Torah novellae in financial law as a responsum to an inquiry, handwritten by Rabbi Ya’akov Yitzchak Rabinowitz of Ponovezh – ” Rabbi Itzaleh of Ponovezh.”
To the best of our knowledge, these Torah novellae have never been printed.
Rabbi Ya’akov Yitzchak Rabinowitz of Ponovezh, known also by the nickname Rabbi Itzeleh of Ponovezh, was born in Lithuania in 1854, studied under Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, author of Beit HaLevi , and was a chavruta of his son, Rabbi Chaim Soloveitchik. He was rosh yeshivah of Knesset Yisrael in Slabodka, and left as a result of the disagreement about mussar study. He was appointed rabbi of Ponovezh in 1895, where he had a “kibbutz” of scholarly young men. He wandered during WWI, and when he returned to Ponovezh, a typhus epidemic broke out. He who devotedly took care of the ill caught it himself, and passed away on 20 Adar, 1919. He paved a special way in Torah novellae using a method of “divisions” [ חילוקים ], and his Torah novellae were studied in all the yeshivahs of Lithuania. A few of his novellae were printed in Zecher Yitzchak , and some of his lessons were printed as Chidushei Hagyy”r .
[4] pages, two folded leaves. 21×13 cm.
Very fine condition.