In the spring of 1864, the following advertisement appeared in the Hebrew periodical HaMaggid:
In the Congregations will I bless Hashem Who has granted us life and sustenance and permitted us to reach this season, with the printing of my Sefer Kitzur Shulhan Arukh, a collection from all four sections of the Shulkhan Arukh…. of the laws required to be known by every Jew, written in a simple language and appropriately arranged. This work will be of benefit for those in business who lack the time for in-depth study of [Rabbi Joseph Caro’s} Shulkhan Arukh and its commentaries, and they will find with ease [the answers to their questions]. Similarly it will be useful to instruct the young.
(signed) Shlomo Granzfried Ungvar, 12th of Nissan, 5624.
This was the first public notice announcing the publication of the Kitzur Shulhan Arukh.
The Kitzur was an immediate success. In the month of Sivan of the following year, Rabbi Ganzfried placed an ad in the Hebrew periodical HaMevasser, informing the readers that the first edition of the Kitzur Shulhan Arukh was sold out and that a corrected and enlarged edition was in the planning.
Twenty editions of the Kitzur – including some that were not authorized by the author– were published until Rabbi Ganzfried’s death in 1886.
Since then numerous additional editions have appeared in various countries, making the “Kitzur” one of the most widely studied Jewish religious books.
Rabbi Shlomo Ganzfried – His Kitzur and His Life by Jack E. Friedman, which recently came off the press (Jason Aronson Inc., Northvale, New Jersey- Jerusalem) acquaints us with the life and family of Rabbi Shlomo Ganzfried as well as with his many writings, especially the Kitzur Shulhan Arukh.
The author, Jack E. Friedman, a descendant of Rabbi Shlomo Ganzfried, had begun working on his book years ago, but his duties as a dean of the City University of New York, family concerns, and a variety of communal and professional interests– he served, among other posts, as national chairman of the American Professors for Peace in the Middle East– forced him to put off intensive research until his retirement. Living now in Jerusalem, he has made abundant use of the Holy City’s many research facilities to writing his book about Rabbi Shlomo Ganzfried as well as his work on other literary projects.
Let it be stated in the beginning that Rabbi Shlomo Ganzfried — His Kitzur and His Life is a well researched and beautifully written book.
Rabbi Shlomo Ganzfried was born around 1804 in Ungvar, then a small community in the northeastern part of Hungary (now Uzhorod in the Western Ukraine). Shlomo’s father, Joseph worked hard to support his family. He wanted very much that his son become a rabbinic scholar and imposed upon him a very strict study schedule. The father died when Shlomo was eight years old and the boy found a new mentor and guide in Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch Heller, familiarly known as Hershele Charif, who was made rabbi of the town in 1815. Rabbi Heller became the official guardian of the young orphan. He did so surely to help Shlomo’s mother, but he must also have been attracted by the boy’s talents and knowledge. Young Shlomo had already mastered at that time a large portion of the Mishna. Rabbi Heller opened a Yeshiva in Ungvar and Shlomo became one of the students of the new institution.
Rabbi Heller did not remain long in Ungvar. In 1818, at the urging of Rabbi Moshe Sofer, he accepted the call the community of Bonyhad had extended to him. Young Shlomo followed his teacher to Bonyhad and studied for seven years in his Yeshiva. There he became a close friend of a fellow student, Zvi Hirsch Friedman, who came from Saturaljaujhely (popularly known as Ujhely). Zvi Hirsch became Av Beth Din of Lisska later on and achieved prominence in Hungarian Hasidism. The two remained close friends throughout their lives.
After his return to Ungvar, Shlmo married Hendl, the daughter of Lippa Mardrar, a very wealthy and charitable man who wanted for a son-in-law an outsanding scholar with fine personal qualities, who would devote his life to the study of the Torah.
(Continued next week)
The Jewish Press, Friday, February 16, 2001
Continued from last week
After his marriage, Rabbi Shlomo Ganzfried and his wife Hendl settled in Homonna. a small community some thirty miles northwest of Ungvar. There his partners in study were the two rabbis who shared the town’s pulpit. Rabbi Abish Shafura and his brother-in-law, Rabbi Yehuda
Leibiah Sapir. The unusual two-rabbis arrangement was the result of an agreement in the community following the death, in 1820, of the previous rabbi, Rabbi Yaakov Shapir.
