Rashash

Rabbi Shmuel Strashun, known by the acronym Rashash, was a Lithuanian Talmudist who spent most of his life in Vilna. Born in 1794 in Zaskevich, he took his surname from Strashun, his father-in-law's village near Vilna, where he settled after marrying young. When the family distillery was wrecked during the French invasion of 1812, the household moved to Vilna and opened a new one; his wife largely ran the business while he devoted himself to study and taught students without charge. He declined the rabbinate of Suwałki to preserve his independence and worked as a proofreader for the Romm press. The daily Talmud lectures he delivered in Vilna produced the glosses gathered as Chiddushei VeHagahos HaRashash, printed in later editions of the Babylonian Talmud, alongside his notes on the Midrash Rabbah and the writings of Maimonides.