Koblenz, but returned to Worms after three years. When his father was niftar the community passed him over, appointing Rav Aharon Teomim in his place; Rav Yair wrote a sharp critique of Teomim’s Mateh Aharon but never allowed it to be printed. In 5449/1689 the Jewish quarter of Worms was destroyed by the French army, and its Jews were scattered; he settled in Frankfurt. Only in 5459/1699, when the Jews were permitted to return, did the kehillah at last appoint him rav of Worms — by then aged and nearly deaf. He served three years and was niftar on the 1st of Tevet 5462, at sixty-four, and was buried in the old cemetery of Worms.

His fame rests on the Chavot Yair, a collection of responsa first printed in Frankfurt in 5459/1699, whose name joins his own to that of his grandmother Chava. He wrote some forty works in halachah, among them Chut HaShani, carrying responsa of his father and grandfather, and Mekor Chaim on the Shulchan Aruch, which he reworked to answer the Magen Avraham and the Taz once those appeared; most of it was lost, and a portion was recovered and printed only in 5742/1982. A poseik of independent mind, master of the sciences and music and an expert baal tefillah, he held Kabbalah to be holy yet warned against its study by any but the deeply pious. Among his talmidim was Rav David Oppenheim.