Auction 45
Lot 171:
Sefer Minchat Chinuch, a comprehensive and learned work by the gaon Rabbi Yosef Babad, the Av Beit Din of Tornopol. The work is based on the Sefer HaChinuch attributed to Rabbi Aharon HaKohen, one of the Rishonim, and is printed around it.
3 sections, separate title page for each section. Second edition. The title page of Section 3 shows 1890. [4], 116; [1], 147; [1], 104, 5, [2] leaves. At the beginning of sections 2-3 are the glosses Mishneh LaMelech by Rabbi Yehuda Rosanis on the Sefer HaChinuch. At the end of Section 3 are notes and glosses on the work by the author’s son, Rabbi Shimon Babad of Tornopol. [2] last leaves include: Minchas Ani by Rabbi Reuven Cohen Rapaport, approbations from Rabbi Yitzhak Aharon Ettinger of Lviv, and the author’s sons. Tape and tears, stains, old binding is partially detached, first title page is repaired and half-missing, white marks as a result of studying this by candlelight.
The body of the work has a number of handwritten notes in the margins. On the spine is the inscription: “Doron gave drash to my grandson Mordechai Leib ben Rahag from me, Yehoshua Zvi Rubin.
The grandson who received this present is the gaon Rabbi Mordechai Leib Rubin (1871-1929), the Ra’avad of the Eida Charedit in Jerusalem between 1924-1929. Before that he served as rabbi of the Moshava Ekron, and at the first gathering of the Agudas Yisrael in Vienna of 1923, he led the Jerusalem delegation.
His father-in-law signed the title page: “Refael Katznelbeugen”—Rabbi Refael Eliyahu Yitzhak HaLevi Katznelbeugen (1894-1972), son of Rabbi Avraham Moshe. He was a businessman, journalist, thinker, a rabbi of the Old Yishuv and the activists of Agudas Yisrael. He was close to Rabbi Yosef Haim Zonenfeld, a founder and editor of the newspaper Kol Yisrael of the Agudah, and led the Diskin Orphanage. His letters were collected after his death and published in the book Be’er Ro’i. His older brother is Rabbi Aharon Katznelbeugen, the head of the extreme Torah v’Yirah yeshiva and a leader of Neturei Karta.
His son, Yaakov Hershon, signed the back of the last leaf. There is also the stamp of the Diskin Orphanage—Rabbi Refael inherited the book and he probably donated it to the orphanage which he managed.
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