Zur Einleitung in die Mechilta de-Rabbi Shimon ben Jochai

Hoffman, D. Zur Einleitung in die Mechilta de-Rabbi Shimon ben Jochai. Frankfurt: J. Kauffmann, 1906. First edition. 8vo. 15 pp. Original decorative paper wrappers. In German with Hebrew selections. Minor age wear to wraps, otherwise book is in very good condition. vg. Softcover.

The author, David Zvi Hoffman (November 24, 1843 – 1921) was an Orthodox Jewish Rabbi and Torah Scholar. Born in Verbó in 1843, he attended various Yeshivas in his native town before he entered the college at Pressburg, from which he graduated in 1865. He then studied philosophy, history, and Oriental languages at Vienna and Berlin, taking his doctor’s degree in 1871 from Tuebingen University. His rabbinical training was at the hands of Rabbi Moshe (Maharam) Schick and Azriel Hildesheimer. David Hoffman occupies a very interesting position in the Wissenschaft des Judentums movement of the 19th century and was in some ways the prototype of the contemporary Orthodox Jewish scholar, facing the ubiquitous tension between faithfulness to tradition and the demands of critical inquiry. He employed the critical scientific method to the Talmud and wrote about the history of the development of the form of the Oral law. Despite his worldly inclinations, he was an original member of the more traditionally oriented Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah (council of great Torah sages), and was also known to be a person of great moral conduct and piety. Hoffman was the leading authority on traditional Jewish Law (halacha) in Germany in his lifetime, an expert specifically in the area of Midrash halacha (legalistic Biblical exegesis) (20115) $45