Rabbi Yaakov Yehoshua Falk (1680 – 1756) was a Polish and German Rav and expert Talmudist known as the Pnei Yehoshua. He was named the Pnei Yehoshua for his magnum opus, his sefer of commentary and novellas on the Talmud, and Pnei Yehoshua remains one of the classic works of the era of Acharonima and one of the most original and important commentaries on the Talmud.
He was born in Cracow in 1680 and died on the 14th of Shevat in Offenbach am Main in 1756. He was a grandson of Rabbi Yehoshua Heschel b—Yosef of Cracow, the author of Maginne Shelomoh. In 1702, his first wife, his child, and his mother were killed through an explosion of gunpowder that wrecked the house in which they lived. Falk himself narrowly escaped death and was trapped in the debris of the blast for hours. He vowed that he would write a Sefer if he got out alive. He was miraculously saved and, after that, wrote the Pnei Yehoshua.
He married a second wife, Toba, who bore him four sons and at least two daughters. Rabbi Yaakov Yehoshua was one of the greatest Rabbis of his time. He served as Rabbi of Lemberg (Lvov) in 1718, Berlin in 1730, Metz in 1734, and Frankfurt in 1740.
He wrote Pnei Yehoshua in four parts. Two of them were published in Frankfurt am Main (1752); the third, with his Pesak bet-Din Chadash, at Fürth (1766); the fourth, which, in addition to Talmudic novella, contains a novella on the Tur Choshen Mishpat and Likkutim, also in Fürth (1780). The seforim largely focus on resolving questions posed by Tosafos on Rashi. He mentions writing a commentary on the Pentateuch, but it was never published.
He is renowned for his great diligence and piety. It is told that before he began writing his P’nei Yehoshua, Rabbi Falk studied the entire Talmud thirty-six times, corresponding to the thirty-six lives that were lost in the explosion. Describing an encounter with Rabbi Falk, Rabbi Hayyim Yosef Dovid Azulai wrote, “I, the youth, merited to receive the face of the Shekhina in those days. And his appearance was that of an Angel of the Lord.
”And although he requested no eulogy, Rabbi Falk was eulogized by Rabbi Yechezkel Landau, the famed Noda B’Yehudah.