Rabbi Shemuel ben Moshe de Medina (abbreviated רשד”ם) was a great Talmudist and the Rosh Yeshiba of the Talmudic academy of that city. His teachers were the famous rabbi Yosef Taitatsaq, who was also one of the teachers of rabbi Yosef Caro, and Rabbi Levi Ibn Habib. These two rabbis were very different in their orientation and intellectual horizons. Both were great luminaries, but while Rabbi ibn Habib was inclined to reason and Talmudic logic, rabbi Taitatsaq was more inclined to mysticism and qabbala. Rabbi Medina absorb from these two rabbis, but ironically, he did not dedicate himself nor to philosophy not to mysticism, virtually all of his teachings and writings focus on Jewish Law (Halakha).
He lived thorough many personal misfortunes. Rabbi Medina lost his father at a very young age. Then, his two sons in law, rabbi Yosef Tsarfati and rabbi Ytshaq Hayoun, died at a young age living behind their wives, the only two daughters of rabbi Medina and numerous children. A few years later, his brother, a man of means who educated him and supported him financially, also passed away. And the burden of the maintenance of his widowed and her children also fell upon him. Still, he did not abandon the study of Tora and continued writing and teaching. In all this time, he never wanted to be paid from the public community funds, even though he was in a great need of money. On the contrary, as a testimony of his great humbleness, he paid his communal taxes, from which he was technically exempted as a Tora scholar, to avoid presumption ( כדי לא להחזיק עצמו כתלמיד חכם) and benefitting from his Tora.
Rabbi Medina founded a Yeshiva in Salonica in which he introduced the system of teaching of the great Spanish talmudic scholars from the time of Isaac Campanton. This Yeshiba was supported by the famous Jewish philanthropist Doña Gracia Mendes Nasí. He had many disciples, among them rabbi Abraham di Boton, author of lehem Mishne.
Rabbi Medina was the accepted Halakhic authority both in his own and in the following generations in Salonica and beyond. Numberless questions were addressed to him from all parts of the Ottoman Empire and Italy. Rabbi Ḥayim Shabbetai said of him: “He was an expert judge of encyclopedic knowledge, and one must not deviate an iota from his decisions”. The Halakhic decisions of rabbi Medina were studied an incorporated also among Eastern European Tora scholars in later generations, and his rulings are often quoted in modern times by judges in the State of Israel in support of their decisions.
Rabbi Medina was one of the leaders of the congregations coming from the “Gerush” (the expulsion from Spain and Portugal). Rabbi Medina himself was of Portuguese origin and he acted as the rabbi of the Portuguese Synagogue in Salonica. Still, when a controversy aroused on the subject of liturgy (Jewish prayers), and the congregations wanted to print their own Siddurim, rabbi Medina decided to print the version of the Spanish Jews (sefaradim), and not the Portuguese, based on the merits of that version, which was in his own words, “flawless and accessible to all”.
In one of the controversies which took place in Salonica and elsewhere, Rabbi Medina maintained the right of the wealthy members and contributors of the community to regulate the direction of communal affairs. According to him, as had been the custom in Spain, the leadership of the community should be in the hands of those who bear its financial burden, providing they were loyal to the religious principles.
He died at Salonica in 1589. His son was rabbi Moshe De Medina, who was a very important rabbi and a successful merchant and philanthropist, helped to found a new Hebrew printer where many important Tora manuscripts were published for the first time thanks to his generous efforts. Among them, of course, the book of his father Pisqe Rabbi Shemuel De Medina ( שו”ת מהרשד”ם). This book contains a total of 956 questions and answers on all areas of Jewish law, with an introduction by his own son, Rabbi Moshe.
You can download the book of Rabbi Shemuel De Medina, published in Luvov 1860, clicking here.
