הרב שמואל הלוי וואזנר

Rav Shmuel HaLevi Wosner (2 Elul 5673/1913–15 Nissan 5775/2015), known for all time by his teshuvot as the Shevet HaLevi, was among the greatest poskim of the last generation — av beit din and rav of the Zichron Meir neighborhood of Bnei Brak, rosh yeshiva of Yeshivat Chachmei Lublin, and the one whom much of the chassidic world called simply the posek hador. He was born in Vienna to Yosef Tzvi Wosner; though the family was modern and its sons went out to work, he chose a life of Torah, learning from age thirteen in Nitra under Rav Shmuel Dovid Ungar and afterward in Tzehlim under Rav Yosef Elimelech Kahana of Ungvar. In 5691/1931, when Yeshivat Chachmei Lublin opened its doors in Poland, he traveled there to learn under Rav Meir Shapiro — his rebbi muvhak, whose hillula he marked with a seudah every year — and under the mashgiach, Rav Shimon of Zhelichov.

In 5697/1937 he married Rivka, daughter of Mordechai Gelber, rosh hakahal of Pressburg, and served as a moreh hora’ah in that city’s beit hora’ah. After the Anschluss the couple sailed for Eretz Yisrael, coming ashore at Netanya on 25 Kislev 5699/1938 after a grueling journey down the Danube — a day he kept with his talmidim ever after as his day of rescue. In Yerushalayim he learned under Rav Yosef Tzvi Dushinsky and was appointed a dayan of the Edah HaChareidis and rav of the Kerem Avraham and Geulah neighborhoods; in 5704/1944 he published his first sefer, Sefer HaLeket on the Rambam, and worked as an editor at Machon Otzar HaPoskim.

In 5707/1947, at the suggestion of the Chazon Ish, he moved to Bnei Brak as rav of the new Zichron Meir neighborhood — named for his own rebbi, Rav Meir Shapiro — and with the encouragement of the Chazon Ish, the Tchebiner Rav, and Rav Isser Zalman Meltzer he founded there a new Yeshivat Chachmei Lublin, in memory of the yeshiva of his youth, with the Zichron Meir beit din beside it. His Shevet HaLevi, ten volumes of teshuvot, deals at length with the questions that new technology put before halachah, and his rulings are cited across the halachic literature in Hebrew and in English; a large share of the morei hora’ah of Bnei Brak and beyond did shimush under him. In 5772/2012 he addressed, by live hookup from Israel, the great asifa at Citi Field in New York on the dangers of the internet, forbidding its unfiltered use.

He was niftar on leil haSeder, 15 Nissan 5775/2015, at the age of 101, and some hundred thousand accompanied him on motzaei Shabbat to his resting place in Bnei Brak. His son Rav Chaim Meir Wosner succeeded him in the rabbanut of Zichron Meir and at the head of Yeshivat Chachmei Lublin.