Judah Loew ben Bezalel

Judah Loew ben Yehudah or Bezal'el Loew, also known as Rabbi Loew or MHR "L (short for Moreinu ha - Rav Loew - Our teacher Rabbi Loew ) of Prague ( 1512-1525 *, † September 17, 1609 in Prague), was a famous rabbi, Talmudist, Darshan (Hebrew "Preacher " ) and philosopher of the 16th century.

Biographical information

Neither birth nor place of Judah Loew are known exactly. According to the traditional view, he was in 1512 - probably in Poznań - born, but take some researchers later dates of birth (up to 1525) on. He came from a famous through their scholarship rabbinical family, originally probably came from Worms. Judah ben Hayyim was born as the second son of Bezal'el, a brother of Rabbi Jacob Reich Loew.

The Jewish historian and astronomer David Gans (1541-1613) reported in the Chronicle " Tzemach David " for the year ( 5) 352 ( 1592 ), that Emperor Rudolf II sent by Rabbi Judah Loew and the Emperor " ... spoke with him., face to face, as if to a friend And the way her words were mysterious, sealed and hidden. And this happened here in the holy community in Prague, on the first day ( of the week, Sunday), the 3rd of Adar ( 5) 352 "

Rabbi Judah Loew became a symbol for the mystical Prague, but it is true according to legend as the creator of the Golem, the clay figure come alive. Also, to his mysterious meeting with King Rudolf II entwine many stories and legends. He is widely ever considered today as one of the most important thinkers and rabbis of Judaism. Descendants of Judah Loew were the Hungarian rabbi Leopold Löw and his son Immanuel Löw.

Journey

As Rabbi Loew never talked about his youth and teachers, are his early years in the dark. Occupies are only the years 1553-1573, where he was rabbi in Moravia Mikulov ( Mikulov ) and later Chief Rabbi. There he had the reputation of an organizer in administrative matters as well as a legal expert. In Prague, he lived until after his 60th birthday. He served as a private citizen, the Talmud school " Klaus", which was built by his friend Mordechai Maisel and well funded. Although he has long had a reputation as a lawyer, he was passed over twice in the choice for the succession of the Chief Rabbi. He left Prague in 1589 to go back to Poland. It was not until 1597 he returned to Prague, where he was elected as almost octogenarian chief rabbi. This office he knew until his death on 17 September 1609. Among sympathy of the community, he was buried in the old Jewish cemetery. His sarcophagus is still a much-visited attraction of this cemetery.

Thinker and reformer

Rabbi Loew was a conservative critic of current affairs. For example, he condemned the common practice of rabbis to accept for the fulfillment of ritual obligations gifts. With the demand for the return to Torah and Aggadah, he turned against the prevailing in his time technique of " pilpul " which sponsored a scholarship that indulged more in comments and interpretations and thus in his eyes the originality and proximity to the Talmudic writings lost. He turned his attention mainly on the teaching of the subject matter. Here are, in turn, again very modern views on teaching, which later became the Czech educator Comenius took up. Contrary to the traditional forms of pilpul, the Jewish expression of scholasticism, the learning should be tailored to the individual abilities of the individual. Here, Rabbi Löw relied on a statement from the fifth chapter of Ethics of the Fathers, after which the age of the students must be reconciled with each taught subject. About his relationship with the Kabbalah, there are different views. Gershom Scholem believes that he has made ​​well known Kabbalistic ideas and had thus become an ancestor of the Eastern European Hasidism.

To an extent, as it only Judah ha -Levi in his presence, to Judah Löw explained to the " uniqueness " of the people of Israel, his mission and his destiny. God had chosen Israel out of free will and not because of the merit of its patriarch. Therefore, the chosen people of Israel could not depend on whether Israel fulfill the will of the Almighty or not. Consequently, the Christian assertion that the Jewish exile was proof that God had forsaken His people, null and void. He referred to the election of Israel as bechira kelalit ( " general election " ) and the connection with God, which forms the essence of this choice, as devekut kelalit ( " general surrender "). Israel forms the shape, while other peoples form the matter. Be based on the differences in ethical behavior and the understanding of divine matters. In Israel mental forces would prevail among the other peoples of physical forces.

The exile he called a " deviation" from the natural world order, which was expressed in three ways:

However, any deviation from the natural order was only temporary. From this, the conviction and the faith gives to the messianic redemption, which will remove the abnormal condition of exile. But despite his Messianic faith he resists with all his might the messianic speculations of his time and fights against it, " to force the ending ( of exile ) ." The counsel of God can not be changed by force. We need to pray for salvation, but not "too much", not even in a time of religious persecution. Even the calculation of the time of redemption is prohibited, they would arrive in due time. Shortly before the redemption will be " the humiliation of Israel be bigger than ever ", and that from this " absence " will take place salvation. He explains the Aggadah ( legend), according to which the Messiah be born on the day of the destruction of the Temple: " This birth is not an actual physical birth ... but it means that the Messiah will be born from the viewpoint of messianic potentiality that exists in the world. "

He mentions the cosmopolitan basis of exile. Although it would be really appropriate that Israel would live as the essence of the world in Eretz Israel, the essence of the geographical world, had become the residence of Israel at the dawn of exile the whole world. According to the statement from the Midrash: "Wherever Israel went into exile, it was accompanied by the Divine Presence ( Shekinah ) " emphasized Rabbi Löw that the Shekinah Israel must accompany stronger in the Galut as the land of Israel. Consequently, the worship, the exercise of charity and Torah study for the survival of the Jewish people in exile of fundamental importance for him. Peter Demetz describes Rabbi Loew's thinking as a " drama of the conflict between new ideas and Renaissance Jewish tradition."

Golem

See main article: Golem

Located in Prague's Josefov, the former Jewish quarter, Rabbi Loew is also the legendary Golem formed ( " the Unfinished " ) of mud, have awakened by the magic power of the magic syllable " Shem " to life and made ​​it his servant. According to another legend of the Golem to have been 400 years earlier modeled from clay to a human being. The Golem legend was filmed in 1920 as The Golem: How He Came into the world.