Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/886

Rh 852 s R O S wood are never seen, the wood being imported in half round flitches 10 to 20 feet in length and from 5 to 12 inches in their thickest part. Owing to its irregular form the wood is sold by weight, and its value varies within wide limits according to the richness of colour. Rosewood has a deep ruddy brown colour, richly streaked and grained with black resinous layers. It takes a fine polish, but on account of its resinous nature it is some- what difficult to work. The wood is very much in demand both by cabinetmakers and pianoforte-makers, by whom it is used both solid and in veneer. The wood of Dalbcrgia latifolia, a native of the East Indies used for ornamental furniture and carvings under the name of black wood, is frequently termed East Indian Rosewood, as is also the allied tree of Madras, Dalbergia sissoides. The Bois de Rose of the French, the Portuguese Pao de Rosa, and the German Rosenfiolz, is a Brazilian wood, the produce of Physocalymma floribunda, called in the United Kingdom tulip wood, and very highly esteemed on account of its beautiful rose colour and grain. African rosewood is from Ptcrocarpus erinaceus, Dominican from Cordia Gerascanthus, and in New South Wales the wood of Synoum glandulosum locally receives the same name. ROSH, also HAROSH (tJ>X"~i, K*X'"in, i.e., " chief," " the chief "), stands by contraction for Rabbenu Asher, or Harab Rabbenu Asher (b. Yehiel), chief rabbi of all Castile. He was born- in Germany about the middle of the 13th century and died at Toledo on the 25th of October 1327. 1 Rosh enjoys a sixfold celebrity. (1) He was a descendant of a long line of distinguished ancestors, among whom RABAN (q.v. ) maybe specially named. (2) He was "the distinguished of the most distinguished disciples " 2 of the foremost rabbi of his age in Germany, viz., Rabbeuu Meir b. Barukh, better known under the name of R. Meir of Rothenburg, whose tragic fate 3 even more than his learning and piety has endeared him to all Jews down to this very day. (3) He was the father of eight great Rabbinic scholars. 4 (4) He was in his own right, after 1293 in Germany 1 See Schiller-Szinessy, Catal. Hub. MSS., &c., i. p. 66, note 3, and ii. p. 77, note 3. 2 B. Meir of Rothenburg (see next note) had among his many disciples four more distinguished than the rest : (1) R. Mordekhai b. Hillel, who was slain with his wife and children at Nuremberg in 1310, a fine Latin and general scholar and author of the Mordekhai, now an integral part of the RIPH (?.?.); (2) R. Meir Uakkohen, the author of the Haggahoth Maimoniyyoth, now an integral part of the Mishneh Torah of MAIMOJJIDES (q.v.); (3) R". Shimslion b. Sadok, who wrote his master's Tashbes in prison, <fcc. (see Catal. Arab. MSS. of Tfin. Coll., Cambr., App. p. 229) ; (4) Rosh. 1 The persecutions and massacres of the Jews in many parts of Germany in the 13th century made life so unendurabletliat the wealthier of them determined to quit the land of their birth and to emigrate to that of their ancient fathers. R. Meir of Rothenburg, being at the head of the emigration, had in the spring of 1286, with his whole family and several other families, already arrived in Lombardy. But one Kinppa, or Knippa, or Konpil, i.e., A'oppel ( = Jacob), a con- verted Jew, recognized and betrayed him to his master, the bishop (? pojn) of Basel, who had him arrested by Captain Meinert (Meinhard) of Gbrz, who handed him over to the emperor. Rudolph of Hapsburg, who had only a dozen years before or so (to speak in the great German poet's language) " made an end, after the long destructive strife, to the emperorless, terrible time," was, though very rich in dignities, as yet comparatively poor in purse. He therefore, in the midsummer of th<! same year (to extort money from the Jews), caused the poor rabbi to be imprisoned in the tower of Ensishcim (in Alsace) and subsequently in other places, e.g., Weissenburg, or Wasserburg (pTnCJO). Considerable sums were offered by the Jews for their revered chief, but the negotiations were brought to nought by the command of the rabbi himself, who would not permit more than a trifling sum to be given for his release (RKSHAL (?..), Yam shel Shelomoh, on Gittin, iv. 66). He died in prison in 1293. Rudolph's successors Adolph of Nassau (1291-1298) and Albrecht of Austria (1298-1308), were so heartless as not to deliver up for nearly fourteen years the poor rabbi's corpse for burial, hoping to extort from the Jews even greater sums than they had origin- ally offered to Rudolph for the rabbi alive. In 1307, however, a rich and pious but childless man, Alexander SUsskind Wimpfen of Frankfort, offered an euor- mous^ sum on the condition that the congregation of Worms should bury the rabbi's corpse and should allow at his own death his body to rest near it (see Lewysohn, Sechzig EpUaphien . . . zu Worms, Frankfoit-on-Main, 1855, 8vo, pp. 35-41). R. Meir of Rothenburg was not merely a fine Biblical and Rabbinic scholar but also a great Cabbalist, as R. David b. Yehudah Hasid testifies in his Mar'oth Jlassobeoth (Camb. Univ. MS. Add. 664, leaf 72a). Most of his literary productions are incorporated with works of his disciples and the disciples of these disciples. For instance, some of his massoretico-ethical explanations are to be found in R. Ya'akob b. Asher's so-called Ba'al Hatturim, and vart of his commentary on the Mishnah is to be found in R. Yomtob Lipmann Heller's Tosephotk Yomtob (see MISHNAH). Other Rabbinic work of his is to be found in Roth, Mordekhai, Ac. But there exists also independent literature of his as (1) Tosaphoth on Yoma (in the editions of the Babylonian Talmud); (2) Respoma, in three volumes (i., Cremona, 1557, 4to; ii., Prague, 1608, fol., which contains, however, matter by other authors also, as Rabbenu Gershom, Rabbenu Tham, the Takkanoth 8hum, Rules of Penitence, by R. El'azarof Worms, <fec. ; iii., Lemberg, 860, 4to) ; (3) Tashbes (see last note) ; (4) Birekhoth Maharam (Riva di Trento, 558, 8vo) ; (5) religious poems of considerable value, which are to be found in the Ashkenazic Mahzor. but now almost superseded by the Shulhan 'Arukh of R. Yoseph Caro (see' and after 1310 everywhere, the greatest Talmudist. 