הרב משה שיק

Rav Moshe Schick (21 Adar I 5567/1807–1 Shevat 5639/1879), known as the Maharam Schick — Moreinu HaRav Moshe — was the greatest posek of Hungary in his day, gaavad of Chust, and the leader of Orthodox Jewry in its parting from the Neologs. He was born in Birkenhain in the kingdom of Hungary (today in Slovakia) to Rav Yosef Schick, a descendant of Rav Chanoch Henich Schick of Shklov. As a child he struggled with his learning — it is told he could barely master a single daf of Gemara — until through toil and hatmadah he grew into one of the great minds of the generation. At eleven he was sent to his uncle, the av beit din Rav Yitzchak Frankel, and from there to the yeshiva of the Chatam Sofer in Pressburg, who cherished him and called him “my aron sefarim”; when the young talmid once fell asleep against his rebbi’s shoulder on a journey and the others moved to wake him, the Chatam Sofer said: this is a walking sefer Torah. At twenty he married his cousin, Gittel Frankel.

In 5598/1838 he became rav of Yergen near Pressburg, where he served twenty-four years and headed a yeshiva. In 5621/1861 he was called to the rabbanut of Chust, and his yeshiva of eight hundred talmidim moved with him. When the heads of the kehillah voted to raise his salary, he refused to accept it until the melamdim, the shochtim, the dayan, and the shamash of the community received raises as well.

With emancipation came the Neolog drive to place all the kehillot of Hungary under a single national body. Though he held no official position at the Orthodox rabbinical assembly of 5629/1868, the Maharam Schick emerged as the leader of the stand: it was he who had the letter sent declaring that the Orthodox would accept no resolutions of the coming congress that ran against the ruling of their rabbanim, and he led the campaign for separation until, in 5632/1871, the government recognized an independent bureau for the autonomous Orthodox kehillot of Hungary. At the Michalowitz assembly of 5625/1865 he had declined to sign the takanot — chiefly over the ban on derashot in German — yet once his colleagues’ ruling became public he accepted it upon himself “with awe and with fear.”

He is learned today above all through his responsa, the Shu”t Maharam Schick, more than a thousand teshuvot spanning all four chelkei Shulchan Aruch and every corner of life, and through his Maharam Schick al Taryag Mitzvot; he also left chiddushim on Shas, derashot, and peirushim on the Torah, on Pirkei Avot, and on the Haggadah shel Pesach. He was niftar in Chust on 1 Shevat 5639/1879 after heavy yissurim.