Eliakim ha-Milzahgi

Eliakim Getzel ha-Milzahgi was born in the Polish town of Smiela into a prominent rabbinical family that included scholars Ephraim Zalman Margolioth and Jacob of Lissa.[3] He settled in Galicia, where he studied with Kabbalist Israel Ḥarif of Satanov.[3] He worked as the rabbi of a small town, and later as a teacher and merchant in Lemberg and Brody,[3] all while pursuing Jewish scholarship under the patronage of Berish Blumenfeld.[4]

Ha-Milzahgi wrote primarily about Talmud and Kabbalah. The only published book of his was Sefer Rabiyah (Ofen, 1837), a criticism of Leopold Zunz's Die gottesdienstlichen Vorträgeder Juden: historisch entwickelt and of Solomon Judah Loeb Rapoport's biography of Eleazar ben Kalir. The work contains a critique of gematria, and a dissertation on Kabbalistic literature.[5]

He also wrote unpublished commentaries on the Zohar, the Sefer Raziel HaMalakh, and the Pesikta de-Rav Kahana.[4] He published in the Jewish press a denunciation of the alleged forgeries of Abraham Firkovich, and, in his essay Mirkevet Esh, he argued in favour of permitting train travel on the Sabbath.[4]

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Deutsch, Gotthard (1905). "Samiler (Smieler), A. G. (Eliakim Götzel; known also as Mehlsack)". In Singer, Isidore; et al. (eds.). The Jewish Encyclopedia. 10. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. p. 684.