Commentators:R. Yehuda Leib Frankfurter (HaRekhasim Levikah)/0

R. Yehuda Leib Frankfurter Spira – Intellectual Profile

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R. Yehuda Leib Frankfurter Spira

Name	R. Yehuda Leib Frankfurter Spira ר' יהודה ליב בן אברהם פרנקפורטר לבית שפירא
Dates	1743 – 1836
Locations	Altona, Hamburg
Works	הרכסים לבקעה
Exegetical Characteristics
Influenced by
Impacted on

Background¹

Life

• Name – ר' יהודה ליב בן אברהם פרנקפורטר לבית שפירא
• Dates – 1743 – 1836²
• Locations – Altona, Hamburg
• Occupation – R. Yehuda Leib was a merchant and Torah scholar. He had some education in the natural sciences and geography, and was fluent in German. He was well versed in Talmud and its classic commentaries, and pursued the study of the Bible and Hebrew grammar.
• Family – R. Yehuda Leib came from a prominent family of Torah scholars who were also merchants. The family originated in Speyer, with some descendants moving to Frankfurt, and then Hamburg. R. Yehuda Leib's brother, R. Menachem Mendel, became chief rabbi and head of the rabbinical court of Altona, while also being a successful merchant.
• Teachers – 
• Contemporaries – R. Yehuda Leib was on good terms with many rabbinic leaders of his generation, including R. Yonatan Eybeschutz, R. Yaakov Emden, and R. Raphael ben Yekutiel Susskind Cohen.³ At the same time, he also was on good terms with some of the leading lights of the early Jewish enlightenment, such as Moses Mendelssohn,⁴ Naftali Herz Wessely, and R. Wolf Heidenheim.
• Students –
• Time period – R. Yehuda Leib lived through times of great social upheaval, including German Jewish emancipation, and the Haskalah and Reform movements. Hamburg was annexed by Napoleon in 1810, until its liberation in 1814.

Works

• Biblical commentaries – HaRekhasim Levik'ah,⁵ a peshat commentary on select Torah passages. This work initially had little impact. However, its influence spread over the years, starting with references in the commentaries of R. Shemuel David Luzzatto (Shadal), R. Samson Raphael Hirsch, and R. Y.Z. Mecklenburg.⁶
• Liturgy – A list of corrections and critiques of passages in various piyyutim.⁷

Torah Commentary

Characteristics

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Sources

Significant Influences

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Occasional Usage

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Impact

Later exegetes

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Supercommentaries

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¹ This section is based largely on R. Z. Gotthold, "פירוש לתורה – הרכסים לבקעה", in his posthumous collection of articles, תחכמון, vol. 1: 60-89 (hereafter: Gotthold, פירוש), originally published in Machanayim 4 (1992): 330-347.

² His gravestone records his date of death as 17 Tevet 5596, at the age of 93.

³ R. Susskind Cohen served as chief rabbi of Altona, and was a prominent opponent of Reform Judaism.

⁴ HaRekhasim Levik'ah contains dozens of critiques of Mendelssohn's German translation of the Torah, and his commentary, Netivot HaShalom (known as the Biur - a collaboration by Mendelssohn and others). According to R. Z. Gotthold, the introduction to HaRekhasim Levik'ah is a response to the introduction to the Biur. For a fuller discussion of the novelty of R. Yehuda Leib's introduction, as well as other bibliographical idiosyncrasies of HaRekhasim Levik'ah, see Gotthold, פירוש.

⁵ It was published in 1815 (Altona), and reprinted in 1888 (Vilna) together with Moda le-Binah of R. Wolf Heidenheim. This edition left out the title page, approbations and introduction. Photo-offsets of the Vilna edition were reprinted as recently as 1995.

⁶ Despite such usage, however, Abraham Geiger published an article (Juedische Zeitschrift fuer Wissenschaft und Leben, iv (1866), 1: 44-51) on this work over fifty years after its publication, calling R. Yehuda Leib "a forgotten commentator". Geiger attributes his awareness of HaRekhasim Levik'ah to references in Shadal. Considering Geiger's close friendship with R. S.R. Hirsch in the 1820s, it is odd that he did not hear of the commentary from R. Hirsch, R. Yehuda Leib's grandnephew, who cites HaRekhasim Levik'ah in his own Torah commentary. The commentary has been cited more recently by Benno Jacob and Nechama Leibowitz.

⁷ See R. Moshe Frankfurter (Mendelssohn), פני תבל, (Amsterdam, 1872): 98-100.