Tiglachath HaMa’amar.

(REGGIO, ABRAHAM VITA).

(Livorno)

1839

Vinograd, Livorno 875 (recording just one copy, found in the British Library).

Polemic response by YaSha”R’s father against his son’s “Ma’amar Hithgalachath” on the prohibition of shaving the beard during the intermediate days of a festival. The author (1755-1846) was a disciple of R. Isaac Lampronti, the author of Pachad Yitzchak and R. Moshe Cheifetz, whom he later succeeded as Rabbi of Gorizia. His son, Isaac Samuel Reggio (YaSHa”R) (1784-1855), founder of the Collegio Rabbinico Italiano at Padua and regarded as the Moses Mendelssohn of Italian Jewry developed anti-traditionalist views that assured him adversaries from among the Orthodox rabbinate. His Ma’amar Hithgalachath which boldly permits shaving on Chol HaMo’ed was refuted both by Jacob Ezekiel Halevi (Tisporeth Lulyanith, Berlin, 1839) and the present work by Reggio’s own father. Reggio proposed that those who customarily 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 (responsa Noda B’Yehudah) and to R. Moses Feinstein of New York (responsa Igroth Moshe).