Yom-Tov Lipmann Heller - Education and Rabbinic Career

Education and Rabbinic Career

Heller was brought up by his grandfather, Rabbi Moses Wallerstein. As a teenager, Heller was sent to Friedberg, where he studied in the yeshiva of R. Jacob Günzburg. From there, he moved to Prague, where he became a disciple of the Maharal, head of the yeshiva of Prague. In 1597, when Heller was scarcely 19 years old, he received a semicha (appointment) as a dayan in that city.

In October 1624, Heller was called to the rabbinate of Mikulov, Moravia, and in March 1625, became rabbi of the Vienna. Leopoldstadt was then a suburb of Vienna. At his arrival the Jews of Vienna were scattered throughout the city, not having a central community. Heller obtained for the Jews the rights to establish a central Jewish community in Leopoldstadt where he was instrumental in reorganizing the community and drew up its constitution.

From 1627 until 1629, he was chief rabbi of Prague.

In 1631, he moved to the Ukraine, where he served as rabbi of Nemirov for three years. In 1634, he moved to the larger city of Ludmir (Volodymyr) in Volhynia. During his years in Volhynia and Poland, Heller was among the rabbinic leaders of the Council of Four Lands. In 1640, he worked to obtain the renewal of the synod’s decrees against simony in the rabbinate.

Finally, in 1643, he was elected head of the rabbinical court of Kraków, one of the two chief rabbis of that community. R' Yehoshua Heschel of Crakow, the author of Maginne Shelomoh, was head of the yeshiva there. Four years later, Heschel died, and R' Heller succeeded him in the direction of the yeshiva as well. Heller was chief rabbi of Kraków during the Chmielnicki uprising of 1648, and until his death in 1654.