The Levush — Rabbi Mordechai Yaffe הלבוש — רבי מרדכי יפה

Rabbi Mordechai Yaffe was born in Prague about 1530 and died in Poznań in 1612 as its chief rabbi. He studied under the Rema and Maharshal, and kabbalah under Mattityahu Delacrut.

In 1561 he left Bohemia — Ferdinand I had sworn in 1557 to tolerate no Jews in Prague, and the expulsion was carried out from 1559. He spent ten years in Venice, engaged there with astronomy and mathematics; he returned to Poland with an education Polish decisors generally lacked.

He explained the plan of the Levushim himself: what was wanted was a book midway between two extremes — the enormous Beit Yosef on one side, and on the other the Shulchan Aruch with the Mappah, which are too brief. The difference is not one of length but that the Levush **gives the reason**: why the law is as it is. The title comes from the book of Esther (8:15), from Mordechai's royal robes.

Ten parts in all, gathered over half a century and printed from 1590 to 1604: five on halakhah following the divisions of the Tur, the rest a supercommentary on Rashi, Maimonidean philosophy, kabbalah, astronomy and the calendar, and sermons. His prescribed order of study was philosophy, astronomy, kabbalah.

The Levush is usually recalled as the book the Shulchan Aruch eclipsed. That is only partly true: in Poland men learned and judged by it for about a century, and Elijah Shapira noted its wide acceptance. He also succeeded the Maharal in the rabbinate of Prague and signed the ordinances of the Council.