(The “Chatham Sofer,” 1762-1839). Autograph Letter Signed in Hebrew to Dovid Tzvi Levinger, Rabbi of Nadi-Medyer (Nagymegyer). A response to a Halchic question concerning inheritance matters.

SOFER, MOSES

24th Adar

Pressburg

1834

One page. With address panel on reverse, with instructions to send the letter to the Rabbi of Medyer; with remnants of wax seal. * Accompanied by Rabbi Levinger’s learned two-page Autograph Letter Signed to the Chatahm Sofer posing the original Halachic question. With address-panel.

A FULL RESPONSE FROM THE CHATHAM SOFER ALONG WITH THE ORIGINAL HALACHIC QUERY. BOTH LETTERS WITH ORIGINAL ADDRESS PANELS. UNUSUAL TO FIND EXTANT BOTH SIDES OF SUCH A CORRESPONDENCE. The question involved a widow who remarried promising 400 guilden to her new husband and the dispute that broke when she reneged on her commitment. The respondent R. Dovid Tzvi (Hirsch) Levinger, Rabbi of Nadi-Medyer (Nagymegyer) received semichah from the Chatham Sofer. He corresponded with him on a number of occasions and is cited in the published responsa (see Yoreh Deah no. 213 and the Likutei Teshuvoth in various places). Rabbi Moses Sofer (the “Chatham Sofer”) of Mattersdorf and Pressburg was one of the most outstanding Rabbinic leaders of the late 18th- early 19th-centuries. His responsa, novellae and sermons enjoyed unprecedented praise and respect and are to this day assiduously consulted by all Jews universally. The Chatham Sofer's qualities of moral character, humility and justice, alongside his profound scholarship and leadership, has created some two centuries later, a deeply venerated aura surrounding his personality. Due to his considerable reputation, his legion of descendents (who proliferated into Europe’s most prominent Rabbinic families), deem original handwritten material by the Chatham Sofer to be imbued with an ineluctable level of holiness that serves as both a source of spiritual protection and of blessing. THE COMPLETENESS OF THE CORRESPONDENCE MAKES THE PRESENT AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT PARTICULARLY ENGAGING.