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than in any of his previous or later positions.
Around 1620, he went to Posen (Poznan) and
became av bet din and grand rabbi for Great
Poland."
Here it is interesting to mention the important
entries in the Posen ledger that have a bearing on
R. Shimon-Wolf and his forebears.
We find here some of the important details of
R. Shimon-Wolf's life in Posen.
As we can infer from the entries in the Posen
community ledger, R Shimon-Wolf was a native
of Posen. His mother, the Rebbetzin Rivke, and
his brother, R. Yitshak, lived there, and it seems
that his father, R. Dovid Tevli, filled a number of
functions there until 1620.
At the beginning of 1628 R. Shimon-Wolf
received a written invitation from the community
in Vienna to assume the rabbinate there. The
Posen community then improved his material
conditions, and both sides signed an agreement
that R. Shimon-Wolf would not leave Posen unless
he was going to move to Palestine, as he had
planned.
This contract, however, did not last. In the
summer of 1629 R. Shimon-Wolf got another
invitation for the rabbinate of Vienna, and this
time he accepted.
But he was there only a short time. From there
he went to Prague, where he became the master
and teacher and av bet din for the whole state of
Bohemia. There he came into conflict with the
commentator Yom Tov about prohibitions and
permissions in rabbinical law.
And he did not remain long in Prague, for he
died in November 1631.
In the Posen ledger we learn that R. Shimon-
Wolf, whose first wife was one of the four daughters
of the Rashal, later married someone named
Roza, the daughter of R. Yosef.
It is a great tragedy that such a great rabbi left
no written works.
The practical effect of this is that he was
virtually forgotten and his influence on the development
of later rabbinic literature is almost
nil. We know there were a few handwritten manuscripts
left, but in time they were lost.
He is only mentioned in the books of others,
or they present some of his talmudic innovations:
in the Ohr Zadikim of Meyer Poppers; the
THE EARLY DAYS 27
Responsa of the Maharam of Lublin; Kav
HaYashar, of Tsvi Hersh Koydenover; Ateret
Z'kenim of Menachem Mendl Auerbach, in Lev
Arye and Sha'ar Nefilat Ephraim.
His concurring opinions are present in Si'ach
Yitshak, by Yitshak son of Shmuel Halevi (Basel,
5387) Zichron Moshe, by Moyshe son of Zevulun
Eliezer, published in Lublin (5371).
B'er Mayim Chayim, by Yakov son of Yitshak
(Cracow, 5376).
Slichot Vepizmonim (Penitential Prayers and
Hymns), by Eliezer Ashkenazi, Cracow (5343).
R. Shimon-Wolf was one of the "seven pillars
of the world" who, in the Council of the Four
Lands, gave their endorsement to the publication
of the well-known book, Yesh Nochlin, by Avrom,
son of R. Shabtai Horowitz, the father of Shalah.
His signature appears in 1606 on a proclamation
of the Council of Four Lands for the
Gromnitzer Fair."
The first rabbi of Chelm, the Gaon R. Shimon
Auerbach, was his uncle, a brother of his father,
R. Dovid Tevli."
His tombstone in the Prague cemetery reads:
A wolf was snatched away on Wednesday the 17th of Mar
Heshvan, Our Master and Teacher and Head of the Rabbinical
Court for all of the Bohemia District, the Pious Gaon, our great
master and teacher R. Shimon-Wolf Auerbach, son of our
teacher Dovid Tevel, of blessed memory.
0 cursed, barren, bitter day!
Day when we were bereft of lights
And the heavens covered by dark clouds.
There will be weeping for generations
Over our Father of the Court who has been buried in
the ground
On the 17th day of a month when the moon is occluded
They were to us like a fortress.
He was Av bet din and our Master and Teacher in
Turbin, Lubomla, Lublin, Przemysl, Poznan, Vienna,
Prague, and all the sunounding areas.
All these communities will, alas, cry with one voice
Woe, that the crown has fallen from our brow
A giant fish has been hooked and taken from us
Summoned to the Yeshiva-on-High.
A candle has gone out, the entire golden menorah of
Israel darkened
And we are left with a terrifying, dark fear
A dark, cloudy, overcast day
Who will now show us the way