Rabbi Avraham Danzig רבי אברהם דנציג
a merchant who became a judge of Vilna; he wrote the first code for the householder
Born at Danzig about 1748—the reference works give 1747 or 1748. He studied at Prague with Rabbi Yechezkel Landau, author of the Noda bi-Yehudah. Then he traded: the fairs of Leipzig and Königsberg, his own house and business at Vilna. At first he would not take a rabbinic post at all.
In 1804 a powder magazine blew up at Vilna: thirty-one people were killed, Danzig lost his house and his business and barely survived himself. He made the fifteenth of Kislev a day of fasting and special charity for his family, and the sixteenth a day of thanksgiving; in the family it was called the 'Powder Purim'. After that he became a dayan of Vilna.
Chayei Adam is 224 chapters: 69 on daily conduct and prayer, 155 on Shabbat and the festivals. It is Orach Chaim retold so that a literate layman will understand, not only an expert. Printed beside it is Nishmat Adam—the same questions taken deeper, for whoever wants to check. His second book, Chochmat Adam, does the same for Yoreh De'ah and what is needed of Even ha-Ezer and Choshen Mishpat.
What followed matters more than the book itself: in town after town chevrot Chayei Adam were formed—societies that studied it together. For the first time the law came out of the yeshiva and into the house.
On the timeline
Places
Related
Sources
Acharonim and later rabbinic literature
- Chayei Adam — 224 chapters: 69 on weekdays and prayer, 155 on Shabbat and the festivals
Scholarship
- Jewish Virtual Library, "Avraham Danzig" — the dates, the merchant years, the Vilna dayanut, the chevrot Chayei Adam
Basis: documents and evidence.