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Bidding Information
Lot #    22004
Auction End Date    11/18/2008 11:55:30 AM (mm/dd/yyyy)
          
Title Information
Title (English)    Responsa by R. Shalom Mordecai Shavdran
Title (Hebrew)    כתב מה'ר שלום מרדכי הכהן שוודראן (מהרש'ם)
Author    [Ms.]
City    Brezen
Publication Date    1898
          
Collection Information
Independent Item    This listing is an independent item not part of any collection
          
Description Information
Physical
Description		    [2] pp., 210:133 mm., light age staining, creased and split on fold, ink on paper, neat Ashkenazic script, signed and dated.
          
Detailed
Description		    Responsa by R. Shalom Mordecai b. Moses ha-Kohen Shavdran (1835–1911), Galician rabbi. He was born in Zolochev. Assiduous in his studies and possessing a phenomenal memory, he was, at the age of 16, familiar with the whole Talmud. He was ordained by R.J.S. Nathanson and R. Moses Kluger, who did not usually ordain rabbis. After his marriage, he engaged in business, mainly in the timber trade, but in 1866 lost his fortune. Although offered important positions, he steadfastly refused to accept them, contenting himself with the rabbinate of small communities. The first was Potok, but finally he became rabbi of Brezen and was henceforth known as the "Rabbi of Brezen" or the "Maharsham" (the initials of Morenu ha-Rav Shalom Mordecai) from the title of his volume of responsa. His fame was much greater than the positions he held. He exercised firm control and the civil authorities used to transfer to him cases in which Jews were involved. He was a modest and friendly man. Consulted by some of the greatest scholars, he always used to answer his questioners without delay. R. Shvadron is best known for his responsa, four volumes of which appeared during his lifetime and three posthumously. These were accepted as authoritative and as essential for dealing with the practical problems of the time. They are distinguished by the painstaking care and clarity with which he analyzed the problem and quoted all the talmudic sources and commentaries, finally reaching a definite decision, by the simplicity of his style, by his anxiety to adduce every consideration that would enable him to reach a lenient decision while keeping strictly to the halakhah, and by his readiness to accept responsibility for his decisions.

Among his other works are Gillui Da'at on the Shulhan Arukh, Yoreh De'ah (2 vols., 1913–26), and Orah Hayyim (1920); Da'at Torah (1891) on the laws of shehitah; Darkhei Shalom (1929), a methodology of the Talmud and posekim; Haggahot Maharsham (1932) on the Talmud; Mishpat Shalom (1871) on the Shulhan Arukh Hoshen Mishpat; and Tekhelet Mordekhai on the Pentateuch (1913).
          
Reference
Description		    Bromberg, in: Sinai, 32 (1952/53), 295–9; O. Feuchtwanger, Righteous Lives (1965), 94–97; EJ
        
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Listing Classification
Period
19th Century:    Checked
  
Location
Other:    Galicia
  
Subject
Responsa:    Checked
  
Characteristic
Language:    Hebrew
  
Manuscript Type
Responsa:    Checked
  
Kind of Judaica