The rabbis of Brest, Slutsk, and Lublin gave laudatory
recommendations to Judah Loeb Margolioth's popular works of natural
science, which form a little encyclopedia by themselves. Margolioth was
the grandson of Mordecai Jaffe, himself rabbi successively at Busnov,
Szebrszyn, Polotsk, Lesla, and Frankfort-on-the-Oder (d. 1811). The
writings of Baruch Schick of Shklov, referred to above, were accorded
the same welcome. His translation of Euclid and his treatises on
trigonometry, astronomy (_'Ammude ha-Shamayim_), and anatomy (_Tiferet
Adam_) won the admiration of rabbis as well as laymen. Epitaphs of the
day contain the statement that the deceased was not only "at home in all
the chambers of the Torah," but also in "philosophy and the seven
sciences." And this, exaggerated though it may be, must be seen to
contain a kernel of the truth, when we recall that among Maimon's
intimate friends was the rabbi of Kletzk, Lithuania; that in the humble
dwelling of his father there were works on historical, astronomical, and
philosophical subjects; that the chief rabbi of a neighboring town,
Rabbi Samson of Slonim, who, according to Fuenn, "had in his youth lived
for a while in Germany, learned the German language there, and made
himself acquainted in some measure with the sciences," continued his
study of the sciences, and soon collected a fair library of German
books.
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