Creator Bio

Ḥayim ben Bezalel

1530–1588

Ḥayim ben Bezalel of Friedberg was born in Poznań (Posen) to a distinguished family of rabbis that included his three brothers, the most prominent being Judah Loew, the Maharal of Prague. As a child, Ḥayim studied in Kraków and Lublin with leading talmudic scholars, such as Solomon Luria and Moses Isserles, under Shalom Shakhnah. In 1549, he moved to Worms, where he succeeded his uncle as the community rabbi before relocating to Friedberg. His Vikuaḥ mayim ḥayim (Dispute of “Living Waters”) was a critique of Moses Isserles’s codification of Jewish dietary law (Torat ḥata’at), criticizing the implicit curtailing of the right of future rabbinic authorities to issue halakhic rulings of their own. Ḥayim ben Bezalel’s ‘Ets ha-ḥayim (Tree of Life; 1578), written during a two-month quarantine at a time of plague, is an ethical treatise emphasizing the study of Hebrew grammar.

Entries in the Posen Library by This Creator

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Map of the Land of Israel

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This map, in a manuscript copy of Be’er mayim ḥayim (A Spring of Living Water), a commentary on Rashi published in Worms or Friedberg in the late fifteenth or sixteenth century, is based on Rashi’s…

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Vikuaḥ mayim ḥayim (Dispute of “Living Waters”)

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Text
And just as a person finds pleasant only such food as he has prepared himself, in accordance with what he wishes to eat, and has no desire whatsoever to depend upon his neighbor’s table, so too, he…

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‘Ets ḥayim (Tree of Life)

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Text
For I heard slander, fear was on every side [see Psalms 31:14], as the son of the despised maidservant slanders the son of the mistress, saying, “Those miserable Jews, they had a single language from…

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Sefer ha-ḥayim (The Book of Life)

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Text
In which it is explained that the essence of the Torah is the performance of the commandments, not intellectual knowledge; and also the reason why it is called the Talmud…
Cloth with embroidered image of tablets in clouds above mountain and city.
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Facing page manuscript arranged vertically with Hebrew text in the shape of a figure wielding two long objects.
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1500–1750

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Early Modern Historical Narratives

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Page with Hebrew text of decorative border and Star of David located in bottom section, with signatures in the Roman alphabet below.
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Early Modern Rabbis and Intellectuals on the Move

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Two-panel drawing, the top of many people in interior room, some seated on right side under canopy, and the bottom of many people outside with a central figure with veil.
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Early Modern Religious Practices

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Illustration of a sphere circled by rings at various angles, including illustrations of zodiac symbols.
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Education and Scholarship

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The early modern period featured educational reforms, anti-Christian polemics, and growing Jewish university participation.

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Early Modern Trade and Mercantilism

1500–1750

International trade drove Jewish mobility during the age of mercantilism, as Jewish merchants formed wide commercial networks and partnerships and developed cosmopolitan attitudes that facilitated civic inclusion.