Commentators:R. Moshe Hefetz (Melekhet Machshevet)/0

R. Moshe Hefetz – Intellectual Profile

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R. Moshe Hefetz

Name	R. Moshe Hefetz
Dates
Location
Works
Exegetical Characteristics
Influenced by
Impacted on

Background¹

Life

• Name – 
  • Hebrew name – ר' משה בן גרשום חפץ
  • Italian family name – Gentili²
• Dates – 1663-1711
• Location – R. Moshe was born in Trieste, Italy and was active in Venice.
• Occupation – Worked as a private tutor, with knowledge in philosophy, mathematics, and the natural sciences. R. Moshe's expertise in these areas significantly impacted his biblical commentary.³
• Family – The Gentili family was a prominent Italian family with members in Gorizia, Trieste, Verona, and Venice. R. Moshe's son, R. Gershom, though he lived only to the age of seventeen, composed a work of rules for Hebrew poetry.⁴
• Teachers – Shelomoh b. Yitzchak Nizza
• Contemporaries – 
• Students – 
• Notable events

Works

• Biblical commentaries – Melekhet Machashevet⁵
• Rabbinics – 
  • Talmudic novellae – 
  • Halakhic codes – 
  • Responses to the works of others – 
  • Responsa – 
• Jewish thought – Chanukkat HaBayit⁶
• Other works –
• Commonly misattributed to – 

Torah Commentary

Characteristics

• Verse by verse / Topical – 
• Genre – 
• Structure – 
• Language – 

Methods

• – 

Themes

• – 

Textual Issues

• Manuscripts – 
• Printings – 
• Textual layers – 

Sources

Significant Influences

• Earlier Sources – 
• Teachers – 
• Foils – 

Occasional Usage

Possible Relationship

Impact

Later exegetes

Supercommentaries

¹ This section incorporates information from the Encyclopedia Judaica entry, "Gentili".

² The Hebrew name חפץ is a translation of this name.

³ R. Moshe also, however, expressed a significant skepticism towards philosophy. See the first several entries in the index to philosophical topics published at the beginning of Melekhet Machashevet.

⁴ The work was named Yad Haruzim, and also contained a poetical listing of the 613 commandments.

⁵ A homiletical-philosophical Torah commentary. Originally published in Venice, 1710, the work was reprinted in Koenigsberg, 1859, with an approbation from R. Y.Z. Mecklenburg. The publisher, R. Yehudah Leib Yaffo, considered the work especially relevant to the mid-19th century struggle to defend traditional Judaism against Reform. He sees Melekhet Machashevet as a peshat commentary that also shows how statements of the Talmudic Rabbis are in consonance with philosophy and science (see publisher's preface to the 1859 edition). Melekhet Machashevet includes an extremely extensive index of philosophical notions and topics that appear in the commentary, revealing the importance the author ascribed to such issues.

⁶ A work about the construction of the Second Temple.