הרב משה סופר

Rav Moshe Sofer (7 Tishrei 5523/1762–25 Tishrei 5600/1839), known for all generations as the Chatam Sofer after his sefarim, and in English sources as Moses Schreiber, was rav of Pressburg, head of its great yeshiva, and the posek upon whom the last generations leaned. Born in Frankfurt to a family of sofrei stam — whence the family name — he was descended from Rashi and from the author of the Yalkut Shimoni. At six he was learning under Rav Meshulam Zalman Chasid, at seven saying chiddushim of his own, and from nine he sat in the yeshiva of Rav Natan Adler, his rebbi muvhak, who was to him as a father and whom he accompanied when he left Frankfurt. He learned as well under Rav Pinchas Horowitz, the baal Hafla’ah, and under Rav David Tevli Shayar of Mainz, from whom he also took mathematics, astronomy, and history.

Sent by his rebbi to Prossnitz in 5546/1786, he married there and headed the city’s yeshiva; in 5554/1794 he accepted the rabbanut of Dresnitz in Moravia with semicha from Rav Mordechai Benet, and in 5558/1798 that of Mattersdorf, where he founded a yeshiva. In 5566/1806 he was called to Pressburg, the great kehilla of Hungary, and for some thirty-three years, until the day of his passing, he served as rav of the district and head of the Pressburg Yeshiva, which drew talmidim from many lands until they numbered five hundred; all the while he served also as a mohel. After his first wife’s passing he married Sorl, daughter of Rav Akiva Eiger, from whom all his children were born — four sons and seven daughters. The gedolim of the age — Rav Mordechai Benet, Rav Akiva Eiger, Rav Ephraim Zalman Margolios — accorded him a standing of his own: kehillot across Central Europe sent him their she’eilot, his rulings were accepted without appeal, and even non-Jewish judges turned to him on questions of Jewish law.

Against the Reform movement then rising with the emancipation he set his famous rule, chadash asur min haTorah — the din of new grain turned into a banner: any change in the mitzvot and minhagim of Yisrael is forbidden as such, for a minhag of Yisrael is like a neder made in public. In 5571/1811 he blocked the opening of a school of secular studies in Pressburg, and in 5579/1819 he stood with the beit din of Hamburg against the Reform temple in that city. Yet he held that the chochmot may be learned after Torah, as gates and handmaids to her; and toward Eretz Yisrael his heart was open wide — he taught that the soil of Eretz Yisrael is holier than the heavens of chutz laaretz, upheld the plan of Rav Zvi Hirsch Kalischer for settling the land, and ruled that supporting the poor of Eretz Yisrael comes before building a shul in Yerushalayim. Talmidim of his who went up founded the Kolel Bnei Hungaria, whose members were among the founders of Petach Tikva.

He printed almost nothing in his lifetime; after his passing appeared more than a thousand teshuvot — the Teshuvot Chasam Sofer — with chiddushim on the Talmud, drashot, and peirushim on Torah and tefilla, and his teshuvot remain required learning for those preparing for semicha. In learning he turned away from pilpul toward peshat and the clarifying of correct girsa’ot. His talmidim built yeshivot across Hungary; his son Rav Avraham Shmuel Binyamin, the Ktav Sofer, filled his place in Pressburg, and the Pressburg Yeshiva stood until the Second World War, after which it was planted anew in Yerushalayim under his great-grandson Rav Akiva Sofer. He was niftar in Pressburg on 25 Tishrei 5600/1839; the ohel over his kever, saved from destruction in the war years and preserved today beneath the raised roadway, remains a place of tefilla.