Rabbi Jacob Pollak (another common spelling Yaakov Pollack ) is the founder of the Polish method of halakhic and Talmud studies known as Pilpul; born around 1460; died in Lublin in 1541. He was a disciple of Jacob Margolioth of Nuremberg, whose son Isaac was inaugurated in rabbinical Prague sometime around 1490; but he was first known during the last part of the activity of Judah Minz (d. 1508), who opposed it in 1492 regarding the issue of divorce. Pollak's widowed mother-in-law, a wealthy and prominent woman, even accepted at Bohemian court, married her second, underage daughter, to Talmud David Zehner. Regretting this move, he wants his marriage to be canceled; but the husband refuses to allow divorce, and the mother, at the suggestion of Pollak, seeks to have the union disbanded by a wife's declaration of rejection ("mi'un") permitted by the law of the Talmud. Menahem Merseburg, a recognized authority, had decided half a century earlier, however, that an official letter of divorce was indispensable in such a case, although his opinion was not sustained by the Eastern rabbis. When, therefore, Pollak declares that his marriage of sisters-in-law is null and void, all the German rabbis protest, and even isolate her until she has to submit to Menahem's decision. Yehuda Minz of Padua also ruled against Pollak, supported by one rabbi, MeÃÆ'¯r Pfefferkorn, whose circumstances were compelled to approve the course (Judah Minz, Responsa, No. 13; GrÃÆ'¤tz, "Gesch." 2d ed., Ix 518).
Pollak has a further bitter controversy, with Minz Abraham's son, regarding a lawsuit, in which a dispute over more than 100 rabbis is said to have taken part (Ibn Ya? Yes, "Shalshelet ha-aba," ed.
After the accession of King Sigismund I in 1506, many Jews left Bohemia and went to Poland, establishing their own community in Kraków. Pollak follows them, leads as rabbis and organizes the school to study the Talmud, which, until then, has been ignored in Poland. The institute trains youths to introduce the Talmudic study into other Polish communities. In 1530 Pollak went to the Holy Land, and upon his return to his residence in Lublin, where he died on the same day as his enemy, Abraham Minz. His most famous disciples were Rabbi Shalom Shachna of Lublin and MeÃÆ'¯r of Padua (Maharam Padua).
Pollak, in transferring the study of the Talmud from Germany, where it was almost entirely ignored in the sixteenth century, to Poland, initiated a movement that in the course of time dominated the Talmud school in the last country. The sophisticated treatment of the Talmud, which Pollak has discovered at an early stage in Nuremberg, Augsburg and Regensburg mainly deals with mental gymnasting relationships between widely or even contradictory things and by asking questions and solving them in unexpected ways..
The contemporaries of Pollak unanimously regarded him as one of the great men of his day, though the great men who were ultimately guided by his methods were subsequently heavily criticized (comp. Gans, "Ema Dawid," ed. Offenbach, p. 31a). Pollak himself, however, is not responsible for this, because he simply refrains from publishing the decisions on which he arrives by his system, not wanting to be considered a casuist whose decisions should be implicitly followed. Only a few quotes from him are found in the works of other authors.
Video Jacob Pollak
References
- This article combines text from publications now in the public domain: Ã, Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901-1906). "Pollak, Jacob". Jewish Encyclopedia . New York: Funk & amp; Wagnalls Company Ã,
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