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Bidding Information
Lot #    22273
Auction End Date    12/23/2008 11:34:00 AM (mm/dd/yyyy)
          
Title Information
Title (English)    Mevo ha-Talmud
Title (Hebrew)    מבוא התלמוד
Author    [First Ed.] R. Zevi Hirsch Chajes
City    Zholkva
Publisher    Saul Dov Meir Hoffer
Publication Date    1845
          
Collection Information
Independent Item    This listing is an independent item not part of any collection
          
Description Information
Physical
Description		    First edition. [1], 28 ff., 234:182 mm., wide margins, light age staining. A very good copy bound in the contemporary marbled paper boards, rubbed.
          
Detailed
Description		    Mevo ha-Talmud a student's guide through the Talmud, with introduction and notes, perhaps his most important work by R. Zevi Hirsch Chajes (1805–1855), rabbinic scholar. R. Chajes was born in Brody, Galicia, where he studied Talmud and rabbinics under R. Ephraim Zalman Margulies and other prominent rabbis. His father was a highly educated banker who resided for fifteen years in Florence before settling in Brody. The boy was taught French, German, and Italian by his father, and also instructed in secular subjects such as natural sciences, history, and Latin. He mastered the two Talmuds and their commentaries when he was still very young, and at the same time became familiar with medieval Jewish philosophic literature. Ordained at the age of 22, he was elected to the rabbinate of the important community of Zolkiew. Here he formed an intimate friendship with the philosopher Nahman Krochmal, a resident of the town. Krochmal exerted an influence on R. Chajes' extraordinary knowledge which was reflected in his subsequent writings. R. Chajes devoted his efforts to introducing modern critical methods in talmudic and cognate studies, de-emphasizing pilpul, but without sacrificing Orthodox principles. He was the only rabbi of the old school who voluntarily submitted to a university examination (required by the Austrian law of 1845), as a result of which he earned a doctorate. R. Chajes supported plans for agricultural schools for Galician youth. He was a vigorous champion of a more modern approach to Jewish education. In 1852 he was elected chief rabbi of Kalish (Kalisz), Poland, but could not withstand the opposition of the hasidic and anti-Haskalah elements in that community. Being an Austrian subject, he also encountered hostility from the Russian authorities, and he left Kalish to return to Zolkiew shortly before his death. Despite his leanings toward Haskalah and secular studies, he was a staunch defender of Orthodoxy. Chajes opposed the Reform Rabbinical Conference of Brunswick (1844) in a monograph entitled Minhat Kena'ot (1849).
          
Paragraph 2    מבוא התלמוד כולל יסודות ... ועקרים ... הן בהלכה והן באגדה ... אשר לקטתי וקבצתי משני התלמודים ומן המדרשות, וגם שאר ספרי חכמי ישראל הראשונים ... צבי הירש חיות חונה פ"ק זאלקווא והגליל ... שנת את ה'ט'ו'ב' נ'ק'ב'ל'
          
Reference
Description		    CD-EPI 0133622
        
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Listing Classification
Period
19th Century:    Checked
  
Location
Russia-Poland:    Checked
  
Subject
  
Characteristic
First Editions:    Checked
Language:    Hebrew
  
Manuscript Type
  
Kind of Judaica