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Lectures and commentaries upon biblical and talmudic passages by R. Abraham Naphtali b. Israel Isaac Gallant (1876-1936). He was born in Zakroczym, Poland, and was ordained by R. Jonah Zlotnick of Plock, Poland. He served as a rabbi in his native town before immigrating to America in 5666 [1906]. He became the rabbi of Talmud Torah Beth Abraham of the Bronx in 1917. R. Gallant was the president of the Board of Orthodox Rabbis of New York, a delegate to the American Jewish Congress and a member of Agudath Harabbonim. R. Gallant considered the mass immigration to America to be a temporary sojourn and he anticipated that the Jews would return to Eastern Europe. Many of his sermons criticize Reform Judaism and deviations by immigrants from Orthodoxy.
Acceding to popular demand, R. Gallant decided to publish this second volume of his sermons. "Many of my friends who are rabbis that read my first book ... tried frequently to arouse me to publish more of my sermons that I have in manuscript. But my many rabbinical duties prevented me from fulfilling their request ... Since then I was forced by an illness to leave New York and rest in a summer resort in the Catskills for six months. During this time, when I was freed from all my public duties, I was able to prepare this book. As soon as God assisted me and the condition of my health improved enough so that I could return to the city, I set myself to complete the work and bring it to the printer as a 'korban todah' [thanksgiving offering] ... that I was once again able to resume my holy duties in my congregation" (p. 5). |
