“Rabbi, this is likely the last Ketzos that will ever be sold in America!”
Photo: Rabbi Moshe Bamberger
Title: The Clout of the Ketzos
Location: Lower East Side
Document: Sefer Ketzos Hachoshen
Time: 1940s
The story of Torah’s rebirth in America opens with an episode that has been enshrined in the annals of American Jewish history. Shortly after the wartime arrival of Rav Elya Meir Bloch and the reestablishment of the Telz Yeshivah in Cleveland, he visited a seforim store on New York’s Lower East Side in search of the sefer Ketzos Hachoshen. The owner of the store reached up to a dusty shelf and pulled down the single copy in stock.
Handing it over to his illustrious customer, the proprietor declared, “Rabbi, this is likely the last Ketzos that will ever be sold in America!”
The ultimate optimist, Rav Elya Meir demurred. “The Torah that was lost will be rebuilt and the kedushah restored. And when that happens, you will see that more Ketzos HaChoshens will be sold than were sold from when the Ketzos wrote it until now!”
In the background of this the story looms the prime role that the Sefer Ketzos Hachoshen has played in the modern yeshivah world and Telz in particular. Rav Aryeh Leib Heller (1745–1812) was a descendant of the Tosfos Yom Tov, and he wrote his classic while serving as rav of Rozhniativ in Galicia, where he resided in abject poverty. It was said that his writing table was a board laid between two barrels, and in the winter, without wood to fuel his furnace, he wrote under his blanket. He kept the ink under the blanket too, to prevent it from freezing.
When Ketzos Hachoshen was published in two volumes in 1788 and 1796, the relatively unknown author was celebrated as an outstanding scholar, and he was soon engaged as rav of the larger Galician city of Stryi, where he attracted a large following. He passed away in 1812 after authoring two more seforim, the Shev Shematesa and Avnei Miluim (published posthumously).
Considered the last of the commentaries on Shulchan Aruch, and first of the “lomdish” seforim (along with his contemporaries the Nesivos Hamishpat and Rav Akiva Eiger), the Ketzos is seen as a bridge between two eras. So how did a sefer authored by a Galicia rav have such an impact on the Lithuanian yeshivah world?
Several students at the Telz Yeshivah pointed to the central role of the rosh yeshivah, Rav Leizer Gordon, in popularizing the Ketzos as a premier lomdish sefer in the late 1800s. Rabbi Dr. Shmuel Bialoblocki described it as follows: “He deserves special credit for introducing Ketzos Hachoshen as a classic work within the Lithuanian yeshivah world. The sefer’s author was from Galicia, and yet had a decisive impact on the Litvish derech halimud. Rav Leizer’s flashes of brilliance were quite similar to the Ketzos….”
Rav Shimon Shkop, a rebbi in Telz during this period, would say “the fields around Telz are enveloped in the Ketzos.” In fact, Telzer students were seen learning the sefer so much that some in Lithuanian yeshivah circles would joke that "the Telzers know the Gemara from [learning] the Ketzos". Rav Shimon would later confide to his close talmid Rav Yisroel Gustman that his rebbi was the Ketzos Hachoshen.
Rav Chaim’s Ketzos
When the Mir Yeshivah escaped to Shanghai, they made do with the few seforim they brought along, eventually printing their own there. Among them was a Ketzos HaChoshen with two pages missing. Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz (a student of Rav Shimon Shkop) wrote the two missing pages from memory. After the war, Rav Chaim’s version was compared with a complete edition and (not surprisingly) it was a perfect match.
Torah, Tefillah and Tears
While not a chassid himself, the Ketzos gained wide popularity among chassidishe lamdanim. Rav Chaim Sanzer suggested that the Ketzos’s wide acceptance was perhaps due to his custom of cleansing himself through tefillah and tears prior to engaging in Torah study. Rav Chaim explained that Torah isn’t an academic field, and in addition to expending effort, Heavenly assistance is required in order to retain the material. Thus tefillah is an important component of the equation.
Thank you to Rabbi Moshe Bamberger, author of ArtScroll’s highly-acclaimed Great Jewish series as well as Rabbi Aryeh Lebowitz and Rabbi Nosson Kamenetsky Z”L for their contributions to this week's column.
