ר׳ משה רבקש

ר׳ משה בן נפתלי הירש רבקש (c.1595–1671), known as the באר הגולה, was a Lithuanian halakhist whose source-notes became a standard component of printed editions of the שולחן ערוך. His precise birthplace is disputed, but he spent most of his adult life in Vilna and became one of the city’s notable scholars. When Muscovite and Cossack forces captured Vilna in 1655, he fled west with other scholars, including ר׳ שבתי הכהן and ר׳ אהרן שמואל קוידנובר. Blocked near the Prussian frontier by the Swedish war, he eventually reached Amsterdam by sea. There the Portuguese community, aided by ר׳ שאול לוי מורטירה and ר׳ יצחק אבוהב דה פונסקה, enabled him to remain and work on a major Amsterdam edition of the שולחן ערוך. His באר הגולה supplied concise references to the Talmudic and early halakhic sources behind the code and clarified apparent conflicts among rulings. Because the annotations were printed alongside the code from the Amsterdam edition onward, they became part of the everyday apparatus through which generations studied Jewish law. After conditions permitted, he returned to Vilna, where he died around 1671. He was an ancestor of ר׳ אליהו מווילנה.