Dagul MeRevava on Shulchan Arukh, Orach Chayimדגול מרבבה על שלחן ערוך אורח חיים
Prague · 1780
נב
The Noda BiYehudah
The Noda BiYehudah
1713 CE–1793 CE · AH · Apt (Opatów)
Rabbi Yechezkel Landau (1713–1793), known as the Noda BiYehudah after his celebrated responsa collection of that name, was one of the most influential Ashkenazi authorities of the eighteenth century. Born in Poland, he served as rabbi of Yampol and later Prague, where he spent the last several decades of his life as chief rabbi and head of a renowned yeshiva. The Noda BiYehudah was renowned for his systematic approach to halakha, his mastery of Talmudic reasoning, and his willingness to address contemporary questions with both rigor and pragmatism. His responsa—written in two parts, one on Ḥoshen Mishpat and one on Yoreh De'ah—became standard references across Jewish communities and remain studied today. He was also known for his fierce opposition to Hasidic innovations he viewed as departing from tradition, though later rabbinic tradition has often portrayed his views in more nuanced terms.
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Stop 1 of 41713Born
Apt (Opatów)Congress Poland
What they did here
Born on October 8, 1713, in Opatów, Poland, to Rabbi Yehuda ben Zevi Hirsch Segal Landau, a wealthy learned man and communal leader.
Apt (Opatów) in this era
In the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries, Apt (Opatów) in Congress Poland—the territory returned to Russian control after the Napoleonic Wars—became a center of Hasidic thought and fervent spiritual revival. The town's Jewish community, modest in size but intellectually vigorous, flourished especially in the 1700s and early 1800s as Hasidism swept through Eastern Europe, offering ecstatic prayer and mystical devotion to ordinary Jews weary of formal scholasticism. The Ohev Yisrael (R. Abraham Joshua Heschel of Apt, 1755–1825) embodied this movement's warmth, teaching that sincere devotion mattered more than intellectual mastery alone, and his presence drew seekers and disciples to the town's study houses. Market days brought merchants and wagoners through Apt's muddy streets, but the real lifeblood was the yeshiva and the rebbe's court, where Hasidic tales circulated and young men debated kabbalistic mysteries late into the night. Even after the Ohev Yisrael's death, Apt retained its reputation as a place where piety and learning intertwined, though the community would face new pressures as the nineteenth century advanced.
About Apt (Opatów)
Seat of the Apter Rov (Avraham Yehoshua Heschel); Ohev Yisrael composed here.
Works(1)
Influenced byיעR. Yonatan Eybeschutz→The Noda BiYehudah→Shapedר״ח מוולוז׳יןRabbi Chaim of VolozhinחסThe Chatam SoferשקR. Shlomo KlugerקצKetzot HaChoshenTThe Rashash