Kiddush Cup of Judah Loew, the Maharal of Prague

Artist Unknown

ca. 1600

Cup etched with scales.
This silver kiddush cup is believed to have belonged to Judah Loew. Known as the Maharal of Prague, Judah Loew ben Bezalel spent twenty years as rabbi in Moravia, moving in 1573 to the Bohemian capital, where he established an institution of advanced rabbinic learning, the “Kloyz.” After a brief period as rabbi in Poznań, his likely birthplace, he returned to Prague and served as its rabbi from the late 1590s until his death. Judah Loew proposed educational reform emphasizing students’ structured progression to gradually more complex texts and opposed casuistry (pilpul) in Talmud study. After his death, he came to be viewed as the legendary creator of a golem, a creature animated from clay, and as spiritual father of some Hasidic circles.

Credits

With permission of the Jewish Museum in Prague.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 5.

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