<<(“Tosfos Yom-Tov.”)>> Ma’adanei Melech V’Lechem Chamudoth [novellae to the Ro’sh, Rabbeinu Asher ben Yechiel: Tracs. Berachoth-Nidah].

The author entitled the present commentary Ma’adanei Melech (“Royal Delicacies”), based upon Jacob’s blessing of the tribe of Asher (Genesis 49:20) - the dual meaning referring both to the necessity of bread and to the delicacies of a king. Similarly, the dual purpose of the work itself, was to provide legal decisions of Halacha of relevance to all, along with intricate pilpulistic discourses for the pleasure of the scholar - who are considered as kings (“Man Malki Rabanan.”) However, the author’s detractors deviously misconstrued the meaning of the title as an insult to the reigning monarch and a portent of revolution. Indeed the Tosfos Yom Tov was imprisoned for heresy and upon his eventual release, judiciously altered the title to the more innocuous “Ma’adanei Yom Tov.” See J. Davis, Yom-Tov Lipmann Heller: Portrait of a Seventeenth-Century Rabbi (2004) pp. 117-135.