Physical Description   

[2], 4, 9-224; 118 pp., folio, 368:230 mm., usual light age and damp staining, wide margins, paper repairs, blue tint paper. A very good copy bound in later cloth over boards, rubbed.

Detailed Description

Classic halakhic work by R. Samuel b. Natan Nata ha-Levi Kolin (1720–1806), rabbi and posek. Kolin took his name from his birthplace, Kolin, in Bohemia, where he received his talmudic education, and was considered a child prodigy. After his marriage he settled in Boskovice and his material needs were provided by his wife, who managed a wool business, leaving him free for study. Although he never held an official rabbinic appointment, for over 60 years he conducted a yeshivah which attracted many pupils. R. Kolin achieved fame through his comprehensive work, Mahazit ha-Shekel, a commentary on the Shulhan Arukh, Orah Hayyim and Yoreh De'ah. The section on Orah Hayyim (Vienna, 1807–08) is in fact a supercommentary on the Magen Avraham of R. A. A. Gombiner. Its main purpose is to give the actual wording of the sources to which R. Gombiner alludes, or which he abbreviates, and to simplify his rather difficult language. Only portions of the commentary to the Yoreh De'ah, part 1, and on the laws of niddah were published (1858–60). The Mahazit ha-Shekel achieved wide popularity among scholars who depended on it in arriving at halakhic decisions. It was published separately a number of times and in later editions together with the text of the Shulhan Arukh. R. Kolin's sermons (1906) and his commentaries to Bava Batra and Avodah Zarah (1958) were also published under the same title.

Hebrew printing in  Hrubieszow began at the beginning of the 19th century when Menachem-Mendel Finkelstein, Moshe Cukier and Shaul Moshe Goldstein established a Hebrew printing works. Between 1816 and 1826 it produced 34 books, a few of them in Yiddish - including a translation of “Gdolat David VeMalchut Yisrael” by Yosef HaEfrati of Troplowic; and “Sefer Chassidim” by R. Yehuda Chassid.

Hebrew Description

...מאיר... דברי המגן אברהם ... חלק א-ב.

חלק ב בלא שער.

על-פי Zolkiew תקצ"ח.

References

Bibliography of the Hebrew Book 1470-1960 000164459; EJ; A. Posner and E. Freimann, in: L. Jung (ed.), Guardians of our Heritage (1958).