Mar'oth ha-Tzov'oth [on Shulchan Aruch, Even ha-Ezer, chap. 17: Heter Agunah]. Appended: Talmudic novellae

MOSHE ZE'EV BEN ELIEZER

Simcha Zimel

Horadna

1810

Title within typographic border. Stamps of "Chaim Heller" on title and ff.3r and135v

Vinograd, Grodno 108

An important works in the highly dificult area of Jewish Law known as "heter agunah," i.e. granting permission to the "agunah" (literally "chained woman") to remarry. In cases where the husband has disappeared, leaving no trace, it is necessary to ascertain that the husband is in fact deceased before his presumed widow may remarry. Chaim Heller (1878-1960) served in his youth as Rabbi of Lomza, Poland. In the interbellum period, he headed an institute for Talmudic research in Berlin and eventually settled in New York. Despite the fact that he held no official rabbinic position, by virtue of his extraordinary erudition, R. Chaim was looked up to as a mentor by men of the caliber of Rabbis Jacob Kaminetsky and J.B. Soloveitchik. Heller produced works of Biblical scholarship, on the Peshitta (the Syriac translation of the Bible), and refutations of Bible criticism. His abiding contribution to Jewish learning is without doubt his critical, annotated edition of Maimonides' Sepher ha-Mitzvoth (Book of Commandments), which he translated from the Arabic original. See EJ, Vol. VIII, col. 308