Moses Raphael de Aguilar
Rabbi Moses Raphael de Aguilar was a Sephardic-Dutch Rabbi, Hebrew Grammatician and scholar, who wrote some 20 books on a series of talmudic and Hebrew language topics. He was also an important lecturer at the Amsterdam Talmud Torah.Biography
Born in Portugal, his parents Abraham de Aguilar and Violante de Paz were Crypto-jews, who moved to the Netherlands during the Eighty Years' War. It was there, that Moses briefly served as a teacher at the Amsterdam Talmud Torah, however in 1641, he, his wife Esther de Castro Tartas, his wife's nephew Isaac de Castro Tartas and about 600 other Dutch Jews, including Isaac Aboab da Fonseca moved to Brazil, following its Dutch colonization. It was in Brazil that he became the Rabbi of the Magen Avraham congregation of Recife. Although Moses' time in Brazil was short, and following the Portuguese recolonization of the region, he alongside most of the Brazilian Jewish community returned to Amsterdam. On his return to Amsterdam, he opened a private Yeshiva where he wrote some 20 books, but only two were published in his lifetime. Later in his life, he became a supporter of Sabbatai Zevi, and subsequently died on December 15, 1679 in Amsterdam.Works and legacy
Students
Rabbi Moses de Aguilar had many students, some notable of which are:
Some of his most famous works are as follows:
- Epitome Grammatica hebrayca – a treatise on Hebrew grammar.
- Dinim de shehita y bedica – a basic overview of the rules of Shechita.
- Zekher Rab – a collection of all the Midrashim in the Talmud.
- Sefer Hama’asim – a collection of all the stories in the Talmud.
- Tratado da Immortalidade da Alma – a book written in response to the Jewish heretic Uriel de Acosta, who denied the principles of the Jewish faith.
