22 Kislev · Yahrzeit
Yahrzeit/Hillula of Rabbi Eliezer Ashkenazi - the "Maasei Hashem"
Rabbi Eliezer ben Eliyahu Ashkenazi — the "Maasei Hashem"
Yahrzeit - 22 Kislev
Burial place - Krakow, the Old Jewish Cemetery in Remuh;
Great Talmudist, Rabbi, Physician.
Eliezer ben Eliyahu Ashkenazi was born in 1512. As his surname indicates, he came from a family of German origin (a relative of Yosef Colon), and received his education under Yosef Taitatzak in Salonika.
He first served as rabbi, apparently in Fostat (Egypt), where his learning and wealth quickly brought him renown. Circumstances forced him to leave Egypt and move to Cyprus, where he served as rabbi in Famagusta for two years. A desire to see foreign lands led him to give up his position and set out on his travels.
Ashkenazi first went to Venice; however, a dispute with Rabbi Meir of Padua and his son Yehuda Katzenellenbogen forced him to move to Prague in 1561.
There, Ashkenazi was the first to sign the ordinance establishing the burial society (Chevra Kadisha).
After leaving Bohemia and traveling further east as far as Crimea, Ashkenazi did not return to Italy before 1570. In Cremona he published the work "Yosef Lekach," a commentary on the Book of Esther, dedicated to Joseph Nasi, Duke of Naxos (son of a marrano).
Four years later, Ashkenazi found himself serving as rabbi in Poznan. In 1584 he moved to Krakow. Rabbi Eliezer Ashkenazi passed away in Krakow in 1585.
Ashkenazi's commentary contains original ideas: for example, he asserts that the accounts found in the Talmud and Midrashim belong to the realm of allegory, written for moral instruction and edification; the same, he continues, can be said of the content of the Prophetic books, with the exception of the Five Books of Moses.
To the question of why the heavenly bodies were created on the fourth day of Creation, Ashkenazi answers that before that day, creatures not endowed with sight had already been brought into being.
Ashkenazi scarcely influenced later generations, but his personality itself was extraordinary for his era. He can rightly be called the last of the Mohicans of the most brilliant period in Sephardic history.
At a time when in Egypt and Eretz Yisrael the mysticism of the Arizal began to trouble people's minds, Ashkenazi retained complete independence of thought. Although he was raised by a dreamer-kabbalist and was a colleague of Moshe Alshich, he nevertheless studied philosophy and physics as well. Scholars such as Yosef Karo, the Rema, and Shlomo Luria considered him their equal.
In Venice, Ashkenazi issued a ruling by which a husband could be compelled to grant a divorce if his immoral conduct had turned his wife against him (Isserles, Responsa, No. 96).
This ruling was, in all likelihood, the cause of the hostility shown toward him by the aforementioned Venetian rabbis. From the standpoint of a literal reading of the Talmud, the rabbis' position was, of course, entirely correct; Ashkenazi's view diverged from that of the Tosafists, whose opinions were regarded as unquestionable authority among German-Italian Jews.
Polish Jews understood a personality like Ashkenazi's even less than the Italians did. A striking example is the following: the Roshei Yeshivot (heads of the academies) forbade students from establishing new academies near their own, but Ashkenazi refused to comply with this demand; in a letter to Yosef ben Gershon HaCohen, the Rosh Yeshiva of Krakow, he pointed out that although the ruling of the Polish rabbis was based on the authority of the Rambam, it nonetheless did not accord with the freedom of learning that should exist within the rabbinic world.
Yosef Shlomo Delmedigo notes that Ashkenazi remained misunderstood by the Poles; he rather wittily applies the following verse to Ashkenazi: "You plucked up a vine out of Egypt; You drove out nations and planted it" (Tehillim 80:9).
Ashkenazi's son Eliyahu published a collection of prayers, "Zivchei Shlamim," and wrote an elegy on his father's death; this elegy is inscribed on Ashkenazi's tombstone.
(https://www.geni.com/people/Eliezer-Ashkenazi-ABD-Posen-Maasei-Hashem/6000000010230840515)
May the merit of this tzadik protect Am Yisrael!
Pilgrimage site:
Grave: Eliezer Ashkenazi