Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel | |
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יהודה ליווא בן בצלאל | |
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| Personal | |
| Born | Between 1512 and 1526 |
| Died | 17 September 1609 (aged 83-97) |
| Religion | Judaism |
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| Signature |  |
| Buried | Old Jewish Cemetery, Prague |
Judah Loew ben Bezalel (Hebrew: יהודה ליווא בן בצלאל; between 1512 and 1526 – 17 September 1609),[1] also known as Rabbi Loew (alt. Löw, Loewe, Löwe or Levai), the Maharal of Prague (Hebrew: מהר״ל מפראג), or simply the Maharal (the Hebrew acronym of "Moreinu ha-Rav Loew", 'Our Teacher, Rabbi Loew'), was an important Talmudic scholar, Jewish mystic, mathematician, astronomer,[2] and philosopher who, for most of his life, served as a leading rabbi in the cities of Mikulov in Moravia and Prague in Bohemia.
Loew wrote on Jewish philosophy and Jewish mysticism. His work Gur Aryeh al HaTorah is a supercommentary on Rashi's Torah commentary. He is also the subject of a later legend that he created the Golem of Prague, an animate being fashioned from clay.[3]
- ^ Bohemia, as a Catholic country, adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1584. On the Julian calendar it was 7 September. His gravestone, as quoted by Gal Ed, Megilas Yuchsin and others, gives his date of death as Thursday, 18 Elul 5369.
- ^ Solomon Grayzel, A History of the Jews, The Jewish Publication Society of America, Philadelphia, 1968, pp. 484-485: "Another important personality in Prague... was Rabbi Judah-Loew ben Bezalel. Besides being a great Talmudist, he was a mathematician and astronomer.
- ^ Solomon Grayzel, A History of the Jews, The Jewish Publication Society of America, Philadelphia, 1968, p. 485: "after the rabbi's death (1609), numerous legends began to develop about him. The most famous one was the story of the giant body (golam) which he had fashioned out of earth."