Jacob ben Judah Landau
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Jacob ben Judah Landau (d. 1493) (Hebrew: יעקב ברוך בן יהודה לנדא) was a German-Italian rabbi and codifier who lived in the second half of the 15th century. His father was one of the chief authorities on the Talmud in Germany; hundreds of Talmudists, among them naturally his son, were his pupils.
[edit] Agur
Landau left Germany and settled in Italy, living first in Pavia (1480) and then in Naples (1487). In the latter city he published, some time between 1487 and 1492, his code Agur, which he composed for his pupil Ezra Abraham ben David Obadiah, because, the latter's time being devoted to physics and metaphysics, he could not enter deeply into the study of the Talmud (see introduction to Agur). This practical consideration determined the form of the Agur, which contains only those rules that a layman should know, and comprises principally an abridged presentation of the material treated in the first and second parts of the Turim. The author of the Ṭurim, Jacob ben Asher, is Landau's chief authority; and the Agur may be considered really as a supplement to that work. In the Agur Landau gives excerpts from the halakic literature which appeared after the time of Jacob b. Asher.
Although the Agur possesses little originality, it held an important position among law codes, and is often quoted, especially by Joseph Caro in the Shulḥan Aruk]]. German influence on the religious practices of the Italians was increased by Landau's work, such authorities as Jacob Mölin, Isserlein, and other Germans having been little noticed by Italians before him. At the end of the Agur Landau gave a number of conundrums relating to the Halakah, under the title Sefer Hazon, which were afterward published separately (Venice, 1546; Prague, 1608). The Agur was the first Jewish work to contain a rabbinical approbation, besides being the second Hebrew book printed during the author's lifetime (see Jew. Encyc. ii. 27, s.v. Approbation).
[edit] Jewish Encyclopedia Bibliography
- Fuenn, Keneset Yisrael, pp. 550-551;
- Steinschneider, Cat. Bodl. col. 1225.
[edit] References
- This article incorporates text from the 1901–1906 Jewish Encyclopedia, a publication now in the public domain.
