In the Maharal of Prague's time, 400 years ago, scoffers charged the Sages with inventing fanciful Talmudic tales and reading their own meanings into the Torah in order to create Jewish Law. Be'er HaGolah responds to these charges with brilliance and depth. The Maharal organized his rejoinder into seven broad categories of criticism against Rabbinic Judaism. He called each category a be'er, or well, alluding to the wells dug by the Patriarchs and early generations, which represent fonts of knowledge that were later covered over and sealed. Each 'Well" sets forth its theme with a brief introduction in verse. Each theme was a complaint that critics leveled at Rabbinic Judaism. Multiple texts from the Talmud and Midrash illustrate the complaint or serves to answer it. These texts are the subtopics contained within each Well. Maharal provided the answers by demonstrating how the critics misunderstood the source texts, substituting his fuller explication and elaboration of their true meaning.
Rabbi Adlerstein presents the Maharal without dilution and with perfect fidelity to the original, but with the modern reader in mind. Not a translation, it presents the Maharal's thought in today's terms and with modern examples, true to the ideas of the master.
For anyone who wants to understand and defend the classic foundations of Judaism, this is an indispensable book.
- By Maharal of Prague
- Edited by Rabbi Yitzchok Aldlerstein
- (279 Pages)Publisher: Mesorah, 2000