Noted Rabbi, "The Maharal." Judah Loew ben Bezalel, probably born sometime between 1512 and 1526, was known as the Maharal, the Hebrew acronym of "Moreinu Ha-Rav Loew" ("Our Teacher, Rabbi Loew"). He is known for his works on Jewish philosophy and Jewish mysticism. He accepted a rabbinical position in 1553 as Landesrabbiner of Moravia at Nikolsburg. One of his activities was working against slurs on legitimacy against families that could ruin the finding of a marriage partner for members of those families. After leaving Moravia, probably due to anti-Jewish persecutions there, he was active in Prague, where he established a yeshiva and became known for his relatively broad approach to Talmudic studies. In 1592, he moved to Poznań, where he had been elected as Chief Rabbi of Poland. There, he composed two of his important writing, Netivoth Olam and part of Derech Chaim. Toward the end of his life he moved back to Prague. He was not a champion of the open study of Kabbalah as such, and none of his works are openly devoted to it. They make the ideas of the Kabbalah accessible to the average educated reader, by presenting them in a philosophical form, in terms that are accessible to the public. He studied the classical Jewish philosophical texts and was familiar with secular subjects like physics and astronomy. His later writings refers to the findings of Copernicus and Martin Luther's German translation of the Bible. He adopted some of the doctrines of the Kabbalah, which he popularized in his writings and speeches. He denounced the morbid attitude toward sexuality which was prevalent in Christian and Jewish societies. For him, the male and female principles, and love between the sexes, were glorious manifestations of the Divine, as well as being the foundation of the family and society. He was also in favor of scientific research insofar as it did not contradict divine revelation. He was a critic of the Talmud study known as pilpul which painstakingly attempted to reconcile texts or to harmonize fundamental differences of approach between various authorities.