Moses Sofer

1762–1839

Moses (Mosheh) Sofer (also Schreiber) was a major rabbinic leader who did much to shape Orthodox Judaism and Hungarian Jewry. Born and educated in Frankfurt, he first held rabbinic positions in Moravia and Burgenland. In 1806, he accepted the position of rabbi of Pressburg (now Bratislava, Slovakia); there, he founded a major and influential yeshiva, where numerous significant Hungarian rabbis received their training. Sofer was famous for his uncompromising opposition to Reform Judaism. He published very little during his lifetime, but his roughly 1,500 responsa were published posthumously (some included in this volume) under the title of Ḥatam Sofer.

Entries in the Posen Library by This Creator

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Sefer ha-zikaron (The Book of Memory)

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I have written this down in connection with all that befell us during that year five thousand five hundred and sixty-nine [1809] here, in our holy community of Pressburg. Now an omen of this had…

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Derashot ḥatam sofer (Sermons of Ḥatam Sofer)

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A sealed Torah was given to us; it is doubtless a Torah of Truth but it is disguised. Every day the Holy One, blessed be He, renews those who study it for its own sake and they find a new taste in it…

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Responsa Hatam Sofer: Orah hayim 154

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The reason for this is that if they see Torah scholars, and those who repair the breaches in Jewish religious practice, voiding the Torah in accordance with the exigencies of time and place, they will…

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Hut ha-meshulash (Threefold Cord)

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The Hasid praises the Almighty on the right hand, and the unbeliever tosses away and truncates the principles of faith on the left, while the Torah scholar, standing in the center, maintains silence…

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Responsa hatam Sofer: Orah hayim 51

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And likewise I say: Whoever mingles teachings of Kabbalah with rulings of halakhah is liable for kilayim—sowing a forbidden mixture of seeds, “Lest the fullness of the seed you have sown be forfeited”…

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Responsa hatam Sofer, Orah hayim 36

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Indeed, in the countries where we reside, where the gentile women walk about bareheaded, but our mothers did not go out like that and were most careful on that score, concerned as they were about…