Chelkas Mechokek

Rabbi Moshe Lima was a Lithuanian halakhic authority of the seventeenth century, counted among the Acharonim. While still relatively young he held the rabbinate of Brest-Litovsk (Brisk) and then Slonim, before his standing as a scholar brought him to Vilna, where he headed the rabbinical court around 1650. He was remembered as retiring and unassuming by temperament, a trait often connected to the modest number of writings he left. His best-known work is the Chelkas Mechokek, a closely argued commentary on the Even HaEzer section of the Shulchan Aruch, which treats marriage and family law. He did not complete it, reaching the first 126 chapters; his son Raphael published the manuscript in 1670, adding explanatory notes for its condensed style. The commentary remains in wide use and is customarily printed together with the Even HaEzer text.