Rabbi Shlomo Ganzfried, who was in the wine business, traveled throughout the region offering his wares.
Once during a visit to Debrecen he picked up Bnei Yona, a treatise on the laws of writing a Torah by Rabbi Yona Landsofer, a famous Prague rabbi, author of responsa Me’il Zedakah, who died in 1712 at the young age of thirty-four.
Immersing himself in the study of the treatise. Rabbi Ganzfried felt that he would be able to write a more comprehensive and easier to study handbook on the subject, and that it was his duty to do so.
In the introduction to Kesset HaSofer, his work on the laws relating to the writing of the Torah, Tefillin, Mezuzot and the Scroll of Esther, R Ganzfried states that he regarded it a divine work to gather all the laws [on this subject]… and to make of them a singular unit, all arranged as a Shulhan Arukh (prepared table] for the Sofer. In this way [the scribe) will be able to study [the laws] with ease and review them periodically so as not to forget them.”
“Ganzfried succeeded abundantly in implementing his objective in the 19 chapters of the book.” states Jack E. Friedman in his precise description and characterization of Kesset HaSofer. “In addition to demonstrating [the author’s] mastery of the sources, the work was a model of organization and of a lucid prose style. He approached the project with a propelling logic, moving from the general to the particular.”
In the summer of 1834, Rabbi Ganzfried made his way to Rabbi Moshe Sofer, with whom he had corresponded a few years earlier, to submit to him his Kesset HaSofer. He met with the Hatam Sofer in the resort of Jergen, near Pressburg, where Rabbi Moshe Sofer used to spend part of the summer.
Rabbi Moshe Sofer praised the work exceedingly. In his approbation he writes that he imposes on all his (own] students, who are obliged to obey him, “the requirement that from the day Kesset HaSofer is published, they will grant neither permission nor a certificate of authorization to any Sofer except to those who have mastered this book and are familiar [with its details].”
Kesset HaSofer was printed in 1835 in Buda. The work was received well and was reprinted several times. In
1871 Rabbi Ganzfried published an enlarged edition which also went to several printings.
In 1839 Rabbi Ganzfried published, in Vienna, Avodath Yisrael, a commentary on the Siddur with a new and
supplemented edition of Rabbi Yaakov Lorbeerbaum’s Siddur, Derekh HaHayyim, containing the laws regarding the prayers.
After an extended stay in Homonna, the Ganzfrieds returned to Ungvar. A few years later, in 1843, they left
again, this time (or Brezevitz, a small community in the district of Saros, north-west of Ungvar, which had extended a call to Rabbi Ganzfried.
Rabbi Ganzfried officiated there until 1849. when an outstanding student of Rabbi Moshe Sofer, Rabbi Meir Ash.
who in 1835 had been chosen rabbi of Ungvar, invited him to become Rosh Bet Din of his hometown.
During his comparatively short stay in Brezevitz. Rabbi Ganzfried authored two books which further spread
his reputation in the Torah world; Pnei Shlomo, novellae on Tractate Bava Batra, was printed in Zolkiev in 1846
and carried approbations by Rabbi Meir Ash and Rabbi Shlomo Kluger.
Torat Zcvah, “a compendium of the laws of slaughtering, covering of the blood, non-kosher aspects of the lung
and perforation” designed for the practicing Shohet. was printed in Lemberg (Lvov) and was approbated by Rabbi
Meir Ash, Rabbi Shlomo Kluger — who also contributed to the volume — and the Admor of Sanz, Rabbi Chaim Halberstam.
(Continued next week)
Friday, February 23, 2001
(Continued from last week)
In 1849, as mentioned earlier, Rabbi Ganzfried, who then served as rabbi in Brezevits, was invited by Rabbi Meir Ash, the Rabbi of Ungvar, to become the Rosh Beis Din of his community
Friedman writes that for Rabbi Ganzfried the invition was the fulfillment of a wish. Over the years the lure of Ungvar, the city of his birth where his great grandfather, Rabbi Leibush Bodek Reisman had served as the first rabbi, and his grandfather, Rabbi Shlomo— son-in-law of Rabbi Reisman–had been Dayan, had remained undiminished.
Rabbi Shlomo Ganzfried officiated as Dayan in Ungvar until his death on the 28th of Tammuz 5646 (1886).
