Nahal Avraham, R. Abraham Shershevsky, New York 1897 
נחל אברהם - First Edition
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- Lot Number 52409
- Title (English) Nahal Avraham
- Title (Hebrew) נחל אברהם
- Note First Edition
- Author R. Abraham Shershevsky
- City New York
- Publisher Joel Aronson
- Publication Date 1897
- Estimated Price - Low 200
- Estimated Price - High 500
- Item # 2175723
- End Date
- Start Date
Physical Description
Only edition. [6], IV, 86, [2] pp. 8°, 227:153 mm., light age and damp staining, wide margins. A very good copy bound in contemporary boards, rubbed.
Detail Description
Homiletics by R. Abraham Moses b. Hayyim Shershevsky (1867-1927), was born in By ten, Byelorussia, and studied in the yeshivot of Brisk, Volozhin and Kovno. He was ordained by leading rabbis, including R. Jacob Joseph of Vilna, R. Isaac Elhanan Spektor of Kovno and R. Naphtali Zevi Judah Berlin [Netziv] of Volozhin. The first two recognized his mastery of the Rabbinic corpus when he was just twenty-four years old (see approbations). Shershevsky immigrated to America in 5652 [1892] and served as a rabbi in Dorchester (MA), Portland (ME) and Boston. He was a founder of the Boston Yeshivah and Agudath Harabbonim and was involved in many communal, charitable and educational organizations. He contributed to American and European Hebrew journals. Shershevsky's wife enrolled in medical school in the late 1890s so that he would be able to pursue his religious studies without worrying about earning a living (p. Ill).
The sermons (delivered in Vilna, New York and Portland), responsa and Talmudic novellae in this volume represented less than ten percent of Shershevsky's manuscript. Due to his financial situation, he could only afford to publish these selections (p. I). The first responsum, written when he was still in Europe, deals with an agunah (abandoned wife). The second, on levirate marriage, originally appeared in haIvri (5655), no. 16; "however, since my article was afflicted by additions and omissions-the young typesetter is to blame-to the extent that he completely mixed up my answer and misled the audience ... I found myself obligated to reprint my responsum" (p. 68n). Shershevsky also included a moralistic treatise dealing with America (pp. 78-86). On Isaac Newton's gravitational law, Julius Caesar and Egyptian deities, see pp. 3-4, 8. For his knowledge of anatomy, see p. 34.
Hebrew Description
ונחלק לשלשה חלקים. החלק הראשון הוא חלק האגדה ... החלק השני הוא חלק ההלכה. החלק השלישי הוא קונטרס תוכחת מגולה לכל מפלגות ישראל בלי משא פנים, מאתי אברהם משה שערשעווסקי רב ואב"ד בעיר פארטלאנד מיין.
הסכמה: ר' יעקב יוסף, ניו יארק, מג למב"י [כח באייר] תרנ"ו; מכתבים: ר' יצחק אלחנן [ספקטור], קאוונא, כו שבט תרנ"א; ר' צבי הירש ראבינאוויץ [ב"ר יצחק אלחנן ספקטור], ווילנא, ראש חודש אדר-א תרנ"א.