יעקב גזונדהייט

Rav Yaakov Gesundheit (Kislev 5576/1815–13 Elul 5638/1878) was a rav, posek and rosh yeshiva of Warsaw, remembered by lomdim for his Tiferet Yaakov on Gittin and Chullin. Born in Praga (Poland), across the river from Warsaw, he learned under Rav Aryeh Leib Zinz, and at seventeen — after his rebbe’s passing — founded a yeshiva of his own, which he led for forty-two years; it is told that he finished the Shach at eighteen. He supported himself in trade all his years, and poured his profits into sustaining his yeshiva’s poor talmidim.

At twenty-three he printed the first of his Tiferet Yaakov volumes, on Choshen Mishpat — nearly the entire printing was destroyed by order of the censor — and there followed his volumes on masechet Gittin and masechet Chullin, which remain standard learning on those masechtot to this day, along with his works on Yoreh De’ah and Even HaEzer.

A misnaged of the old school in a Warsaw increasingly chassidic, he was passed over for the city’s rabbanut in 5617 in favor of Rav Berish Meisels; only in 5630/1870, after Rav Meisels’ passing, was he chosen chief rabbi of Warsaw — the largest kehillah in Europe. The communal politics between the camps brought his removal by the authorities in 5634, after which no chief rabbi of Warsaw was appointed again; he continued as av beit din until his passing, and his sefarim outlived the machloket.