The duties of the community’s Dayanim were many. They served as judges, mediators and religious supervisors, ruled on matters of Halakha and adjudicated disputes, solemnized marriages, resided over divorces and supervised the kosher slaughterers. They also taught at the Yeshiva and delivered sermons in various synagogues.
At times Rabbi Ganzfried was also called upon to decide Halakhic problems and to adjudicate disputes in other communities.
In Ungvar he continued his fruitful literary activities. He prepared new editions of works which had already appeared in print and also published several new books including his famous Kitzur Shulkhan Arukh.
His Lehem Vesimla appeared in 1861. The book which was printed in Lemberg dealt with the laws of ritual purity and immersion and the building of a kosher Mikvah.
Lehem Simlah whose name alludes to the husband’s obligation to provide his wife with food and clothing, had its origin years earlier when Rabbi Meir Ash– who died in 1852– initiated a program to build a Mikvah in Ungvar. When it turned out that a source of natural water was available only at a great depth, Rabbi Meir Ash asked Rabbi Ganzfried to study the Halakhic problems involved.
In Lehem Vesimla, Rabbi Ganzfried refers several times to the building of the Mikvah in Ungvar. He describes the problems which were encountered by the builders and the solutions he suggested to Rabbi Meir Ash.
The book carried approbations by Rabbi Menachem Ash, who had succeeded his father Rabbi Meir as rabbi of Ungvar and by Rabbi Chaim Halberstam the Admor of Sanz.
In 1864, Karl Jaegar, a Christian printed in Ungvar enlarged his printing shop by acquiring Hebrew fonts, establishing the first Hebrew printing press in the northeastern region of Hungary. Rabbi Ganzfried was associated with Jaeger in this enterprise, and his responsibilities including the proofreading of the Hebrew texts. Among the first products of the new printing press were two new books by Rabbi Ganzfried. Appiryon, containing comments on the Torah portions of the week, and the first edition of the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch.
The Kitzur Shulhan Arukh, a comprehensive but compact code for the entire year incorporating laws from all the four parts of the Shulkhan Arukh, was an immediate outstanding success.
What was the secret of its phenomenal circulation? In what way was it different from other abridgements of Jewish law?
Friedman quotes Rabbi Y. L . Maimon who said that as exemplary as the other abridgments were, “they did not fulfill the task of bringing every day Halacha within the reach of every Jew.”
Friedman himself points to certain aspects in Rabbi Ganzfried’s style and writing which facilitate the study of the book by the average person.
“The Kitzur’s brevity was one of Ganzfried’s achievements. Despite its richness in content, it was one third the length of Rabbi Danzig’s Chayei Odom.,” Friedman writes. “The succinctness of the Kitzur owed much to Ganzfried’s approach to his material. For example, he omitted information that was generally known as he states in a headnote to chapter 80 on the laws of Shabbat. “Most Jews are familiar with the kinds of work that are forbidden on the Shabbat. Therefore, we write only about those [kinds] that are not known to many and that are commonly encountered. Also, rather than present differing points of view, he stated without ambiguity what was permitted and what was forbidden. But his choices were not arbitrary as he explained in a letter to an inquiring reader. To determine a ruling. he turned to three authoritative Halakhic masters: Rabbi Jacob of Lissa, Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the Ba’al Hatanya, author of Shulchan Aruch HaRav and Rabbi Danzig. In cases of disagreement, he adopted the majority rule.
From 1864, when the Kitzur was first printed until his death 22 years later, Rabbi Ganzfried spent much time on revising and enhancing the text of the Kitzur, fighting those who reprinted or translated into Yiddish the book without permission and corresponding with rabbis who wanted to print notes with the book, making his opposition clear to them, for he wanted the Kitzur to remain a Kitzur (i.e. brief) although he was always open to suggestions of emendations ( and made an announcement to this effect in the press.)
(Continued next week)
The Jewish Press, Friday, March 2, 2001 p. 24
(Conclusion)
A separate chapter, called “Resisting the Neolog Tide,” acquaints us with Rabbi Shlomo Gahzfried’s participation in the struggle of Orthodox rabbis and lay leaders against the Neologs.
In the spring of 1867, leaders of the Jewish community of Pest, people with Neolog leanings, petitioned Josef
Eotvos, the Minister of Education, to convene a congress of Jewish representatives for the purpose of establishing a central administration for the Jewish communities of Hungary. The Minister viewed the request with favor.
