Shabbetai ben Meir Hakohen

Shabbetai Hakohen – better known as Shach, after the acronym of his most famous work – was a Lithuanian-Polish rabbi, halakhic scholar, and talmudic commentator. He was raised in Vilna and studied in Tykotzin, Krakow, and Lublin. He returned to Vilna, where he married the daughter of the wealthy great-grandson of the R. Moses Isserles, and served on the rabbinic court of R. Yehuda Lima. In 1655, he, along with the entire Jewish community, fled from the advancing Swedish army. He eventually became the rabbi of Holešov. His grave there remains a pilgrimage site to this day. His great work, Siftei Kohen, is one of the most important commentaries on the Shulchan Arukh. His rulings were widely accepted by Ashkenazic Jewry as authoritative. He also wrote critical comments on the Turei Zahav of R. David ben Shmuel Halevi, his older contemporary, whom he honored greatly but to whom he did not defer.