אברהם צבי הירש אייזנשטט

Rav Avraham Tzvi Hirsch Eisenstadt (5573/1813–3 Elul 5628/1868), known to all who open a Shulchan Aruch as the author of the Pitchei Teshuvah and in English sources as Abraham Hirsch Eisenstadt, was a rav and posek in the Russian Empire. He was born in Bialystok to Rav Yaakov Eisenstadt, of the descendants of Rav Meir Eisenstadt, author of the teshuvot Panim Meirot. At fifteen he married Yenta Reizel, whose father was Yehuda Leib HaKohen of Grodno; the couple made their home in Bialystok, where she ran a shop of paper and writing goods whose chief customers were the government offices of the city, while he sat and learned in the beit midrash of Rav Yechiel Neches together with Rav Shmuel HaLevi, author of Bigdei Yesha, and Rav Gershon Chen-Tov, author of Mincha Chadasha. When the government offices moved to Grodno the couple followed, but the business did not prosper there, and to support his family he took a position as dayan in the city for several years. In 5596/1836 he was chosen as rav of Bristovitz in the Grodno district, and from there went on to the rabbanut of Utyan in the Kovno region.

He set himself the labor of gathering the piskei halachah scattered through the responsa literature and arranging them on the order of the Shulchan Aruch. In his hakdamah to Yoreh De’ah he attests that he went through one hundred and eighty volumes of she’elot u’teshuvot, bringing their conclusions in the briefest compass; among the works he draws on most are the Noda BiYehuda, the Chatam Sofer, Chavot Da’at and Kreiti U’Pleiti. He began the work on Yoreh De’ah at eighteen while still in Bialystok and finished it four years later. His youth made him hesitant to publish, but after a severe illness in which his life was in danger he resolved to print it so that the manuscript should not be lost. Pitchei Teshuvah covers Yoreh De’ah, Even HaEzer and Choshen Mishpat, Orach Chaim having already been served by the Sha’arei Teshuvah of the brothers Rav Chaim Mordechai and Rav Efraim Zalman Margaliot. Yoreh De’ah appeared in Vilna in 5596/1836, Even HaEzer in the 1860s, and Choshen Mishpat after his passing; since then it has been printed in most editions of the Shulchan Aruch. He also produced Nachalat Tzvi on Yoreh De’ah and Choshen Mishpat, and a commentary on the Seder Gittin veHalitzah of Rav Michael ben Yosef of Cracow.

In 5628 he traveled to Konigsberg on the Baltic coast for medical treatment and was niftar there on 3 Elul of that year. He is buried in Konigsberg between Rav Yehuda Ashkenazi of Tiktin, author of the Be’er Heitev, and Rav Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg, author of HaKetav VeHaKabbalah. Portions of the Pitchei Teshuvah on Yoreh De’ah stand in the required material for the semichah examinations of the Chief Rabbinate, beside the Shach and the Taz themselves.