Yitsḥak Shmelkes

Born in Lemberg in the Habsburg Empire (today Lviv, Ukraine), Yitsḥak Shmelkes had a traditional education and displayed a prodigious ability to comprehend Talmud at a young age. Shmelkes counted Elazar Rokeaḥ of Brody, author of Ma‘aseh Rokeaḥ and notable anti-Sabbatean, among his ancestors. After studying under Yosef Sha’ul Natanson, a prominent Galician halakhist, Shmelkes went on to become av bet din (head of the Jewish religious court) of Lemberg in 1869, holding the post until 1893. His best-known work, commonly known as Bet Yitsḥak (6 vols., 1875–1908), is a commentary on the Shulḥan ‘arukh with his own responsa. Among the halakhic questions on which he ruled, those related to intellectual property and to the use of electricity on the Sabbath are most noteworthy. He is seemingly the first halakhic authority to address the question of electricity in Jewish law; in an addendum to his book of responsa, he forbids the use of a telephone on Shabbat.