Rabbi Aharon Shmuel Kaidanover—the Maharshak רבי אהרן שמואל קיידנובר — מהרש״ק
rabbi of Nikolsburg, Frankfurt and Cracow; author of the Birkat HaZevach
He was born in 1614 at Vilna and studied under Rabbi Yaakov of Lublin and under Rabbi Yehoshua Falk, author of the Sma. In the massacres of 1648, the gzerot tach ve-tat, he lost his house and his library, and two of his daughters were killed. He fled west with his family and served as rabbi at Nikolsburg, at Glogau, at Fürth and at Frankfurt—wherever a community would have him.
In 1671 he returned to Poland, to Cracow, and headed the community and the yeshiva. His book is the Birkat HaZevach, a commentary on the tractates of the order Kodashim, which the yeshivot of the day hardly studied; it came out at Amsterdam in 1669. His responsa are the Emunat Shmuel; on the Torah, the Tiferet Shmuel.
He died in 1676 at Chmielnik, where he had fled from an epidemic at Cracow. His son, Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch Kaidanover, wrote the Kav HaYashar—one of the most widely read books of musar in Eastern Europe.
On the timeline
Places
Sources
Acharonim and later rabbinic literature
- The Birkat HaZevach — the commentary on Kodashim, Amsterdam 1669
- The Emunat Shmuel—responsa — the rabbinate across the communities
Scholarship
- The standard reference works and encyclopedias — Vilna 1614, the massacres of 1648, Cracow from 1671, Chmielnik 1676
Basis: documents and evidence.