A letter of recommendation in the handwriting of Rabbi Naftali Trop, Rosh Yeshiva of Radin, for a student of the Radin yeshiva “who has been forced to travel from here due to the severity of his condition”.
Specifications: [1] leaf, paper. 10×16 cm. 12 lines. With the yeshiva’s stamp.
Unique Features: Rare. It was hard for Rabbi Naftali to write, and letters from him are uncommon. In the foreword to Chiddushei HaGranat HaShalem [published by Machon Orayta], the famous author R.M.M. Gorelitz writes: “As we have written, it was hard for our Rabbi to write, and we were unable to locate any of his handwriting apart from the end of this short letter…” (page 28, comment 61).
Background: Rabbi Naftali Trop (1871-1930), known in the yeshiva world as the Granat. Served as the Rosh Yeshiva of Radin from 1904, for twenty five years! He delivered lectures in the Radin yeshiva in the presence of the Chafetz Chaim before four hundred students. He was also a boundless source of wisdom in both halacha and aggadah, many of the basic concepts and expressions commonly used in yeshivot today originate with him. He was an in-depth thinker who formed his own approach to Talmudic study, taught many students, among them great Torah scholars and Rosh Yeshivas, such as Rabbi Shlomo Heiman, the Ponovezh Rav Rabbi Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman and Rabbi Eiyahu Dushnitzer. The Chafetz Chaim admired and respected him, conferred with him on matters of halacha, and included him in expelling the famous dybbuk.
One of his primary students, Rabbi Yitzchak Meir son of Menachem Pachiner (the son-in-law of Rabbi Isser Zalman Meltzer) wrote about him that “Even though during my life I met and studied with many great Torah scholars and thinkers, I never saw anyone else who invested his entire being, strength, talents and genius in the study of Torah as he did. He would glide through great waters, and he did not give up and did not relax until he reached the essential point in all of its depth and breadth. Even when he found a way to solve the question, if it was not according to his approach and the depth of his understanding, he did not rest and continue delving deeper, in the well dug by princes, the princes of Torah. When he did indeed find it, and when the lightening of truth struck in his brain, and he found an explanation, he jumped from inner joy as if the hidden meanings of the Torah had been revealed to him from Heaven. His enthusiasm knew no bounds, until he enthused everyone around him, all of his students and those who listened to him. They all entered into the atmosphere with the environment of another world, a world of delving into the understanding of the Torah…” [Refer to the aforementioned foreword to Chiddushei HaGranat].
Condition: Very fine. Filing holes.