R. Chaim Brisker (Soloveitchik). Chidushei Rabbeinu Chaim HaLevi [on Maimonides’s Yad Ha-Chazakah].

(SCHACH, ELAZAR MENACHEM MAN)

Yehoshua Klein

Brisk

1936

A MAGNIFICENT ASSOCIATION COPY. The primary work of conceptual Brisker Talmud analysis. The personal copy of Rav Schach, the 20th-century’s leader of Lithuanian Jewry. Author of “Avi Ezri” on Maimonides, Rabbi Elozar Menachem Man Schach (1899-2001) was for many decades the Rosh Yeshiva of Ponevitch in Bnei Brak, whose dominating personality had a profound effect on the religious, social and political outlook of Aschkenazi Torah Jewry, especially in Israel. In the present volume many of Rav Schach’s autograph marginal notes are initialed “EMS” (Eliezer Menachem Schach). On p. 35 he refers to “what I wrote in Sepher Avi Ezri”. R. Asher Nissan Levitan was Rav Schach’s uncle and a great scholar in his own right. Although not as famous as his nephew, as a scholar he was highly esteemed in the eyes of the older Rabbis of his generation no less than Rav Schach was. In these notes he poses many critical yet respectful arguments against some of R. Chaim’s most famous theses. The volume originally belonged to Rav Levitan and then gifted to his nephew Rav Schach who owned it for nearly half-a-century.