(YaSHa”R). Ma’amar ha-Tiglachath [on the prohibition of shaving the beard during the intermediate days of a festival]

Isaac Samuel Reggio (YaSHaR) (1784-1855), founder of the Collegio Rabbinico Italiano at Padua, is regarded by many as the Moses Mendelssohn of Italian Jewry. His iconoclastic and anti-traditionalist views assured him many enemies in the Orthodox rabbinate. This particular tractate, which boldly permits shaving on Chol ha-Mo'ed [the intermediate days of the festival] was refuted both by Jacob Ezekiel Halevi (Tisporeth Lulyanith, Berlin, 1839) and by Reggio's own father Abraham Vita Reggio (Tiglachath ha-Ma'amar, Livorno, 1844). Reggio's proposes that men who shave on a daily basis be allowed to shave on the intermediate days of a festival. Today, this leniency is attributed to R. Ezekiel Landau of Prague, author responsa "Noda bi-Yehudah," and to R. Moses Feinstein of New York, author responsa Igroth Moshe