Joshua Falk


Joshua ben Alexander HaCohen Falk was a Polish Halakhist and Talmudist, best known as the author of the Beit Yisrael commentary on the Arba'ah Turim as well as Sefer Me'irat Enayim on Shulkhan Arukh. His name also occurs as the Hebrew acronym רפ"כ and מהרו"כ .

Biography

He was a pupil of his relative Moses Isserles and of Solomon Luria, and became the head of the yeshiva of Lemberg. Many celebrated rabbis were his pupils, among them being Joshua Höschel ben Joseph of Kraków, the author of Maginei Shlomo.
Falk was a great authority on rabbinical matters. At the meeting of the Council of Four Lands in 1607, during the Kremenetz fair, many of his proposals were approved.
In 1611 Falk and Enoch Hendel ben Shemariah issued a bill of divorce at Vienna which occasioned lengthy discussions among the celebrated rabbis of the time, including Meir Lublin and Mordecai Yoffe.
He was Rosh Yeshiva in Lemberg and served on the Council of Four Lands.
Falk was opposed to the reliance on law codes to the exclusion of study of the original sources. Towards this end he composed a series of commentaries on the most influential codes, Rabbi Jacob ben Asher's Tur and Rabbi Joseph Karo's Shulkhan Arukh. He spent his early life composing extensive analytical commentaries on the Talmud, which were later lost in a fire.
Falk died at Lemberg, in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth on 29 March 1614.

Note on the name "Joshua Falk"

Until the early 19th century, the names of most Central European Jews consisted of a Hebrew first name, a German second name, the patronymic "ben... " and, if an upper one, the class - HaCohen or HaLevy. The German name was chosen to fit the Hebrew one: thus "Zvi" or "Naftali" went with "Hirsch", and "Zev" or "Binjamin" with "Wolf". Those whose given name was Yehoshua, Josua, or Joshua had the second name of Falk, Valk, Walk, Wallik or Wallich.. The name Falk was thus not a family name until the 19th century, when it was adopted by those whose immediate ancestors had "Falk" as a second name. Encyclopedias will therefore have several entries under "Falk", where "Falk", strictly, is not a surname. References to Rabbi Falk are therefore often via "Yehoshua Falk ben Alexander HaCohen" or "Joshua Falk ben Alexander Katz" or "Joshua Falk Katz".

Works

Beit Yisrael is a twin commentary on the Tur, composed of the Perishah, a straightforward explanation, and the Derishah, deeper discussions on specific problems. The Perishah clarifies the rulings of the Tur, by tracing them to their sources in the Talmud and Rishonim. The Derishah is devoted to extensive analysis and comparison of the various interpretations and decisions proposed by various Talmudic authorities.
Rabbi Falk also wrote: