Sermons for the high holidays, festivals and various Sabbaths, talmudic novellae and responsa handwritten by Rabbi Tzvi Binyamin Auerbach, Av Beit Din of Halberstadt.
Title page handwritten by the author at the beginning of the book. The first seven leaves contain novellae on tractates Nedarim, Pesachim and Ketubot, a short responsum about “what I have been asked by a medical student, the youth Binyamin of Hanau, about whether a person who urinates by means of a catheter should make the blessing Asher Yatzar.” Another short responsum about the building of a mikveh in Marburg, which is located on a mountain, with an illustrative sketch [refer to the Shu”t Nachal Eshkol Siman 31]. Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch stayed there without books and writes that the matter does not let him sleep.
The rest of the composition [33] leaves, is sermons in Yiddish Deutsch for the high holidays, festivals and various Sabbaths. Some of them are handwritten in minuscule script.
Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch Auerbach (1808-1872), known as HaTzav”a, or as the author of Nachal Eshkol , was the Av Beit Din of Darmstadt and Halberstadt, and one of the greatest rabbis of Ashkenaz in his generation, a genius who courageously fought Reform Judaism and the Jewish Enlightenment movement, despite the persecution from which he suffered as a result.
His name is admiringly mentioned together with the greatest rabbis of Ashkenaz who fought G-d’s battle, Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsch, the author of Aruch LaNer, Rabbi Azriel Hildesheimer and the rabbi of Würzburg, who supported the Jews of Ashkenaz during their difficult times and acted on behalf of the Torah so that it will not be forgotten from Israel ( Shomrei Mishmeret HaKodesh , section A, p. 225).
In addition to his German compositions, the following have been published: Brit Avraham , explaining the method of the Mishnah opposing Zecharya Frankel, Sefer HaEshkol with his great commentary Nachal Eshkol, Mishnat Rabbi Natan in which he deciphered Rabbi Natan Adler’s hints in his glosses on the Mishnahs, the Shu”t Nachal Eshkol and Cheil HaTzava on the Torah. [See at length about him in the Shomrei Mishmeret HaKodesh, chapter eight.]
[40] leaves and several additional leaves of various sizes placed among the manuscript’s leaves. 21×16.5 cm. Autograph. Fine condition. New leather binding.