Rav Shimshon Wertheimer

Early years

Rav Shimshon Wertheimer zt"l was born in Worms in 1658, the son of Yosef Wertheimer (Joseph Josel, 1626 – May 2, 1713). He learned in the yeshivos of Worms and Frankfurt am Main.

In 1684 he married the daughter of the Rav of Mannheim and settled in Vienna, where he arrived on December 2 of that year.

Torah and leadership

In Vienna Rav Shimshon joined the banker Samuel Oppenheimer and shared his privilege of residence. When Oppenheimer was away, he handled his dealings with the Austrian government. Emperor Leopold I came to trust him and gave a portrait of himself to Rav Shimshon and his son Wolf. On December 15, 1701 the emperor added a gift of 1,000 ducats, after Rav Shimshon helped secure a dowry of 1,000,000 florins from the King of Poland for his daughter, who was marrying Leopold's brother-in-law, Duke Charles Philip.

During the War of the Spanish Succession he and Oppenheimer raised the money needed to equip the imperial army and supply its provisions. When Oppenheimer's affairs collapsed and he died suddenly in 1703, Rav Shimshon kept the state's credit alive and found new sources of income. On August 29, 1703 the emperor named him court factor and extended for twenty years his rights of free religious worship, residence and freedom from taxation. Emperor Josef I, who succeeded his father on May 5, 1705, confirmed his title and privileges, and Rav Shimshon went on to serve Emperor Charles VI as well.

Within a few years he was the wealthiest Jew of his day, serving as finance minister to the emperors. Under Josef I he remained financier and creditor of the state. He had close dealings with Prince Eugene of Savoy, to whom he paid 300,000 florins promised by Josef I, and to which Charles VI added another 100,000. During the Turkish war he made large loans to the government.

A relative, Abraham Levi, recorded that he was known as the Juden Kaiser. Ten imperial soldiers stood guard before his house. He owned many palaces and gardens in Vienna and estates and houses in Germany, in Frankfurt am Main, Worms and other cities. No foreign Jew could stay overnight in Vienna without his written permission.

Rav Shimshon used his position for the good of his people. In return for his services he asked for better treatment of Jews throughout the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He negotiated the right of Jews to live in major cities, including Vienna and Frankfurt, saved the Jews of Rothenberg from expulsion, and intervened for the Jews of Worms and Frankfurt. When Eisenmenger's Entdecktes Judenthum appeared in Frankfurt in 1700, he petitioned Emperor Leopold, warning of the danger it would bring. The 2,000 copies were confiscated, and its sale was forbidden for years.

The Jews of Hungary gave him the title Landesrabbiner (chief rabbi), which Charles VI made official on August 26, 1711. He helped establish about forty kehillos in Hungary. When Rákóczy's uprising of 1708 scattered the community of Eisenstadt, and its wealthier members fled to Vienna, he persuaded them to return, or at least to help their poorer brothers rebuild. He built them a house and a handsome shul there, still called Samson's Schule. In 1712 he rebuilt the city of Nikolsburg after a fire. He was also in charge of sending funds to Eretz Yisroel from all of Europe, and he founded schools and gave large sums to causes in Europe and in the Holy Land.

Rav Shimshon never stopped learning. He left a manuscript volume of derashos that he gave in the private shul in his home, which show great Torah scholarship, and he delivered many hespedim for leading rabbanim, among them Rav Simcha Cohen and Rav David ben Yisroel, rabbi of Trebitsch and son-in-law of Rav Menachem Krochmal, the rabbi of Nikolsburg. Questions of halachah, especially in matters of ritual, were sent to him and to the Bais Din he headed in Vienna from near and far. To that Bais Din he invited great authorities, including Rav Yaakov Eliezer Braunschweig, Rav Shimon ben Yehudah Leib Jalles of Krakow, and Rav Alexander ben Menachem HaLevi of Prossnitz.

The Chavos Yair, a grandson of the Maharal of Prague, wrote that since the days of Rav Ashi no one had joined Torah and worldly greatness in one place as Rav Shimshon did. He was regarded as the Gadol HaDor of his time.

His secretary and almoner for many years, Moshe Meir Perls, called him "a rabbi of great congregations in Israel" in his Megillas Sefer (1709). Some works call him rabbi of Prague and Bohemia, but he did not accept that title, as an edition of the Alfasi printed in Frankfurt am Main in 1699–1700 shows. His fame reached the East, where he was described as a prince of the Holy Land and given the title rabbi of Chevron and Tzfas. His hometown of Worms also honored him with the title of rabbi.

Teachings and seforim

Many authors asked for his haskamah (approbation), but he gave it only rarely, for example to Va-Yachal Mosheh by Moshe ben Menachem and to the Chavos Yair of Rav Yair Bacharach. He gave generously toward the printing of seforim, including the Chavos Yair (in which his name appears alongside that of Samuel Oppenheimer), Beis Yehudah by Rav Yehudah ben Nissan, and Avodas HaGershuni and Tiferes HaGershuni by Rav Gershon Ashkenazi (in which David Oppenheimer is also named).

He and his son-in-law, Rav Moshe Kann, bore most of the cost of printing the Gemara in Frankfurt am Main in 1712–1722. This excellent edition was confiscated and kept under lock and key for thirty years. In Frankfurt he also founded and richly endowed a yeshiva, setting up Rav Moshe Kann as Rosh Yeshiva, and in Vienna he established a Bais Din.

Rav Shimshon also left behind kisvei yad (manuscripts) on Torah, Medrash and Kabbalah.

Later years and passing

Rav Shimshon passed away in Vienna on 17 Av 5484 (1724), at the age of sixty-six.

Legacy

Through the marriages of his children Rav Shimshon became connected with the leading families of Austria and Germany. His stepson, Isaac Nathan Oppenheimer, married a daughter of the wealthy purveyor Pösing, and his eldest son, Wolf, married a daughter of Emanuel Oppenheimer. His second son, Löb, married a daughter of Issachar HaLevi Bermann of Halberstadt, a relative of Leffman Behrens, court Jew of Hanover, so that the three great shtadlanim (Jewish representatives at court) were closely linked. His youngest son, Joseph Josel, born in 1718, married a daughter of his stepbrother Wolf. Joseph passed away in Vienna in 1761, where he was held in great esteem for his charity and Torah learning.

Wolf helped his father in his financial dealings and shared his title of court factor. Later he suffered reverses, after investing much of his wealth in loans to the Bavarian government that were not repaid on schedule. For a time he could pay only half of the interest on the 150,000 florins that Rav Shimshon had given to charity, of which Wolf was trustee, and after 1733 he paid no interest on his father's gift of 22,000 florins for the German Jews in Eretz Yisroel. Elector Maximilian ended his difficulty by settling his debts. In his will of 1762 Wolf wrote that, although it cost him dearly, he accepted this settlement so that his creditors would be treated justly. He told his children to pay his father's 22,000 florins in full, even though in 1759 he had returned to the Frankfurt congregation 10,000 florins it had contributed to this fund.

In 1769 Rav Shimshon's grandchildren secured the donation of 150,000 florins, and Wolf's heirs added 40,000 in compensation for the unpaid interest. These two foundations, in Vienna and in Yerushalayim, still keep the Wertheimer name alive.