Hut ha-meshulash (Threefold Cord)

Moses Sofer

ca. 1820s

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 and mocks both!

Translated by
David E.
Cohen
.

Credits

Moses Sofer, "Hut ha-meshulash (Threefold Cord)" (Manuscript, Pressburg, ca. 1820s). Published as: Shelomoh Sofer, Sefer Ḥuṭ ha-Meshulash, vol. 2 (Drohoviṭsh: bi-defus A. H. Zupniḳ, 1908), 100 (footnote), https://hebrewbooks.org/29070.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 6.

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Creator Bio

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.

Related Guide

Rabbinic Scholarship, 1750–1880

Despite the challenges of the early modern period, rabbinic scholarship flourished in Central and Eastern Europe in the latter half of the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth century. 

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