Yaakov Lorberbaum


Jacob Lorberbaum or Jacob ben Jacob Moses of Lissa was a rabbi and posek. He is most commonly known as the Ba'al HaChavas Da'as or the Ba'al HaNesivos for his most well-known works, or as the "Lissa Rav" for the city in which he was Chief Rabbi.

Biography

Lorberbaum was the great-grandson of Tzvi Ashkenazi. According to one tradition, his father, Yaakov Moshe, died before he was born. His relative, Joseph ben Meir Teomim, the rabbi of Bursztyn, brought him up. This accounts for the common name that both father and son share. Another tradition states that before he was born, his father fell ill, and dreamed that he would recover in the merit of the son that would be born to him. In the merit of his future son, the father took his name-to-be. Another legend is that at his naming ceremony, his father was preoccupied with his study and thought they asked for his name. He studied under Meshullam Egra.
He was head of the beth din in Kalush, Ukraine. In 1809, he agreed to become the Rav in Lissa, where he enlarged his yeshiva's enrollment. Hundreds of scholars came to study there in the years of his leadership. Among his students were Elijah Gutmacher, Zvi Hirsch Kalischer, and Rabbi Shraga Feivel Danziger.
Along with Akiva Eiger and Eiger's son-in-law, the Moses Sofer, Lorberbaum vehemently fought the maskilim, the proponents of the Haskalah. In 1822, he left Lissa and returned to Kalish, where he wrote many of his works. He lived there for ten years.
He was widely respected as a posek and is one of three authorities on whom Shlomo Ganzfried based his rulings in the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, the well-known précis of Halakha. Similarly, the Hokhmat Adam of Avraham Danzig was written in consultation with Lorberbaum and Chaim of Volozhin.
His status was such that it is reported that Eiger once fainted when he was honored with an Aliyah in place of Jacob..
Lorberbaum died in Stryi, then in Galicia, on 25 May 1832.

Works

Reb Yaakov wrote many works of Torah on Talmud and on Halacha.

Commemoration