Samuel ben Eliezer of Kalwaria
SAMUEL BEN ELIEZER OF KALWARIA
SAMUEL BEN ELIEZER OF KALWARIA (mid-18th century), preacher and kabbalist. His only extant book is a homiletical work, Darkhei No'am, printed in Koenigsberg in 1764 and probably written before 1760. Among the haskamot (recommendations) in the foreword to the work is one by the Gaon of Vilna. It is a homiletical exposition of Lurianic Kabbalah, in the form of an interpretation of the aggadot of Rabbah b. Bar Ḥana in the Talmud, which he explains by the four methods of *pardes. The book contains some calculations as to the time of the redemption, and it appears that Samuel expected it to begin in the year 1781. Some of his moralistic admonitions seem to be directed against the early groups of the Ḥasidim, which proves that such ḥasidic groups existed in Lithuania before the death of *Israel b. Eliezer Ba'al Shem Tov in 1760.
bibliography:
I. Tishby, in: Zion, 32 (1967), 16–24.