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Allowing the use of machine-made Passover mazzot. In about 1857, the first matzah-baking machine was invented in Austria, beginning a heated controversy that raged for half a century. The newly invented machine kneaded the dough and rolled it through two metal rollers from which it came out thin, perforated, and round. It was then placed in an oven. As the corners of the dough, cut to make the matzot round, were re-used, it was feared that the time elapsing until these pieces of dough were used again might allow them to become leavened. A later machine was developed that produced square matzot so that there would be no leftovers. Other subsequent improvements in the machinery speeded up the entire process of production, leading to a general acceptance of the modern method. Initially, though, many distinguished rabbis raised their voices in protest against the new machines, including the Chiddushei Ha-Rim, the Avnei Nezer, R’ Chaim of Sanz, and R’ Shlomo Kluger of Brody, while other equally respected rabbis, such as the Ketav Sofer as well as the author of this book, permitted its use. R’ Kluger, in a letter to R’ Chaim Nathan and R’ Leibush Horowitz of Cracow, Galicia, where the machine was already in use, prohibited the eating of the machine-made matzot,especially for the matzot mitzvah of Seder night. This letter and similar pronouncements by other rabbis were published under the title Moda' ah le-Bet Yisrael (Breslau, 1859). In rebuttal, R. Nathanson published this pamphlet. One of R. Kluger's most telling arguments was that the opportunity given to the poor to earn money for their Passover needs by working in matzah bakeries would be denied to them, as the use of machinery required fewer manual workers. R. Nathanson asserted that if concern need be expressed about the displacement of the hand-bakers, the same solicitude should be shown to scribes whose replacement by the printing press had been universally accepted. R. Nathanson similarly refuted his opponents other arguments. The views of R. Nathanson and those who sided with him have been accepted by most Jews.
R. Joseph Saul Nathanson (1810–1875), was born in Berezhany, the son of R. Aryeh Leibush Nathanson of Brody, a wealthy businessman who was also a profound talmudist. In 1825 he married Sarah Idel, the daughter of R. Isaac Aaron Ettinger, who was also a great scholar and a wealthy man. R. Nathanson, as was customary in those days, was maintained in his father-in-law's home. When his father-in-law died shortly after his marriage, his mother-in-law administered the business and took care that he would be able to live and study without financial cares, and when she died in 1841, his wife took over the responsibility. In his father-in-law's house R. Nathanson found a colleague in his brother-in-law, R. Mordecai Ze'ev Ettinger. They studied together for several years and compiled a series of halakhic works, but they separated as a result of a difference of opinion which came to a head on the question of the permissibility of machine-baked mazzot. The two brothers-in-law were rival candidates for the rabbinate of Lemberg to which R. Nathanson was appointed in 1857. The same year his wife died, but in 1858 he married a wealthy woman and did not accept a salary.
R. Nathanson was the outstanding posek and writer of responsa of his generation. Problems reached him from all parts of the world and he corresponded with all the great contemporary scholars. In his works he is revealed principally as an instructor in practical halakhah. He regarded himself as responsible for the condition of halakhah in his time, in succession to such scholars as R. Akiva Eger and R. Moses Sofer. He was opposed to the method of pilpul for its own sake, regarding it as suitable only for youths (Divrei Sha'ul, Aggadot, 29b) but not for those destined to be religious teachers. He did not necessarily base his decision "upon the statements of aharonim" (Sho'el u-Meshiv, 2 pt. 3, no. 108), but based his rulings mainly upon the Talmud and the rishonim.
He tended to leniency in his rulings, and took contemporary circumstances into consideration. He was one of those who permitted machine-baked mazzot in opposition to the view of R. Solomon Kluger. Although R. Kluger decided that etrogim from Corfu were invalid because of the fear that they were hybrids, R. Nathanson permitted them (Yosef Da'at, Kilei Begadim, no. 302). He also regarded the birds called "kibbitzer" hens as permitted according to the dietary laws although other authorities forbade them (Sho'el u-Meshiv, 3 pt. 2, no. 121). Although known for his permissive approach, however, he sometimes declared things forbidden simply as a precaution (Yosef Da'at, Terefot, 64–65). It was this which prompted R. Dov Berush Meisels, rabbi of Warsaw, to say of him: "I know him of old as one who adopts a stringent and not a lenient line" (end of the pamphlet Moda'ah le-Veit Yisrael). Despite his leniency in halakhic ruling, he fought with all his power against the progressives in his community who wanted to introduce reforms into education. When the government sought to compel the Jews of Galicia to send their children to government schools and to bar them from the heder until they had passed four classes of the secular schools, as well as to make the teachers pass an examination in German and pedagogy, Nathanson took the initiative in uniting the great talmudic scholars to obtain the repeal of the edict (see R. S. Kluger's letter of 1867 in Toledot Shelomo (1956), 113ff.).
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