Rav Nosson Nota Shapiro Megale Amukos (Av 13, 5393 / 1633 - 391st Yahrzeit)
Rabbi Nosson-Nota Shapira [13 Menachem-Av 5393] was a noted rabbinical authority and kabbalist, who at a young age became the Chief Rabbi of Krakow in 1617. He was a main figure in the dissemination of the Kabbalah teachings of "the Holy Ari" of Safed throughout Poland. He is often referred to by the title of his most important book, the "Megaleh Amukot," an astonishing work containing 252 explanations of Moshes' prayer in the first verse of parashas Va'es'chanan.
http://www.ascentofsafed.com/cgi-bin/ascent.cgi?Name=rebbeBios
Rav Mordechai Bennet Har Hamor, Rav of Nikolsburg, Magen Avos (Av 13, 5584 / 1824 - 200th Yahrzeit)
Author of Parshas Mordechai and Techeiles Mordechai.
Rav Mordechai ben Rav Avrohom Banet (1753–1829) was chief Rav of Moravia born at Csurgó, a small village in the county of Stuhlweissenburg, Hungary.
A gifted child
As Rav Banet’s parents were very poor and consequently unable to engage a teacher, they sent their son when only five years old to his grandmother at Nikolsburg. There Rav Gavriel Markbreiter provided for the tuition of the gifted child for a period of six years, and then sent him to Ettingen, Alsace, the Rav of which place was Rav Markbreiter’s brother-in-law. The latter became Rav Banet’s teacher, and took great delight in his talmid’s wonderful development. At Rav Banet’s bar mitzva celebration his teacher showed the guests, to their great astonishment, three of the boy’s manuscripts: a commentary on the Chumash, a commentary on the Pesach Haggoda, and novellae on the Talmud.
From his thirteenth to his fifteenth year, Rav Banet devoted himself exclusively to the study of the Tenach, with the aid of the Meforshim (Jewish commentaries) and of the Haggoda in Talmud and Medrash; his strictly halachic studies he completed later in the Yeshiva of Rav Yosef Steinhardt at Fürth, where he remained three years. He then went as a chover to Prague, where Rav Meïr Karpeles started a private “klaus” for him; though Rav Yechezkel Landau (the Noda B’Yehuda) conducted a large Yeshiva in the same city, a number of able Talmudists came daily to hear Rav Banet’s discourses. After staying in Prague for two years, he married Rebbetzin Sora Finkel (niftar 1828), the daughter of a prominent well-to-do citizen of Nikolsburg. Here he settled in 1773, and within a year was made Av Bais Din.
Thirteen years later, he accepted the rabbinate at Lundenburg in Moravia, which he held for six months, when he resigned to become Rav at Schossberg, Hungary. His stay in his native country was short, and in 1789 he was appointed Rav of Nikolsburg and chief Rav of Moravia. Later on, he also received offers from Pressburg and Cracow, but yielding to the solicitations of his congregation, he remained at Nikolsburg. He was niftar in Carlsbad on August 12, 1829, where he had gone for treatment. His body was buried temporarily at Lichtenstadt, near Carlsbad, but seven months later was permanently interred at Nikolsburg, in accordance with his will.
His friend and colleague, the famed Chasam Sofer, had the highest esteem for him. The Chasam Sofer eulogized him and called him Ben Yochid Le’Kudsho Berich Hu (an only child to Hashem), meaning that no one was his equal.
His Works
Although Rav Banet’s works are neither numerous nor exhaustive, they are among the classic products of Talmudic literature in the eighteenth century. They are:
- Biur Mordechai, Vienna, 1813, a commentary on Mordecai ben Hillel’s compendium;
- Mogen Avos, Zolkiev, 1835, a treatise on the thirty-nine acts prohibited on Shabbos;
- Har haMor, responsa, with allusion to the rabbinical explanation of the name Mordechai as mora dakya (“pure myrrh”);
- Parshas Mordechai, Szigeth, 1889, responsa;
- Techeiles Mordechai, Lemberg, 1892, halachic and haggadic discourses.