8 (5) He was the first rabbi of the Ashkenazic school who possessed powers of systematization. (6) He was a man not merely of the deepest piety but of the sternest and, if we may say so, the most savage 6 morality. Rosh, in despair at the state of affairs in Germany (some, however, say through his being involved in negotiations with the emperor for the delivery of the body of his master, which he could not bring to a successful issue), 7 left his home and travelled aimlessly about with his numerous family till he arrived in Provence. There he would have remained gladly had not the. Maimonideaii controversy broken out. 8 He went therefore to Castile, where Toledo, jealous of Barcelona possessing such a great rabbi as R. Shelomoh Ibn Addereth was, 9 received him with open arms and great respect and elected him their rabbi. Under his eyes the celebrated astronomical work Yesod 'Olam, by R. Yishak b. Yoseph Yisraeli, was composed. 10 Of the numerous works by Rosh, which have been printed times innumerable, we can only mention the most important : (1) Commentary on the Pentateuch (see Hadar Zekenim, Leghorn, 1840, folio). (2) Commentary on the Mishnic treatises of the orders Zera'im und Tohoroth (see editions of the Babylonian Talmud). (3) Commentary on the whole Babylonian Talmud (ibid.; the Kissur Piseke Ilarosh is by Rabbenu Ya'akob, the author's son, see note 4). (4) To'sephe Ilarosh on several treatises (see Schiller- Szinessy, Catalogue, ii. pp. 76-94). (5) Responsa (Constantinople, 1517, folio, and reprints). (6) Halakhoth Ktlannoth (see Talmud editions). (7) Hanhagah, Sevanh, &c. (Testament, <fcc., Venice, 1578, 16mo, and reprints). (S. M. S.-S.) ROSICRUCIANS (ROSENKREUZER), a celebrated but entirely fabulous secret society. In 1614 there appeared at Cassel an anonymous German work, Allgemeine und General-Reformation der ganzen Welt beneben der Fama Fraternitatis des loblichen Ordens des Rosenkreuzes, inviting the scholars of Europe to test the pretensions and join the ranks of a secret society, said to have been founded two hundred years before by a certain Christian Rosen- kreuz, who had acquired on a pilgrimage the hidden wisdom of the East. The society, according to this account, possessed many secret gifts of knowledge, of which goldmaking was one of the least. Its character was Christian and of Protestant type ; its chief aim was the gratuitous healing of the sick. Though the origin of the Fama and some subsequent tracts in supplement to it has never been made quite clear, it has generally been held that Arnold, in his Kirchen- und Ketzer-Historie, renders it highly probable that the author was the talented theo- logian and polymath Johann Valentin Andreae (1586- 1654), and that the book was originally a sort of elaborate joke composed in the stift at Tubingen. But the marvel- lous elements in the account of Rosenkreuz and his society only served in that age to draw serious attention to the supposed order. A large controversial literature sprang up, and, while some violently condemned the Rosicrucians as heretics in theology and medicine, others, and among them R. FLUDD (q.v.), defended them and hoped great things from the enlarged activity which was proposed for them in the Fama and its companion tracts. Gradually it came to be generally seen that the whole thing was a mystification. The name and fable of the Rosicrucians have, however, from time to time been made use of by such impostors as Cagliostro. ROSIN, or COLOPHONY, is the resinous constituent of the oleo-resin exuded by various species of pine, known in commerce as crude turpentine (see TURPENTINE). The separation of the oleo-resin into the essential oil-spirit of turpentine and common rosin is effected by distillation in large copper stills. The essential oil is carried off at a heat of between 212 and 316, leaving fluid rosin, which is run off through a tap at the bottom of the still, purified by passing through a straining wadding, and received into RKIH AL, note 1) ; (6) the commentary on the Pentateuch mentioned in the fore- going note, a portion of which forms now an integral part of every Rabbinic Bible (it was first issued at Constantinople in 1514, 4to) ; and (c) the Kissur Piseke Ilarosh (Constantinople, 1515, fol.). 4 I.e., after the death of his master and that of R. Shelomoh b. Abraham Ibn Addereth (see KASHBA III.). 6 See Schiller-Szinessy, Catal., ii. p. 78, note 2 7 See Ibn Tahya's Shalsheleth Hakkabbalah. See Schiller-Szinessy, Catal., i. p. 188 seq. See RASHBA III. ' Printed in 1777, and from an ancient M.S. again in 1848, both times at Berlin and in 4to. The library of Cambridge university possesses a most valuable MS. of it (Oo. 6. 65)
 * Of these we will only mention two. (1) R. Yehuilah, his successor in the