ר׳ יוסף בן שלמה טאיטאצק

ר׳ יוסף בן שלמה טאיטאצק (c.1465–1546), sometimes called מהריט״ץ, was one of the foremost Talmudic authorities and kabbalists of Ottoman Salonica. Born in Castile, he grew up in the same broad scholarly world as ר׳ לוי בן חביב. The 1492 expulsion took his family first to Portugal, and the Portuguese crisis of 1497 brought them to Salonica. There he led the Portuguese congregation, headed a council representing the city’s multiple congregations and directed a celebrated yeshiva for approximately forty years. His pupils included ר׳ שמואל די מדינה, ר׳ יצחק אדרבי and ר׳ שלמה אלקבץ, giving his academy lasting influence in Ottoman halakhah and Safed kabbalah. Contemporary rabbis praised him as a pre-eminent authority, and his responsa circulated widely even though no complete collection survives. He practised a markedly ascetic devotional life and studied kabbalah, astronomy and mathematics alongside Talmud and halakhah. In 1529 he supported the messianic preacher Solomon Molcho during his appearance in Salonica, an episode that must be understood within the intense post-expulsion atmosphere. His writings include בן פורת on Ecclesiastes, לחם סתרים on Daniel and the Five Scrolls, commentaries on rabbinic and biblical texts and a treatise on the astrolabe. Most appeared only long after his death at Salonica in 1546.