Mordecai ben Avraham Yoffe (or Jaffe or Joffe) ( 1530 – 7 March 1612; Hebrew: מרדכי בן אברהם יפה) was a Rabbi, Rosh yeshiva and posek. He is best known as author of Levush Malkhus, a ten-volume codification of Jewish law that particularly stressed the customs of the Jews of Eastern Europe. He is known as "the Levush" or "the Ba'al Halevushim", for this work. Biography Yoffe was born in Prague; he could count amongst his ancestors Rashi and before him Hillel, Elnathan (governor of Judea) and ultimately back to King David. His father, Abraham b. Joseph, was a pupil of Abraham ben Abigdor. The Levush studied under Moses Isserles and Solomon Luria; Mattithiah b. Solomon Delacrut was his teacher in Kabbalah. Yoffe also studied philosophy, astronomy, and mathematics (apparently at the insistence of Isserles). He was Rosh Yeshiva in Prague until 1561, when, by order of the emperor Ferdinand, the Jews were expelled from Bohemia. Yoffe then went to Venice and studied astronomy (1561–71). In 1572 he was elected rabbi of Grodno; in 1588, rabbi of Lublin, where he became one of the leaders of the Council of Four Lands. Later Yoffe accepted the rabbinate of Kremenetz. In 1592 he was called as rabbi to Prague; from 1599 until his death he occupied the position of chief rabbi of Posen. In addition to his Torah study, writing and teaching he was involved with communal needs, and attended the fairs at Yaroslav and Lublin, where community leaders and rabbis from large communities met to discuss matters of general interest. These meetings were the forerunners of the Council of the Four Lands and the Council of Lithuania. He is also a patriarch of the Jaffe family. A different Rabbi Mordecai Yoffe - Mordecai ben Moses Yoffe - is known for the controversy over his 1549 appointment as rabbi of Grodno, which had to be settled by Queen Bona, and eventually led the Lithuanian government to formalize many of the procedures of the Jewish community. Works Levush Malkhus is a work of practical halacha, accompanied by the reasons behind the various halachic decisions according to logic and earlier sources, and includes sections on Torah commentary, philosophy, and mysticism. This work was divided into ten sections known as "levushim" (garments, or "attires"). While still in his youth, Rabbi Yoffe had the idea to compile a book on Jewish law, which would be used