Kluger, Solomon. Moda’a le-Beit hYisrael

Collection of responsa by various authorities addressed to Chaim Nathan Dembitzer, Rabbi of Cracow, forbidding the consumption on Passover of machine-baked matzoth. The Jewish community of Cracow, Poland, in rather close proximity to Germany, came under German-Jewish influence in accepting the recent innovation of machine-produced matzah. In order to curb this lenient tendency in his community, it appears that Dembitzer solicited the learned opinions of the halachic luminaries of Poland. Nevertheless, one of the greatest of their number, Rabbi Joseph Saul Nathanson of Lvov (author responsa “Sho’el u-Meshiv”) had already permitted machine matzah. There follow here the responsa of Rabbis Solomon Kluger, Brody (Dembitzer’s mentor); Mordecai Ze’ev Ettinger of Lvov (the brother-in-law of J.S. Nathanson); Chaim Halberstam of Sanz; Abraham Landau of Tchechanow; Isaac Meir of Warsaw (the “Chidushei ha-Ri”m,” founder of the Chassidic dynasty of Gur); Joshua Heschel Aschkenazi of Lublin; Meir Auerbach of Kalish (later Jerusalem); and Dov Berish Meisels of Warsaw. A primary concern of these authorities was that debris would become stuck in the machine and become leavened (chametz). Unusually, Rabbi Kluger writes he fears that the mass production of matzoth by machine would deprive those who engage in the baking of matzah, of an irreplaceable source of income. Originally the machine matzoth were round, not square. In a subsequent operation they were trimmed, thus the concern was raised that prolonging the time of baking could risk the possibility of fermentation (ibid., pp. 4, 6). Chaim Nathan Dembitzer (1820-1892) received his rabbinic ordination from Rabbi Solomon Kluger. His “Divrei Chen” on the laws of forbidden wine (yayin nesech) appeared as a supplement to Kluger’s “Avodath Avodah” (Zolkiew 1863), novellae on Tractate Avodah Zarah. See JE, Vol. IV, p. 512; Vol. VIII, p. 394; EJ, Vol. XII, col. 867