Handwritten Glosses By The Maharsha"l

Handwritten Glosses By The Maharsha"l
Black fire on white fire – a long gloss in the holy handwriting of the man of God Rabbeinu the Maharsha”l on the margin of a page of the "Mizrachi" commentary on Rashi on the Torah – a Segulah to dispel the Klipot and the Chitzonim.

Before us is a page from the Mizrachi's commentary on Rashi on the Torah, Parashat Korach, printed in Venice 1527, from the personal copy in which the Maharsha”l, Rabbeinu Shlomo Luria, the author of "Yam Shel Shlomo" studied. In the margin of the page is written a long gloss, six lines long, in the holy handwriting of the Maharsha”l. This gloss was printed in his Sefer "Yeri’ot Shlomo" (Prague 1609) on Rashi on the Torah, in Parashat Korach, in the verse beginning "Regarding the section starting with ‘Vayomer’".

Rabbeinu Shlomo Luria, known as ‘the Maharasha”l’ (1510-1574) was one of the greatest pillars of teaching on which the entire House of Israel rested. His famous compositions are: ‘Yam Shel Shlomo’ on some of the tractates of Shas, ‘Chochmat Shlomo’ – glosses on the Shas and ‘Responsa Maharsha”l’. He served as Av Beit Din and Rosh Yeshiva in some of the most important and well-known Jewish communities in Lithuania, Wahlin and Poland, such as Brisk, Osterha and Lublin. A large portion of the famous Geonim of his generation were among his disciples and studied at his yeshiva.

His name is sanctified and revered with holy fear in the mouths of Geonim and Tzaddikim of the ages. His great friend the Rem”a corresponded with him a lot in exchange of responsa. In one of his responsa (§5), the Rem”a writes to him: "Blessed is the generation that he dwells in it... humble as Hillel, any bird that flies above him while he is engrossed in Torah immediately burns, just like by Yonatan ben Uziel...". The Rem”a writes about him in his approbation to the Sefer ‘Chochmat Shlomo’: "Come out, daughters of Zion, and observe the King Shlomo, see the crown that Hashem has crowned him with in Torah... It is appropriate to rely on him as though he were Moshe hearing from the Almighty when he went up."

In the Responsa ‘Chavot Yair’ by Rabbi Yair Haim Bacharach (§43) writes toa rabbi who thought to disagree with the words of the Maharsha'l: "And I shall speak but this time to advocate in order to support the words of the Gaon [=the Maharsha'l] may he rest in honor, and his pure soul which was without a doubt from the world of nobility... of whom it has already been testified that if the Torah was forgotten from Israel he would have returned it with his deliberations... I cannot agree with him, and God forbid that I raise a hand against the anointed of Hashem..."

In the Sefer ‘Pri Tzaddik’ (Chechenow, p. 277) it is stated that, as per the instruction of the ‘Divrei Chaim’ of Sanz, his own tombstone was inscribed ‘quarried from the holy Gaon the Maharsha”l’ because just the mention of the Maharsha”l’s name is capable of driving the Klipot, and the Chitzonim away from the soul of the deceased, and this was inscribed on many of the gravestones of the Tzaddikim of the Sanz dynasty. The Gaon Rabbi Yehudal’e of Dzhikov said that fear and awe should fall upon a person when he just mentions the name of the Maharsha'l (Zichron Yehuda, p. 64).