Levush malkhut (Royal Garment)

Mordechai Jaffe

1603

Introduction

I have divided this garment into three parts, all of which can serve as cloaks for the rabbis. I have arranged them in the following order: the first part is my commentary on the Guide; the second, my commentary on the Laws of the Sanctification of the New Moon, and the third part, my commentary on Recanati. For all the students of the…

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Creator Bio

Mordechai Jaffe

1530–1612

Mordechai ben Abraham Jaffe was born in Prague but moved to Poland at a young age to study with Solomon Luria and Moses Isserles. In 1553, he was appointed head of the Prague yeshiva. In 1592, he became rabbi of the city, and from 1599 until his death he served as the rabbi of Poznań. For the last six years of his life, he was one of the leading rabbinic figures in the Council of the Four Lands. Five volumes of his monumental work, Levush malkhut (Royal Garment), are a commentary on the Shulḥan ‘arukh (printed in 1590, 1594, 1598, and 1599); others are a commentary on Maimonides (1595) and Rashi (1604). His kabbalistic exegesis (1595) a book of homilies, was never printed.

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