JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

acharach, moses samson ben abraham samuel
partisan intrigue. His character is shown by the fact that he did
not record the names of the offenders. The same year he again
settled at Worms. When his father died in 1670, Bacharach
temporarily functioned in his place as rabbi of Worms. However,
he was disappointed in his hope of assuming the rabbinate
of Worms, the pretext being that it was against the rule to
appoint a resident of the city as rabbi. His resentment at being
passed over in favor of R. Aaron Teomim, whom he deemed
far inferior in scholarship, appears to have found a measure
of satisfaction in his work Matteh Aharon, left in manuscript,
in which he severely criticized the scholarly methods of the
elected rabbi who had just published a commentary on the
Passover Haggadah under the same title. After the latter had
suffered a violent death, Bacharach placed parentheses around
the sharper expressions, solemnly instructing any future publisher
to soften the more offending passages. The work was finally
published by Jellinek in Bikkurim (1865), 4–26; and again
in Ha-Misderonah (1887), 348–64.
In 1689 when Worms was occupied by the French armies
of Louis XIV, Bacharach fled to Metz with his family. In March
1690 he left for Frankfurt by himself in an unsuccessful attempt
to collect some debts, and at this time his family was
in such dire straits that his wife, with his consent, sold his extensive
library for 250 Reichsthaler. During the next few years
he was often forced to change his domicile, residing in various
cities in the Rhineland. At Frankfurt in 1699 he published
his monumental collection of 238 responsa under the name
Ḥavvat Yair. The title comes from Numbers 32:41, and means
“The Tent-Villages of Jair,” implying that his decisions were
but modest expressions of his opinions in contrast to former
respondents whose works were like fortified towns. In the
German pronunciation the title becomes “Ḥaves Yoir,” meaning
also “the Jair of Ḥavvah,” and thus constituting a tribute
to his erudite grandmother, Ḥavvah or Eva, the granddaughter
of *Judah Loew b. Bezalel and the female founder of the
Bacharach house. This epoch-making work, which has gone
through many editions, demonstrates not only Bacharach’s
exhaustive knowledge of all branches of traditional rabbinic
learning, but also the whole extent of his knowledge of the
general sciences, such as mathematics, astronomy, and music,
and shows also his opposition to the distorted type of pilpul
current in his day. It contains some writings of his father
and his grandfather.
Other printed works of Bacharach include Ḥut ha-Shani
(“Scarlet Thread,” 1679) containing responsa of his father and
grandfather, as well as 17 refutations of R. Samuel ben David’s
Naḥalat Shivah (1677) and notes on Alfasi published in the
Vilna edition. Altogether he is said to have left 46 volumes of
manuscripts (some of these being excerpts or collections of the
works of others). The more important of these are Eẓ Ḥayyim,
a compendium on the Jewish religion; glosses to Maimonides’
Guide; a commentary on the Shulḥan Arukh; chronological
tables and genealogical lists.
In 1699, the reestablished Jewish community of Worms
finally chose Bacharach, now deaf, old, and sick, as their rabbi.
He had been granted his dearest wish: the satisfaction of being
elected by this historic congregation to succeed his father and
grandfather. He lived three more years. Bacharach’s method
was one of strict logic. He manifested his independence visà-vis
his father, citing the precedent of Maimonides. Thus, he
says in one passage, vindicating his right to disagree with earlier
authorities: “The spirit of God has made me, as it has made
them” (Responsum no. 155). He was strict with respect to the
obligatory nature of established religious custom. While he was
a believer in the Kabbalah and busied himself with gematria,
he warned against giving oneself over to the study of Kabbalah
or philosophy – placing great value on simple faith.
Bibliography: D. Kaufmann, R. Jair Chajjim Bacharach
(Ger., 1894); idem, in: JQR 3 (1891), 292–313, 485–536 (earlier English
outline of previous work); Marx, in: Essays… J.H. Hertz (1942),
307–11; S. Freehof, Responsa Literature (1955), 84–87; idem, Treasury
of Responsa (1963), 171–5.
[Jacob Haberman]
BACHARACH, MOSES SAMSON BEN ABRAHAM
SAMUEL (1607–1670), rabbi and author. Bacharach was
born in Pohořelice, Moravia, where his father Abraham Samuel
(a prominent scholar in rabbinics and in other fields) was
then rabbi. His mother Ḥavvah, the daughter of Isaac Katz,
son-in-law of R. Judah Loew ben Bezalel of Prague, was also
distinguished for her learning and even wrote comments on
Midrash and Targum. At the age of eight, upon the death of
his father, Bacharach was taken to Prague, where he was educated
under the tutelage of his two uncles, R. Ḥayyim and R.
Naphtali ha-Kohen, both distinguished scholars. In 1627 he
married a daughter of R. Isaac b. Phoebus, chief rabbi of Moravia.
His father-in-law was taken prisoner, and the payment
of a 10,000 gulden ransom left Moses impoverished, forcing
him to accept the rabbinate of Hodonin (Moravian Slovakia)
in 1629. In 1632 he became rabbi and head of the yeshivah at
Leipnik. He experienced the travails of the Jews in the Thirty-
Years’ War, to which he gave expression in a seliḥah which the
Jewish community of Leipnik recited annually on the 17th of
Tammuz. Subsequently, on the foundation of a charitable religious
association (the Barukh she-Amar society), he composed
a joyous song of thanks for deliverance from danger during
the war, which was recited every year on Simḥat Torah. In
1650 he was chosen rabbi of the community of Worms – perhaps
the most influential position in German Jewry. He was in
that office 20 years until his death. Some of his writings were
included in the published works of his son, the famed R. Jair
Ḥayyim *Bacharach.
Bibliography: D. Kaufmann, R. Jair Chajjim Bacharach…
(Ger., 1894), 23–28, 45, 53–54, 129 30; F. Hillel, Leipniker Rabbiner
(1928), 16–43; A.E. Franklin, Records of Franklin Family (19352) 4,
45.
[Jacob Haberman]
BACHARACH, NAPHTALI BEN JACOB ELHANAN,
kabbalist who lived in the first half of the 17th century. The
34 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3