Creator Bio
Moses Isserles
1520–1572
Also known as the Rema, Moses Isserles was the head of the yeshiva in Kraków. He studied with his father and with the most prominent authority of his time, Shalom Shakhnah of Lublin. Isserles was acknowledged as a rabbinic authority at a young age and appointed to the rabbinic court, but was also famous for his disputes with some of his contemporaries. Isserles’s major work is his legal code, Darkhe Moshe (The Ways of Moses) which appeared in both complete and abridged versions (1692, 1760), but he is best known for his glosses on Joseph Karo’s Shulḥan ‘arukh (Set Table). Isserles also wrote responsa and biblical commentary.
Entries in the Posen Library by This Creator
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Shulḥan ‘arukh (Set Table)
Joseph Karo’s Shulḥan ‘arukh (Set Table)—printed together with the additions of Moses Isserles’s Mapah (Tablecloth) and first published in 1565—was a codification of Jewish law that was easy to use as…
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Responsum: On a Reluctant Bridegroom
There was a certain man in our country who had become totally impoverished, and who had betrothed his elder daughter to her appropriate mate. During the period of her betrothal—the date fixed for…
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Mapah (Tablecloth) to Shulḥan ‘arukh
Says Moses, son to my Master, my father, R. Israel—may the memory of the righteous be for a blessing for the world to come—seeing that the illustrious author [Joseph Karo] of the Bet Yosef [Th…
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Darkhe Moshe (The Ways of Moses)
There was a man in Kraków, and his name was Israel, who built with a devoted spirit a synagogue to the Lord, and who was in his generation similar to “the man who says to Ucal and Ithiel” [i.e., like…
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Torat ha-‛olah (Law of the Burnt-Offering)
Since the last saying has made it necessary to speak of things, which pertain to the eternal mysteries, namely the ways of kabbalah, I will not hide from the reader what is at the tip of my…
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Meḥir yayin (The Price of Wine): On Esther
I, Moses, son of his honor my father and teacher, the leader and guide, Israel, may he live a long and good life, I who am called Moses Isserles of Kraków, was among the exiles [see Ezekiel 1:1] who…
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Responsum: On Philosophy
On the thirty-third day of the counting [of the Omer, i.e., Lag b’Omer]. May there be tranquility and pleasantness in your chamber of Torah. May God continuously save the beautiful pearl, for whom the…
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Torat ha-‘olah (Law of the Burnt Offering): On the Lunar Calendar
I found it written somewhere that the eleven offerings brought on Rosh ḥodesh [the New Moon] correspond to the eleven extra days of the solar year over and above those of the…