Nachman Krochmal

Nachman HaKohen Krochmal (born in Brody, Galicia, on 17 February 1785; died at Ternopil on 31 July 1840) was a Jewish Galician philosopher, theologian, and historian.

He began the study of the Talmud at an early age. At age fourteen he was married, according to the custom of the time, to the daughter of the wealthy merchant Habermann. He then went to live with his father-in-law at Zhovkva, near Lemberg, where he devoted himself entirely to his studies, beginning with Maimonides' The Guide for the Perplexed, and studying other Hebrew philosophical writings.

Krochmal then proceeded to study German and the German philosophers, especially Immanuel Kant, to read Latin and French classics, and Arabic and Syriac books. After suffering a breakdown from overwork in 1808, he went to Lemberg for medical treatment; and the friendship he there formed with S.L. Rapoport, whose teacher he became, was most fruitful for Jewish science. On his return to Żółkiew, after having partially recovered, he again took up philosophy, reading Kant, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling, and subsequently Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, whose system chiefly attracted him and exerted a great influence on his views. Aside from Rapoport, who often visited him in Żółkiew, he gathered around him a group of young students.

...
Wikipedia