Ezra

Could you tell me the biography of Ezra his geanology and life

Shalom!

Thank you for your question.

Ezra was an important leader and priest who lived in the early Second Temple period. He was also known as “the scribe.” He was the author of most of the books of: Ezra, Nechemia, Chronicles, and Malachi. He was instrumental in strengthening Judaism after the Babylonian exile at a time where intermarriage and abandonment of tradition was rampant.

The Talmud tells us that Ezra enacted ten laws (although some are not practiced today). They are:

1. To read the Torah on Shabbat afternoons

2. That Jewish courts meet on Mondays and Thursdays.

3. That laundry should be done on Thursdays (or earlier) in order not to interfere with Shabbat preparations.

4. That men should eat cooked garlic on Friday nights

5. That women would bake the bread for Shabbat on Friday mornings

6. That Jewish women should wear an apron of sorts for added modesty (no longer practiced today)

7. That women wash and comb their hair before immersing in the mikva each month

8. That the traveling merchants visit Jewish villages so the women can purchase jewlery and other beauty items

9. That Jewish women should speak in the washrooms so that people know that the washroom is occupied.

10. That men who may had a seminal emission, for any reason, immerse themselves in a mikva before praying. (no longer truly required nowadays)

Several traditions have developed over where Ezra is buried. One tradition says that he is buried in Basra, Iraq while another tradition says that he is buried in Tadef, near Aleppo, in northern Syria. There is even a theory that he was buried in Jerusalem though there is no such supposed tomb. That being said, there is an opinion that Ezra and Malachi where the same person, and there is indeed a “Tomb of Malachi” in Jerusalem.