ר׳ ישעיהו הלוי הורוביץ

ר׳ ישעיהו הלוי הורוביץ (1558–traditionally 1630), universally known as the השל״ה הקדוש after his work שני לוחות הברית, was an Ashkenazic rabbi, communal judge, halakhist and kabbalist. Born in Prague to ר׳ אברהם הלוי הורוביץ, he was educated in Poland and studied with leading scholars including ר׳ שלמה לוריא’s and ר׳ משה איסרליש’s intellectual successors. He attended the Council of Four Lands and held rabbinic offices in Dubno, Ostroh, Posen and Frankfurt am Main. Expelled from Frankfurt during the Fettmilch uprising, he returned to Prague and became a senior communal rabbi. After his wife’s death he left Europe in 1621, travelled through the Ottoman Empire and settled in Jerusalem, where he promoted rigorous observance of the sabbatical year and completed major portions of שני לוחות הברית. In 1625 the Jerusalem pasha imprisoned leading Jews, including the של״ה, for ransom. After release he left Jerusalem, passed through Safed and settled in Tiberias. His encyclopedic שני לוחות הברית integrates law, ethics, ritual and Kabbalah and profoundly shaped later Ashkenazic piety and Hasidism. Traditional chronology places his death in Tiberias in 1630, though recent textual scholarship argues for late 1625 or early 1626. He was buried near the tomb associated with ר׳ משה בן מימון.