Bidspirit auction | ”Yehi Chelki Imachem” – A

”Yehi Chelki Imachem” – A Historical Letter on the Chibat Zion Movement by the Gaon Rabbi Mordechai Eliasberg, Av Beit Din of Bausk – Bausk, 1888 - A complete autograph letter, signed by one of the foremost Torah leaders who supported the Chibat Zion movement – the Gaon Rabbi Mordechai Eliasberg, Av Beit Din of Bausk, close friend of the Netziv of Volozhin. Bausk, 1888, about 13 months before Rabbi Mordechai’s passing. The letter is addressed to: “Honored and beloved friends, their heads, their elders, and all officials among them, each according to the measure of his honor may Hashem bless them, together with all the members who dwell in the depths of my heart.” Rabbi Mordechai, who served as a trustee for the collection of charity funds for Eretz Israel, writes at the beginning of the letter that he is delaying sending the “Kesef HaKe’arot” (funds), because not enough has yet been collected. He then writes with enthusiasm about “the matter of the mitzvah mission, from the mouth that brings forth pearls to awaken the dew of Zion and its love” – referring to the Maggid Rabbi Yosef Chaim Yaffe of Vakshne, one of the leading advocates of the Chibat Zion movement. He concludes his words: “Hasten quickly to fulfill the mitzvah in practice, may my portion be with you, your friend from the depths of the heart, Mordechai.” A historic letter – one of the rare surviving Zionist letters from one of the three great Torah leaders who supported the Chibat Zion movement from its beginnings: the Netziv of Volozhin, Rabbi Shmuel Mohilever, and Rabbi Mordechai Eliasberg. Rabbi Mordechai Eliasberg, Av Beit Din of Bausk (1817–1890), was one of the Torah giants of his generation, a leading disciple of Rabbi Itzele of Volozhin, and a close associate of the Netziv and Rabbi Yisrael Salanter. The letter was printed in the article “Geonei Russia V’Chibat Zion, ” in HaOlam, 12 Sivan 1935 (vol. 23, issue 24), p. 386. Size: approx. 13x20.8 cm. Old adhesion defect on the right side of the letter, with damage to a few letters. At the bottom of the letter appears in another handwriting (possibly that of the aforementioned Maggid of Vakshne): “Letter of the righteous Gaon, our teacher Rabbi Mordechai Eliasberg, Av Beit Din of Bausk, Courland.”