Rav Avrohom Abali HaLevi Gumbiner

Early years

Rav Avrohom Abali HaLevi Gumbiner zt"l, known throughout the Torah world as the Magen Avrohom, was born around 5396 (about 1635) in Gumbin (Gąbin), Poland. His father, Rav Chaim HY”D, was martyred by Cossacks during the Chmielnicki massacres.

Avrohom was a child prodigy who mastered Shas and poskim while still very young. After the massacres he went to live and study with a relative in Leszno, Rav Yaakov Yitzchok Gumbiner.

Torah and leadership

His first position was as Rav of Kalisz, where he also opened a yeshiva. Many of the Gedolei Yisroel of later years were graduates of that yeshiva. Through the seventeenth century he was a leading halachic authority of the Jewish community of Kalisz.

In his rulings he gave real weight to the customs of the Jewish communities of his own time, in Poland. He taught that an old minhag is not to be undone. Regarding the berachah that praises Hashem for giving strength to the weary, he held that the established practice should stand, and he believed that those who changed the minhag, Rav Yosef Karo among them, probably regretted it near the end of their lives.

He also gave practical guidance on questions of communal life. When the community hired a non-Jew on contract to clear refuse from the streets, and the work was done on Shabbos, he assumed that a great rav of an earlier time had permitted it for the sake of the community, and he concluded that this was a ruling handed down by a great rav. He explained that the common practice of not giving priority to men who say they are Kohanim, for instance by not serving them food first, most likely rests on the fact that Kohanim of later times lack real proof of their lineage.

He taught that aliyos to the Torah should be given on the basis of events in the lives of the congregants, such as a marriage, a birth or a passing, and not always to the scholars. He wrote that women need not count the Omer, because it is a mitzvah that depends on a set time, yet they have accepted it upon themselves as an obligation. He held that children may be counted toward a minyan for the Torah reading. Although he usually supported local customs, he disapproved of the custom of donating firecrackers and fireworks to the shul in honor of Simchas Torah, which he saw as the result of letting unlearned people celebrate a holiday of scholars.

Teachings and seforim

Rav Avrohom wrote seforim on all four volumes of the Shulchan Aruch, as well as on Shas and deroshos. Out of great humility he did not want to publish them, and no one even knew they existed. Friends, talmidim, colleagues and family finally persuaded him to publish his work on Orach Chaim alone. As he explained in his own introduction, the other volumes of the Shulchan Aruch already had commentaries, while Orach Chaim had none.

He began writing the Magen Avrohom in 1665 and completed it in 1671. In 1673 his brother Yehudah traveled to Amsterdam to have it printed, but he did not have the funds he needed and died on the journey. The sefer was finally printed in 1692 in Dyhernfurth, after Rav Avrohom’s passing, by Shabsai Bass. His son Rav Chaim of Klimantuv published it and wrote its preface, in which he related that his father was often ill and lived with pain and discomfort.

It was Rav Chaim who gave the sefer its name. Rav Avrohom’s talmidim had asked him what he would call his work, and he answered Ner Yisroel, since in his humility he did not want his own name in the title. His son wished to keep his father’s name alive and linked it to the commentary of the Taz, the Magen Dovid, calling the work Magen Avrohom, or in full Magen Avrohom Ner Yisroel.

The sefer was received warmly by Klal Yisroel and accepted as binding. Its style is terse and difficult, and later commentators were needed to explain it. It was not only a work of halacha in the usual sense. Rav Avrohom wove into the Shulchan Aruch the minhagim of Poland in his day, and he brought into halachic practice the Kabbalistic customs of Tzfas, especially those found in the Shnei Luchos HaBris of Rav Yeshayah Horowitz.

Many other Gedolim wrote supercommentaries on the Magen Avrohom, including the authors of Tosefes Shabbos, Mekor Chaim, Pri Megodim, Bigdei Yesha and Machatzis HaShekel (Rav Shmuel Neta HaLevi of Kolin), and Levushei Srad by Rav Dovid Shlomo Eibenschutz.

Rav Avrohom wrote other seforim as well. Zayis Raanan is a commentary on the Yalkut Shimoni, the well-known collection of midrash. Shemen Sosson, his deroshos on the Torah, has been largely lost. He also wrote a commentary on the Tosefta of Seder Nezikin, which his grandson published together with Lechem HaPonim, the sefer of Rav Avrohom’s son-in-law, Rav Moshe Yekusiel Koifman, Av Bais Din of Kutna (1732).

Later years and passing

Rav Avrohom was niftar at the young age of forty-six, on Erev Yom Kippur, 9 Tishrei 5443 (1682), in Kalisz.

Legacy

The Magen Avrohom has guided halachic decisions on Orach Chaim for generations. The Aruch HaShulchan of Rav Yechiel Michel Epstein and the Mishnah Berurah of Rav Yisroel Meir Kagan both relied on him in accepting Kabbalistic practices into everyday halacha.

He also left a lasting mark on how the hours of the day are reckoned. In the Magen Avrohom, the day runs from dawn until nightfall, while the Vilna Gaon counts from sunrise to sunset. For mitzvos of the morning, the Magen Avrohom’s times are always earlier than the Vilna Gaon’s, and for mitzvos of the afternoon and evening they are always later.