CHAIM OF CZERNOWITZ. Sha’ar ha-Tephilah [“The Gate of Prayer”]

Appended to Sha’ar ha-Tephilah (ff.3r.-10r.) is a famous responsum by the author in which he takes up the cudgels with R. Ezekiel Landau of Prague, author She’eloth u-Teshuvoth Noda bi-Yehuda. In Noda bi-Yehudah, Yoreh Deah, no. 93, R. Landau had dismissed the recent Chassidic innovation to recite the intention “Le-shem yichud” before performing a commandment, claiming that this was totally superfluous, as the precept would have validity even if enacted without intention. Waxing sarcastic, R. Landau wrote (punning on a Biblical verse in Hosea 14:10), “Tzadikim yelchu bam va-chassidim yikashlu bam” (The righteous will go in them and the chassidim will stumble in them). In this well-reasoned teshuvah, R. Chaim Czernowitz deconstructs R. Landau’s argument point by point. Recently, R. Chaim Zimmerman (late rosh yeshivah of Skokie, Illinois), rose to the defense of the Noda bi-Yehudah. See Ch. Zimmerman, Igra la-Yesharim (1983) pp. 106-19