Orthodox leaders, fearing that the placed congress would be dominated by the Neologs and that its resolutions
and decisions would impair Orthodox Jewish education and the Orthodox character of the communities, applied to the Minister of Education in the antumn of that year to recognize the newly organized Shomre HaDath aa the representative organizaion of the Orthodox communities. Orthodox leaders also pleaded, unsuccessfully, for a repeal of the proposal to convene a congress of Jewish representatives.
In November the official government journal announced the convocation of the congress. In the same
month elections were held for congress delegates. As the Orthodox had feared, the majority of delegates were
Neologs. Later in the month, some 200 Rabbis gathered in Buda to decide a common platform at the congress.
At the conclusion of the meeting, they sent a memorandum to Eotvos, accusing the Nelogs of planning to undermine Orthodox beliefes. The memorandum, which was signed by Rabbi Avraham Shemuel Binyamin Sofer the Ktav Sofer), also asked for assurances that the congress would discuss only organizational concerns relating to the Kehillot and avoid matters of faith. The rabbis also demanded that rabbinic authorities be given the right to decide whether the resolutions of the congress conformed with the tenets of the Jewish faith.
The congress was held in Buda from December 10. 1868, until February 23, 1869. In an attempt to bring
about an understanding between the Orthodox and the Neologs, Rabbi Shlomo Ganzfried who was one of the delegates, distributed, toward the end of January, a printed 16- page Hebrew-German (open letter to the representatives who seek to introduce innovations in our land” — ie., the Neologs. The Sefer Galuy as it was called in Hebrew, was signed by Rabbi Shlomo with the consent of many of his delegates.”
In his pamphlet Rabbi Ganzfried attempts to persuade the Neologs not to adapt measures which are against
the Shulhan Arukh. He also warns of an open conflict between the two canps: “For there is no struggle as fierce as
a religious war,” he states.
The congress adopted the platform of the Neologs with regard to the organization of the Kehllot, educational
reform, and the establishment of a seminary.
The Orthodox, in order to be released from the rulings of the congress, appealed to Kaiser Franz-Joseph and
to the parliament. In the spring of 1870, the parliament accepted the arguments of the Orthodox and in effect permitted them to establish a separate community organization. Before long the new body, called “Autonomous Orthodox Jewish Religious Communities,” came into being.
Summing up Rabbi Ganzfried’s part in the struggles against the Neologs, of which we mentioned only his participation in the Jewish Congress, Friedman writes: ”With respect to Ganzfried, we conclude that he was an important actor in the Orthodox-Neolog drama, but was not at center stage. The latter position was occupied by such personalities as the Ktav Sofer, the Maharam Schick. Rabbi Menachem Ash and a number of other lummaries.”
Many pages of the book are devoted to interesting editions of the Kitzur. Only a few of these can be mentioned here.
Some editions feature excerpts from Hayyei Adam, Shulhan Arukk HaRav or Mishna Berura.
The Kitzur has been translated into various European languages, including Hungarian, German, French and
Yiddish.
Several different English translations are available. A fine index (compiled by Abraham J. Platnick) is also available in English. In 1949 Mosaad Harav Kook published an edition including a “Summary of the Laws and Customs of Eretz Yisrael by Rabbi Y. M. Tikochinski. The volume, which is vocalized and carries an interesting introduction by Rabbi Y. L. Maimon, has been frequently printed.
In 1964 Rabbi Kalman Kahana published an edition of the Kitzur with the “Laws pertaining to the Land of Israel” by the Hazon Ish.
The Kitzur was originally written for Ashkenazi Jews. Editions with additions for Jews from non-Ashkenazic communities have appeared in recent years. One of these is Kitzur with the commentary Sefer Yosef Da’at
by Rabbi Avraham Avraham, which includes laws and customs according to Sephardic practice. The book was
published by the Colbo Press of Paris in 1995.
In the final paragraph of his descriptions of the various editions of the Kitzur, Friedman writes: “The Kitzur
remains a major source of Halakhic instruction and even of religious inspiration.” A recent account of the Teshuva [movement] in Israel reports that one of the most influential of the returnees to observance, Rav Amnon Yitzhak, began his journey back to his roots when a copy of the Kitzur fell into bis hands.
The Jewish Press, Friday, March 9, 2001
J