Eliezer ben Isaac ha-Gadol was a German rabbi of the eleventh century. He was a pupil of his cousin R. Simon ha-Gadol of Mainz and of R. Gershom Me'or ha-Golah. David Conforte, relying on the statement in the tosefta to Shab. 54b, says that Eliezer ha-Gadol was the teacher of Rashi;David Conforte, Ḳore ha-Dorot, p. 8a but Rashi himself, in citing Eliezer, does not say so.Pesachim 76b In Rashi's quotation he is sometimes called Eliezer ha-Gadol and sometimes Eliezer Gaon, which induced Azulai to consider them as two separate persons.Chaim Azulai, Shem ha-Gedolim, p. 12a
According to a provenance of a sacred tradition—sometimes presumed to describe the transmission of early medieval Kabbalah from Babylon to Western EuropeFor example by Gershom Scholem in his chapter on the ‘Hasidim in Germany’ in Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (1941) and throughout his Origins of the Kabbalah (1961). —with the provenance itself attributed to Eleazar of Worms (13th century)Re: article “Kalonymus” in 21st century edition of Encyclopedia Judaica. v. 12, Kat-Kz. Two extant copies of the provenance, transcribed by Maharshal (as a relatively brief annotation) and by Jose Delmedigo (as a lengthy, descriptive and presumably complete copy of the list) reflect a common source. This and various other corroborating elements tend to authenticate the document. , this ‘Eliezer the Great’ or Eliezer Ben Isaac ha-Gadol, of the early 11th century generation of Ashkenazi Hasidim, was an ancestral member of this lineage of teachers ,and a member of the Kalonymids: the Ba’al Shems or Masters of the Name in medieval Germany.
Works
According to Menahem di LonsanoMenahem di Lonsano, Shete Yadot, p. 122a Eliezer ha-Gadol was the author of the well-known Orḥot Ḥayyim or Ẓawwa'at R. Eliezer ha-Gadol, generally attributed to Eliezer b. Hyrcanus. As to the authorship of the seliḥah Elohai Basser 'Ammeka, recited in the service of Yom Kippur Katan and attributed to Eliezer by Michael,Michael, Heimann Joseph, (1891) Or ha-Ḥayyim, Frankfort-on-the-Main (in Hebrew), pp. 205-207 see Landshuth, 'Ammude ha-'Abodah, p. 20.
Footnotes
Its bibliography: Chaim Azulai, Shem ha-Gedolim, i. 12a, ii., s.v.; Leopold Zunz, Z. G. pp. 47 et seq.; Jellinek, Adolf (1853). Bet ha-Midrasch. 3. Jerusalem, 27, 28 of the Preface; Fuenn, Samuel Joseph, Keneset Yisrael, p. 124; Moritz Steinschneider, Cat. Bodl. cols. 957-958; Julius Fürst, Bibl. Jud. i. 233.