Lima, Moses B. Isaac Judah

Lithuanian rabbinical scholar, one of the so-called Aḥaronim; born in the second decade of the seventeenth century; died about 1670. When a comparatively young man he successively occupied the rabbinates of Brest-Litovsk and Slonim. His fame as a scholar soon reached Wilna, whither he was called, in 1650, to fill the office of chief rabbi. Lima was of a retiring and diffident disposition, which probably accounts for the paucity of his writings. He left a manuscript commentary on Shulḥan 'Aruk, Eben ha-'Ezer, which his son Raphael published (1670) under the title of "Ḥelḳat Meḥoḳeḳ," and which, while betraying profound erudition, was so condensed that the editor deemed it necessary to provide it with explanatory notes. Lima did not carry even this work to completion; it covers only the first 126 chapters of the Eben ha-'Ezer.

Bibliography:

  * Azulai, Shem ha-Gedolim, i. and ii., s.v. Ḥelḳat Meḥoḳeḳ;
  * S. Bäck, in Winter and Wünsche, Die Jüdische Litteratur, ii. 519;
  * Gans, Ẓemaḥ Dawid, p. 596;
  * Grätz, Gesch. x. 61 et seq.;
  * Jost, Gesch. des Judenthums und Seiner Sekten, iii. 244.



H. R. S. M.