Long & wonderful Responsa regarding a Agunah from Karlsburg. After much debate he allows her to remarry.
Bonyhád, 1843.
Unpublished.
4 Hugh Sides! 38.7 X 24.8 Cm.
During those years, the Gaon was already ill and in pain. The first and last three lines are in his Holy and with his signature, the rest was written by a student. As he himself apologizes in the conclusion of the letter, "Please forgive me for the response not being entirely in my own handwriting, because my first draft was smudged…. Therefore, I am now opening with peace, in my own handwriting, in honor of the esteemed, and the rest have been copied word for word by a student of mine."
The letter is signed with the blessings of great love, the young Yitzhak Moshe Perles from Broda.
The famous Gaon Rabbi Isaac Moses son of Jacob Perles (1784–1854), Hungarian rabbi. Born in Brod, Moravia, R. Perles studied under R. Meshullam Igra in Pressburg and with Rabbi Yosef Hatzadik rabbi of Posen.
He served as rabbi in several Hungarian communities:
Kojetin (from 1813),
Holics (1820),
Eisenstadt (1822),
Bonyhad (1841).
During his last years difficulties arose between him and his community. They were in the main connected with reforms in the life of the community which Rabbi Perles, despite his generally liberal approach, refused to countenance. Matters reached such a stage that he was denounced to the government as "interfering with order and authority, hating light and progress, " or as "robbing and wronging his congregants, making demands upon them, and taking by force… in excess of that to which he was entitled." The government, knowing that the charges were baseless, ignored them, but as a result of the dispute R. Perles left Bonyhad and returned to Brod, where he died after a few months.
After his death his grandson R. Abraham Zevi published his work Beit Ne’eman (1907), including responsa of great interest and prefaced by Perles’ biography which details his tumultuous life story.
Reference: P.Z. Schwartz, Shem ha-Gedolim me-Erez Hagar, 1 (1914), 51a; 2 (1914), 2b; N. Ben-Menahem, Mi-Sifrut Yisrael be-Ungaryah (1958), 170, no. 91; EJ
For a lengthy biography of the Gaon Rabbi Moshe Fuerst a Dayan in Karlsburg (Today: Alba Iulia) & Rabbi of Marosvásárhely (Today: Târgu Mureș) see the wonderful Sefer ‘Zichron Avot’ (Brooklyn 2012).
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Lot #147