BRANDON, BENJAMIN RAPHAEL DIAS:

By: Louis Ginzberg, Israel Berlin

Dutch Talmudist and Hebrew author; died about 1750 at Amsterdam, where he was cantor. He wrote: "Orot ha-Miẓwot" (Lights of the Precepts), on the purpose of the Biblical and the Talmudic precepts (Amsterdam, 1753); and "'Emeḳ Binyamin" (Valley of Benjamin), on halakic problems suggested by his friends in Amsterdam (ib. 1753). In very sharp contrast to the pure and simple language of his works is their content. For instance, the use of wine at "ḳiddush" and "habdalah" is to Brandon a proof that, as wine is a product of much skilled labor, so the world is not an original essence, but the work of a master ("Orot ha-Miẓwot," 9b). Brandon wrote also "Keter Torah" (Crown of the Torah), a poem on the marriage of the Hebrew poet David Franco-Mendez of Amsterdam.

L. G. I. Ber.