Commentators:R. Shelomo Ephraim Luntschitz (Keli Yekar)/0

R. Shelomo Ephraim Luntschitz (Keli Yekar)

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Keli Yekar

Name	R. Shelomo Ephraim b. Aharon Luntschitz, Keli Yekar ר' שלמה אפרים בן אהרון מלונטשיץ, כלי יקר
Dates	c. 1550 – 1619
Location	Poland
Works	Commentary on Torah
Exegetical Characteristics
Influenced by
Impacted on

Background¹

Life

• Name – ר' שלמה אפרים בן אהרן מלונטשיץ‎²
• Dates – c. 1550 – 1619
• Locations – Leczyca (Luntschitz),³ Lublin, Lemberg, Prague.
• Occupation – R. Shelomo Ephraim gained his reputation as an itinerant preacher,⁴ and was considered to be the greatest darshan of his era in Poland.⁵ Sometime after age 50, he became the head of a yeshivah in Lemberg. Soon after this, he was called to Prague in 1604 to serve as head of the yeshivah and rabbinical court, later becoming the chief rabbi of Prague upon the death of the Maharal in 1609.⁶
• Family – The occupation of the Keli Yekar's father is debated.⁷
• Teachers – R. Shelomo Luria,⁸ Maharal⁹
• Contemporaries – R. Mordechai Yoffe,¹⁰ R. David Gans,¹¹ R. Yom Tov Lipmann Heller,¹² R. Avraham Horowitz¹³
• Students –
• Time period – R. Shelomo Ephraim lived at a time of relative prosperity and wealth for the Jews of Poland. A new class emerged of very wealthy Jewish estate owners,¹⁴ as well as an affluent class of Jews working for them. The new financial elite assumed important leadership roles throughout Polish Jewish communities, and much of the Keli Yekar's preaching was devoted to the flaws of this class, and to the problems of social stratification in general.¹⁵

Works

• Biblical commentaries – R. Shelomo Ephraim is best known for his Torah commentary, Keli Yekar,¹⁶ first published in 1602 in Lublin.¹⁷ Several collections of his derashot have also been published:¹⁸ Ir Gibborim,¹⁹ Olelot Ephraim,²⁰ Orach LeChayyim,²¹ Siftei Da'at,²² Ammudei Sheish,²³ Petichot UShe'arim.²⁴
• Other works – The Keli Yekar composed three selichot related to the invasion of Prague in 1611.

Torah Commentary

Characteristics

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Methods

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Themes

• – The commentary incorporates the emphasis on ethics and morals and critique of the societal elite which characterized his preaching.

Textual Issues

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Sources

Significant Influences

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Occasional Usage

Possible Relationship

Impact

Later exegetes

Supercommentaries

¹ This section incorporates information from H.H. Ben-Sasson, "עושר ועוני במשנתו של המוכיח ר' אפרים איש לנצ'יץ", Zion 19 (1954), 142-166 (hereafter: Ben-Sasson, Wealth), and the Encyclopedia Judaica entry "Ephraim Solomon Ben Aaron of Lunshits".

² R. Shelomo Ephraim writes at the end of his introduction to the Keli Yakar that his name Shelomo was added in 1601 during a serious illness. For most of his life, he was known as R. Ephraim of Luntschitz, and nowadays he is often simply referred to by the name of his most famous work, the Keli Yekar.

³ Luntschitz was the Jewish name for the Polish town of Leczyca.

⁴ Traveling through Lublin, Lemberg, Jaroslaw and other towns.

⁵ He is known to have delivered a sermon during the meeting of the heads of the Council of Four Lands in Lublin. Later, the heads of the Council recommended him to head the yeshivah in Lemberg.

⁶ Other versions of this chronology have the Keli Yekar coming to Prague in 1614. For sources regarding the chronology of Maharal and the Keli Yekar in Prague, see J. Spicer, "The Star of David and Jewish Culture in Prague Around 1600, Reflected in Drawings of Roelandt Savery and Paulus van Vianen", The Journal of the Walters Art Gallery, 54 (1996): 221, note 31.

