AARON BEN SAMUEL

AARON BEN SAMUEL (c. 1620–1701), German rabbinical author. He is best known for his concordance Beit Aharon (Frankfurt on the Oder, 1690–91) in which he assembled all biblical passages cited or explained in the Talmud, the midrashim, and the many religious-philosophical, homiletic, and kabbalistic writings, with exact references for each quotation. The Beit Aharon is based on such works as aaron of pesaro 's Toledot Aharon (1581), Simeon b. Isaac ha-Levi's Masoret ha-Mikra (1572), and jacob sasportas ' Toledot Ya'akov (1652). It was published in the Vilna and Grodno edition of the Prophets and Hagiographa in 1780. An enlarged edition by Abraham David Lavat appeared under the title Beit Aharon ve-Hosafot (1880). Aaron's other works include Sisra Torah (a pun on the Ashkenazi pronunciation of "Sitrei Torah"), a homiletic commentary on Judges 4 and 5 (on Sisera and Jael); Shalo'aḥ Manot, a short commentary on the Babylonian Talmud; Megillah (both lost); and Ḥibbur Masorah, a midrashic commentary on the masorah. Some excerpts of the latter appeared as an appendix to the Beit Aharon. At the request of his wife Aaron translated into Yiddish the Midrash Petirat Moshe (Frankfurt on the Oder, 1693), which was popular among women in Poland and Russia. Aaron also wrote a commentary on perek shirah which appeared as an appendix to the Berlin prayer book (1701). -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Michael, Or, no. 320. (Jehuda Feliks)