הרב אשר זליג וייס

Rav Asher Zelig Weiss (born 9 Nisan 5713/25 March 1953), known by the name of his sefarim as the Minchat Asher and in English sources as Asher Weiss, is a posek, founder and rosh beit midrash of Darchei Torah and av beit din of Darchei Horaah. He belongs to Sanz-Klausenberg chassidut. Born in the United States to Moshe Weiss, a Holocaust survivor, he grew up in Borough Park and learned in the Sanz mosdot in America. In 5726/1966 the family came to Eretz Yisrael and settled in Kiryat Sanz in Netanya, where he learned in the mosdot of the kirya and drew close to the Klausenberger Rebbe, Rav Yekutiel Yehuda Halberstam. He was married to Pesia, daughter of Rav Yisrael Aryeh Zalmanowitz; she was niftera in 5778/2018, and the Keren HaChesed “Chasdei Pesia” was established in her memory.

From 5757/1997 he served as rosh yeshiva of Machaneh Avraham of the Chatam Sofer circle in Bnei Brak and rav of the Tchechnov kehilla in Yerushalayim. In 5766 he founded Yeshivat Darchei Torah and has stood at its head since; in its early years Rav Baruch Dov Povarsky, rosh yeshiva of Ponevezh, served there alongside him. Since 5773 he has been the posek of the Shaarei Tzedek Medical Center.

His shiurim run on halachic and lamdanic sugyot tied to the parshat hashavua; they are published in a weekly kuntres and gathered afterward into his sefarim. He draws often on the Shoel u’Meshiv, Rav Shlomo Kluger, Rav Yosef Engel and the Chatam Sofer; he opposes the abstract conceptual handling of Talmudic categories in the manner of Brisk, and he does not shy from a novel psak even where it does not match the prevailing approach. In dinei mamonot he is broadly lenient — he holds that a limited company is a separate legal personality in halacha, so that its acts are not ascribed to any particular person. In other areas his psak is more conservative: he opposes reviving the mitzvah of techelet on the strength of the identification with the murex, and holds cultured meat to be meat in every respect. He gives great weight to the prevailing minhag and prefers to justify a custom rather than rule against it.

All his sefarim carry the name Minchat Asher and have appeared since 5747/1987 under Machon Minchat Asher. The series on the Bavli holds volumes of shiurim on Shabbat, Pesachim, Gittin, Bava Kama and other masechtot; the series on the Torah prints his weekly shiurim on the order of the pesukim, with a companion Haggadah shel Pesach; his responsa run to four volumes of Shu”t Minchat Asher; and Minchat Asher — Emunah u’Bitachon treats those subjects in light of Chovot HaLevavot, the Ramban and the Chazon Ish. In 5781/2021 he brought out a volume of Shu”t Minchat Asher on the questions raised by the COVID-19 pandemic. His son Rav Binyamin runs his mosdot and is rav of the Chayei Nefesh kehilla in Yerushalayim.