Abraham Ḥayyim ben Gedaliah
ABRAHAM ḤAYYIM BEN GEDALIAH
ABRAHAM ḤAYYIM BEN GEDALIAH (1750–1816), Galician rabbi. Abraham studied under his father Gedaliah b. Benjamin Wolf, who was av bet din in Zloczow. He was a disciple of *Dov Baer the "Maggid of Mezhirech," *Jacob Joseph of Polonnoye, and *Jehiel Michel of Zloczow. He was also a pupil of the two brothers: Samuel Shmelka Horowitz of Nikolsburg and Phinehas Levi Horowitz, his first father-in-law. When Issachar Baer (his father-in-law by his second marriage) immigrated to Ereẓ Israel, Abraham Ḥayyim succeeded him as av bet din of Zloczow. He was a brilliant exegete and facile writer, possessed of an easy, graceful style, and is referred to as a "learned exponent of ḥasidic thought." His Oraḥ Ḥayyim (Zolkiew, 1817) on the Bible is a treasury of thoughts and sayings of the ḥasidic rabbis. It was published posthumously by his stepson, Joseph Azriel b. Ḥayyim Aryeh Leibush, with an introduction by Ephraim Zalman Margolioth, who praises his piety and charity and gives biographical details. Abraham Ḥayyim wrote a commentary on Pirkei Avot, Peri Ḥayyim (1873), and a commentary on the Haggadah, under the same name (1873).
bibliography:
A. Walden, Shem ha-Gedolim he-Ḥadash, 2 (1864), 4a, no. 73; S. Buber, Kiryah Nisgavah (1903), 20–21, s.v. Gedaliah; Y. Raphael, Sefer ha-Ḥasidut (1947), 67.
[Mordecai Ben-Yehezkiel]