Bidspirit auction | Halachic Letter and Kvittel by

Halachic Letter and Kvittel by the Gaon Rabbi Chaim Yitzchak Yerucham, Av Beis Din of Altstadt – 1909 * A lengthy letter of three and a half large pages, in the handwriting and bearing the signature of the gaon and chassid Rabbi Chaim Yitzchak Yerucham, Av Beis Din of Altstadt (Old Sambor), one of the leading poskim of Galicia and Austria before the Holocaust. The letter was sent to the venerable gaon Rabbi Eliyahu Marder of Dzikov, one of the noted Torah scholars of Galicia, who was then residing in Jerusalem. The body of the letter contains a detailed halachic inquiry concerning the ancient Jerusalem enactment forbidding the removal of books from Jerusalem to the Diaspora. In practice, Rabbi Chaim Yitzchak Yerucham rules leniently, permitting this when the price of the books will benefit the seller, as this constitutes “the settlement of Eretz Yisrael and the strengthening of the Torah scholars of Eretz Yisrael and of Jerusalem.” On the third page, he signs: “Blessing you with a good and long life, full and flourishing, and blessing you with all goodness, with Heavenly assistance. The humble one, Chaim Yitzchak Yerucham, Av Beis Din of the Old City and the Galil, may Hashem protect it.” He then records his name and his mother’s name for prayer: “I hereby record our names, and in your great goodness may you plead on our behalf in the holy places. Chaim Yitzchak, son of Miriam Sarah – for Heavenly assistance in all matters…, ” and he likewise records the names of his wife, his nine children, and his four grandchildren. This teshuva was never printed in its present form. The author printed it in his sefer Birchas Yitzchak (Vienna, 1923), but in a different and longer version. The first half-page of the present manuscript was not printed there at all. Rabbi Chaim Yitzchak Yerucham (1865–1942) was an important Rav and posek, whose teshuvos were disseminated throughout Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and beyond. He first served in the rabbinate of Limanow, and from 1907 as Av Beis Din of Altstadt, which at the time numbered over one thousand Jews. It was there that the present teshuva was written. During the First World War, he went into exile in Vienna, where he later settled. In the years of the Holocaust, he returned to Altstadt and passed away there in the ghetto. He served as president of the “Association of the Rabbanim of Galicia and Bukovina.” In 1923, he began printing his sefer Birchas Yitzchak, mentioned above, but did not complete it; his son later published his writings under the title Birchas Chaim. Rabbi Eliyahu Marder of Dzikov (1836–1917) was a distinguished talmid chacham and renowned lamdan. Already in his youth, he corresponded with Gedolei Hador, among them Rabbi Shlomo Kluger of Brody (a letter from Rabbi Shlomo Kluger to him was sold in Zaidy 3, item 75), the Avnei Tzedek of Da’ash, and others. He published several sefarim from the Torah of the Maharshak and his son, Rabbi Avraham Binyamin, as well as writings of Rishonim and Achronim (and in this context, he questioned whether he was permitted to send his printed sefarim abroad). Altstadt, 1909. Two leaves in the handwriting and bearing the signature of Rabbi Chaim Yitzchak Yerucham. Size : Approx. 23 × 29 cm. Condition : Good to fair. The leaves are mounted on transparent conservation mesh for preservation.