Interpretations of Aggadic portions of Talmud (Beizah 38a; Menachoth 109b)

Solomon Ganzfried (1804-1886) of Ungvar, Hungary, was one of the outspoken defenders of staunch Orthodoxy against the inroads of Reform. He was a prolific author, producing widely acclaimed scholarship in several different fields, however, the work which has become a byword in every Jewish home is his Kitzur Shulchan Aruch [Code of Jewish Law] (1864), which offers concise guidance in matters of ritual law confronting a Jew in his daily routine. At the beginning of the present autograph manuscript (line 5), the author cites an interpretation he heard from the Gaon Mahara”m A”sh, R. Meir b. Judah Eisenstadt (d. 1852) who served as rabbi of Ungvar starting in the year 1835. See N.Z. Freidmann, Otzar Harabanim, no. 12777. R. Solomon Ganzfried served under him briefly as dayan or justice from 1849. From the fact that Eisenstadt’s name is not followed by the customary blessing for the dead (zt”l), one may safely assume that he was still alive at the time that Ganzfried quoted him, thus this manuscript was likely penned between the years 1849-1852. The author also cites here various homiletic works: “Or ka-Salmah,” which is in reality Part II of Salmah mul Ader by Samuel Zanvil Aryeh Leib Tzalin of Pintchov (Prague, 1818); and Milei di-Shemaya, again a subdivision of Olath Chodesh by R. Elazar Fleckeles (Prague,1785). The present manuscript was discovered inside Emek ha-Melech bearing R. Solomon Ganzfried’s signature (see Lot109)