the Week of Proper 10 / Ordinary 15
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Bible Encyclopedias
Lamden
The 1901 Jewish Encyclopedia
Late Hebrew expression for a man who is well informed in rabbinical literature, although not a scholar in the technical sense of the term ("talmid ḥakam"); it does not seem to have been used before the eighteenth century. Ezekiel Katzenellenbogen (1670-1749) decided that rabbinical scholars were exempt from paying taxes even though scholars then were not scholars in the proper sense of the word, "for the law does not make a difference between lamdan and lamdan" (Resp. "Keneset Yeḥezḳel," Ḥoshen Mishpaá¹, No. 95, p. 118a, Altona, 1732). Jacob Emden ("Megillat Sefer," p. 21, Warsaw, 1896) speaks of Baer Kohen (Berent Salomon), the founder of the Klaus in Hamburg, as having been somewhat of a scholar ("ḳeáºat lamdan," the equivalent of the Judæo-German "ein stückel lamden"). Authorities of the sixteenth century, when they have to speak of the difference between a scholar in the technical sense of the word and a well-informed man, do not use the term "lamdan," but say "áºurba me-rabbanan" (see Joshua Falk ha-Kohen in "Sefer Me'irat 'Enayim," Ḥoshen Mishpaá¹, 15, 4; Shabbethai ha-Kohen, ib. 1, 19, and Yoreh De'ah, 244, 11).
These files are public domain.
Singer, Isidore, Ph.D, Projector and Managing Editor. Entry for 'Lamden'. 1901 The Jewish Encyclopedia. https://www.studylight.org/​encyclopedias/​eng/​tje/​l/lamden.html. 1901.