הרב יעקב עטלינגר

Rav Yaakov Ettlinger (29 Adar 5558/1798–25 Kislev 5632/1871), known for all generations as the Aruch LaNer after his sefarim on Shas and in English sources as Jacob Ettlinger, was rav of Altona and among the fathers of Torah Jewry in Germany in its struggle with the Reform. Born in Karlsruhe to Rav Aharon, rav of a beit knesset in the city, he learned under his father and under the city’s rav, Rav Asher Wallerstein, son of the Shaagat Aryeh, and then in the yeshiva of Rav Avraham Bing in Würzburg, attending the university there as well — among the first rabbanim of Germany with academic training. In the riots of 1819 he fled to Fürth, where he learned in the beit midrash of Rav Avraham Binyamin Wolf Hamburg.

In 5586/1826 he was appointed district rav of Ladenburg, sitting in Mannheim, where his yeshiva raised talmidim for rabbanut — among them Rav Shamshon Raphael Hirsch. From 5596/1836 until his petirah he served as chief rav of Altona, where his yeshiva drew many more, Rav Azriel Hildesheimer at their head. His authority reached over Schleswig and Holstein and, until 1863, Denmark, and he was the last rav in Germany to sit as a judge in civil matters, a power the Danish government ended against his will. Five of his sons-in-law served as rabbanim of standing in Rotterdam, Schwerin, Ostrowo, Kissingen, and Frankfurt.

When the Reform rabbis assembled in Braunschweig in 5604/1844 he led a protest of over a hundred rabbanim against them, and went on to found the first Orthodox newspaper, Der treue Zionswächter, with its Hebrew supplement Shomer Tzion HaNe’eman. In psak he permitted machine matzah on Pesach while directing that the corners be trimmed round, and stood against Rav Tzvi Hirsch Kalischer‘s proposal to renew korbanot in our day. He labored for the growing yishuv in Eretz Yisrael, and the Sephardi and Ashkenazi rabbanim of Yerushalayim honored him with the title Nasi Eretz Yisrael.

His Aruch LaNer, chiddushim on masechtot Rosh Hashanah, Sukkah, Yevamot, Sanhedrin, Makkot, Keritot, and Niddah, is a standard sefer in the yeshivot, brought again and again by Rav Elchonon Wasserman and Rav Boruch Ber Leibowitz; beside it stand Bikkurei Yaakov on hilchot sukkah, the responsa Binyan Tzion, and the derashot Minchat Ani. In his tzavaah he asked that he not be called tzaddik and that his matzeivah carry only the names of his sefarim and his years as rav of Altona. He was niftar on the first night of Chanukah and buried in Altona; in Yerushalayim, Rav Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld, who lived all his years in the Beit Yaakov dwelling donated by admirers of the Aruch LaNer, would mark his yahrzeit every first day of Chanukah.