MAT, MOSES

MAT, MOSES (c. 1551–c. 1606), Galician rabbi. Mat was born in Przemysl where his father Abraham died a martyr's death. An intimate disciple of Solomon Luria, he taught in Belz. Subsequently he lived in Vladimir-Volynski, where his father-in-law resided and where Mat wrote his Matteh Moshe, a compendium of Jewish ritual law. The book was completed in 1584 and printed in Cracow about six years later, when Mat was already rabbi and head of the yeshivah of Przemysl. Later he lived in Lyuboml. He spent the last years of his life in Opatow. In 1590 Mat was one of the leading rabbis of Poland who signed an ordinance strictly forbidding the "buying" of rabbinical positions. Mat also wrote: Taryag Mitzvot (Cracow, 1581), a versification of the 613 commandments, which he composed at the age of 22; a commentary on the Pentateuch and on the Five Scrolls with a supercommentary on the commentary of *Rashi on these books, both of which were published after his death by his son abraham under the title Ho'il Moshe (Prague, 1611); and Minhagei Maharshal (printed in the 1870 Przemysl edition of Jacob Ẓemaḥ's Nagid u-Meẓavveh) which describes the customs and conduct of his teacher, Luria. Some of Mat's responsa are quoted or mentioned by his contemporaries Benjamin *Slonik and Joel *Sirkes. In his Ho'il Moshe he mentions novellae which he wrote on the treatise of Yevamot, but which have not been published.

bibliography:

J. Kohen-Zedek, Shem u-She'erit (1895), 30–43; Halpern, Pinkas, 15, 62; Raphael, in: Sefer Yovel … S. Federbush (1960), 316–29; also separately: Hanhagat Maharshal (1961); idem, in: Sinai, 63 (1968), 96.

[Tovia Preschel]