Bidspirit auction | Magen Avos, Zolkiew 1834 *

Magen Avos, Zolkiew 1834 * First Edition - Magen Avot – on the 39 Melachot of Shabbat / Rabbi Mordechai Banet . Zolkiew, 1835. A fundamental and in-depth work on the 39 Melachot of Shabbat, by the Gaon Rabbi Mordechai Banet, Av Beis Din of Nikolsburg and one of the generation's greatest rabbis. Rabbi Mordechai Banet , known as Maharam Banet (1753-1829), was the Rabbi of Nikolsburg and the Moravian region, and one of the most important rabbis of Bohemia. He was born in Szoroga (today in Hungary). His father, Avraham Biya (acronym: Ben Yehuda Ashkenazi), was a descendant of the ”Chacham Tzvi” R. Tzvi Hirsch Ashkenazi. Since Rabbi Banet grew up from the age of five in his maternal grandmother's house in Nikolsburg, he was called Banet, after his mother's family name. In his youth, he was considered a prodigy and at the age of eleven, he was sent to study in the Yeshiva of Rabbi Yaakov Katzenelbogen in Ettingen. At 15, he moved to Fürth to study with Rabbi Yosef Steinhart. At 18, he moved to Prague, where he studied, among others, with the ”Noda BiYehuda” Rabbi Yechezkel Landau. At 22, he married the daughter of Gimple Prostitz from Nikolsburg, and moved there to study with Rabbi Shmuel Shmelke of Nikolsburg, one of the leaders of Chassidism and the local rabbi, to whom he became very close. According to Chassidic tradition, from a young age he practiced asceticism, fasts, and self-denial, until Rabbi Zusha of Annipol reprimanded him for his asceticism, and since then he only reduced his food intake. *