Auction 50
Lot 082:
Booklet from a yeshiva student in Ettingen, 41 pages packed with divrei torah on the parshiyot of the week from sages of the generation of Rabbi Mrodechai Baneth, Av Beit Din of Nicklasburg and a gadol of Hungary and Moravia.
The blank first leaf has a handwritten note by Rabbeinu: “This book belongs to the Admor Ga’avad Moharar Yaakov Neru Yair [Adei Ad]. Av Beit Din of Ettingen and [Yeshamerhu Tzur v’Yechayehu]. Signed Mordechai Baneth of Nicklasburg.” The referred to Admor is his teacher and first rabbi, Rabbi Yaakov Katzenelboigen, Av Beit Din of Ettingen (see Toldot HaGram Baneth, which states that Rav Baneth grew up there from the age of 11, and when he turned bar mitzvah he showed them that he had written for the day 3 books—the rabbi’s wife grew so jealous because he was more talented than her husband so she burned the books).
The top of the first leaf notes: “This booklet belongs to Yeshaya Weilshat…”. The body of the booklet has divrei torah from rabbis, including Rabbi Baneth’s rabbis, and the top of each page references the writer of each rumoured drash. The chiddushim are in the name of “the Gaon Gadol Moharar Hertz Amreich”, “Gaon Moharar Manley Bosingen”, “Maharam”, “gaon … Yehonatan” (Rabbi Yehonatan Ivshitz). There are divrei torah from the latter printed in his book Nefesh Yehonatan with changes in wording. The pages after that have the titles: “in Masechet Shabbat the sugiya of…”, without a name. The end has a drash for sukkot.
Accompanied by a certificate from an expert that the signature comes from Rabbi Yitzhak Yeshaya Weiss, Av Beit Din of Neve Achiezer, in his youth.
The Gaon Rabbi Mordechai ben Avraham Baneth, known as the Maharam Baneth (1753-1829) was an important Hungarian rabbi and Av Beit Din and rosh yeshiva of Nicklasburg. He was also Chief Rabbi of Moravia. Already in his childhood he was considered a prodigy and at the age of eleven(!) he was sent to study at the yeshiva of Rabbi Yaakov Katzenelboigen in Ettingen, Bavaria. At age 15 he transferred to the Furth yeshiva to study under Rabbi Yosef Steinhardt. At age 18 he travelled to Prague, where he studied under the Noda B’Yehuda. At age 22 he married the daughter of Gimpel Prostitz of Nicklasburg, and moved to study under the Admor Shmuel Shmelka Horwitz, a Chassidic leader and the town’s rabbi. According to a tradition among the Hasidim, our Rabbi used to practice celibacy, fasting and asceticism from an early age, until Rabbi Zosha of Anipoli rebuked him for being ascetic and from then on he used to only reduce his food consumption (see below). Aside from his greatness in the Torah he was also proficient in external wisdoms such as philosophy, astronomy and mathematics. He was an obedient subject of Emperor Franz I, in whose honor he composed a prayer after the suppression of the revolt in Italy in 1820.
He had a special connection with the Chatam Sofer. A story is told in which a bookseller came to the Chatam Sofer and exhibited his wares; the Chatam Sofer saw Rav Baneth’s handwriting on an early leaf and immediately bought the book—it became clear that it was a prayer book, upon which Rav Baneth had written that he would undertake not to enjoy this world more than is necessary for his living. The Chatam Sofer was amazed and said that one could see that Maharam Baneth had Ruach HaKodesh, for that was the only way to know for sure the boundary between need and enjoyment in the eating of food.
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