Monday, 29 August 2016

SHLOYME-ZALMEN ZEGNER

SHLOYME-ZALMEN ZEGNER (b. 1853)
            He was born in Dukla (Duklya), Galicia.  He was a well-known preacher, Talmud scholar, and mathematician.  He was the author of religious texts (in Hebrew): Tel talpiyot (Mount of trophies) (Lemberg, 1892); Misped tamrurim (Bitter lamentation), a sermon on the death of the Belz Rebbe, Yehoshua Rokeaḥ (Kolomaye, 1894), 22 pp.; Or haḥakhama (The light of wisdom) (Muncacz, 1896); Ḥakhama vebina (Wisdom and knowledge); Bina leatid (Knowledge for the future); and other works equipped with partial explanations in Yiddish.  He also published: Zegners praktisher rekhenmayster (Zegner’s practical calculating expert), book 1, “an easy method for studying arithmetical calculation” (Premishle, 1901), 96 pp.; Zegners praktisher rekhenmayster, book 2, “including mathematical calculations for self-education, geometry, stereometry (measurement of bodies), logarithms, physics, calculating the lunar eclipse, algebra, and the like, as well as several ways to calculate without assistance” (Premishle, 1902), 96 pp., with a foreword in which he explains that the goal of his works is “to understand the Rambam [Moses Maimonides], may his memory be for a blessing, in his judgments on Sukkah and Eruvin or in his More nevukhim (Guide of the perplexed), because not everyone has learned trigonometry.”  Other details about his life remain unknown.

Sources: Gershon Bader, Medina veḥakhameha (The state and its sages) (New York, 1934), p. 149; Bet eked sefarim.
Khayim Leyb Fuks


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