⁷ See Ben-Sasson, Wealth, who suggests that he was not a rabbi and that this made the Keli Yekar one of the few East European scholars of the day who had no close relation in a position of communal or rabbinical leadership (see below for Keli Yekar's critique of the societal elite). R. Shelomo Ephraim, however, refers to his father using rabbinic terms of reverence.

⁸ The Keli Yekar refers to him as his teacher in Ir Gibborim, Parashat Metzora.

⁹ The Keli Yekar came into contact with Maharal very late in life, but nevertheless, Maharal's views seem to have influenced him. See, on this topic, J. Elbaum's review of A. Neher's פרק בתרבות יהודי אשכנז במאה השש-עשרה, in Tarbiz 55 (1986): 145-159. Neher claims that Keli Yekar is saturated with the Maharal's ideas, despite no explicit mention of him. While Elbaum agrees that his educational views (e.g. his opposition to pilpul – see S. Assaf, מקורות לתולדות החינוך בישראל, Vol. 1 (Tel Aviv, 1954): 45-52) were influenced by Maharal, he argues that Neher overstates Maharal's influence.

¹⁰ R. Mordechai (also known as the Levush) was older than the Keli Yekar, but they served together on the Council of the Four Lands.

¹¹ R. David Gans was an important rabbinical scholar, historian, mathematician, geographer, and astronomer. See next note.

¹² In 1612, the Keli Yekar, along with R. Yom Tov Lipmann Heller, provided an approbation to a work of astronomy published in Prague by R. David Gans. See A. Neher, "חומר חדש על דוד גנז כתוכן", Tarbiz 45 (1976): 141.

¹³ R. Avraham was the father of the "Shelah", R. Yeshayah Horowitz.

¹⁴ They actually held their land through lease.

¹⁵ See Ben-Sasson, Wealth.

¹⁶ According to the introduction to the Keli Yekar, the name of the work is based on the verses of Yirmeyahu 31:19 and Mishlei 20:15 and their combined allusion to his two names Ephraim and Shelomo (the endings of the paragraphs of the introduction also alternate between the two names). The Keli Yekar also writes there that he vowed to complete the work after a serious illness in 1601 (during which his name Shelomo was added). The vocalization of Yekar with a sheva is based on the verse in Mishlei.

¹⁷ The author's introduction to the Keli Yekar notes that its publication was enabled by financial support received from the "מנהיגי שלש ארצות" (which later assumed the name of "ועד ארבע ארצות" or Council of the Four Lands). The publisher's preface to the first edition notes that such support had never before been proffered for the publication of a contemporary work.

¹⁸ Besides the works listed here, the Keli Yekar compiled a never published (and apparently no longer extant) collection of sermons, entitled Rivevot Ephraim.

¹⁹ This was his first work and was published in 1580 (Basel). The preface to this work is noteworthy in that R. Shelomo Ephraim criticizes contemporary darshanim for inaccuracies and a lack of moral content. Elsewhere (folio 5b), he describes his endeavor to satisfy the people's thirst for "כוונות ומדרשות דרושים לכל חפציהם קרוב לפשוטו". See following note.

²⁰ This work was published in 1590 (Lublin). In this work, R. Shelomo Ephraim several times discusses the theoretical underpinnings of his preaching. See especially his preface (where he explains that there is no longer room to innovate in Halakhah, minhag, or standard biblical exegesis, and that he must thus innovate in the field of derush); and Part 2, p. 7, Maamar 64 ("כל דורש ימצא רמז לכל דבריו כמו שנפשו חפץ בהיות ע' פנים לתורה"). For other sources and a discussion of the Keli Yekar's method of derush, see J. Elbaum, "דרשה ודרוש – בין מזרח למערב", Pe'amim 26 (1986): 128-131.

²¹ This work was published in 1595 (Lublin).

²² This work was published in 1610 (Prague).

²³ This work was published in 1617 (Prague).

²⁴ This work was published in 1799 (Zolkiew).