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 ?adash. 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 Min?at Aharon, novellae on tractate Sanhedrin (Novydvor, 1792) with an appendix entitled Min?ah Belulah containing responsa and talmudical treatises. Other responsa (Anaf E? Avot) were included in Mekor Mayim ?ayyim (1839) by his grandson Jacob Meir, whose father ?ayyim 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.