Aaron ben Meir Brisker
AARON BEN MEIR BRISKER
AARON BEN MEIR BRISKER (d. 1807), Polish rabbinical scholar and author. Aaron's father was one of the leaders (allufim) of the Brest-Litovsk (Brisk) community and one of the signatories to a letter sent in 1752 to Jonathan Eybeschuetz, whom he supported in the dispute with Jacob *Emden. Aaron studied under Eleazar b. Eleazar Kallir, author of Or Ḥadash. He refused to accept a rabbinical position and devoted himself exclusively to his studies. Aaron was delegate to the conference of Jewish notables of Poland which assembled in Warsaw in 1791 to deliberate on the problems of Polish Jewry. He wrote Minḥat Aharon, novellae on tractate Sanhedrin (Novydvor, 1792) with an appendix entitled Minḥah Belulah containing responsa and talmudical treatises. Other responsa (Anaf Eẓ Avot) were included in Mekor Mayim Ḥayyim (1839) by his grandson Jacob Meir, whose father Ḥayyim had adopted the surname Padua. In his work Aaron shows himself a master of the casuistic method of Talmud study known as pilpul.
bibliography:
D.T. Efrussi, Toledot Anshei Shem (1875), 50; A.L. Feinstein, Ir Tehillah (1886), 33, 37, 224; M. Wischnitzer, Istoriya Yevreyskogo Naroda, 11 (1914), 101; I.T. Eisenstadt and S. Wiener, Da'at Kedoshim (1898), 124f.; eg, 2 (1954), 153.