Abraham Rapoport (Schrenzel) was a Polish

Talmud The Talmud (; ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of Haskalah#Effects, modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cen ...

ist; born at

Lemberg Lviv ( or ; ; ; see #Names and symbols, below for other names) is the largest city in western Ukraine, as well as the List of cities in Ukraine, fifth-largest city in Ukraine, with a population of It serves as the administrative centre of ...

(currently Lviv,

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

) in 1584; died in 1651 (June 7); son of Rabbi Israel Jehiel Rapoport of

Kraków , officially the Royal Capital City of Kraków, is the List of cities and towns in Poland, second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city has a population of 804,237 ...

and son-in-law of R. Mordecai Schrenzel of Lemberg. Rapoport was a pupil of R. Joshua Falk ha-Kohen. For forty-five years he was at the head of a large

yeshiva A yeshiva (; ; pl. , or ) is a traditional Jewish educational institution focused on the study of Rabbinic literature, primarily the Talmud and halacha (Jewish law), while Torah and Jewish philosophy are studied in parallel. The stu ...

at Lemberg. Being very wealthy, he had no need of seeking a rabbinical position; and he was able, therefore, to expend large sums on behalf of the pupils of his academy. He was president of the

Council of Four Lands The Council of Four Lands (, ''Va'ad Arba' Aratzot'', ) was the central body of Jewish authority in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth from the second half of the 16th century to 1764, located in Lublin. The Council's first law is recorded as h ...

, and was administrator of the money collected for the poor in the

Holy Land The term "Holy Land" is used to collectively denote areas of the Southern Levant that hold great significance in the Abrahamic religions, primarily because of their association with people and events featured in the Bible. It is traditionall ...

. Rapoport's ''Etan ha-Ezrachi'' (printed at Ostrau, 1796) is divided into two parts. Part 1 contains ''

responsa ''Responsa'' (plural of Latin , 'answer') comprise a body of written decisions and rulings given by legal scholars in response to questions addressed to them. In the modern era, the term is used to describe decisions and rulings made by scholars i ...

'' and decisions; part 2, called ''Qontres Aharon'' contains

sermon A sermon is a religious discourse or oration by a preacher, usually a member of clergy. Sermons address a scriptural, theological, or moral topic, usually expounding on a type of belief, law, or behavior within both past and present context ...

s on the weekly sections of the

Pentateuch The Torah ( , "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The Torah is also known as the Pentateuch () o ...

. He is said to have written a number of works which have been lost.

Bibliography

* Azulai, ''Shem ha-Gedolim'', i, No. 17; *

Solomon Buber Salomon (or Solomon) Buber (2 February 1827 – 28 December 1906) was a Jewish Galician scholar and editor of Hebrew works. He is especially remembered for his editions of Midrash and other medieval Jewish manuscripts, and for the pioneering res ...

, ''Anshe Shem'', pp. 7–13, Kraków, 1895.

External links

* ''Jewish Encyclopedia''
“Rapoport: Abraham Rapoport (Schrenzel)”
by Isidore Singer, Jacob Lauterbach, ''et al''. (1906). Now in public domain. {{DEFAULTSORT:Rapoport, Abraham 1584 births 1651 deaths 17th-century Polish rabbis Rabbis from Lviv Rosh yeshivas