Responsa hatam Sofer: Orah hayim 51

Moses Sofer

1835

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” (Deuteronomy 22:9). Meanwhile one who mingles philosophy books with Torah transgresses the prohibition against plowing with an ox and a donkey together, and if he is a leader of Israel he leads with a forbidden combination of animals.

Translated by
Maoz
Kahana
.

Credits

Moses Sofer, Sefer Ḥatam Sofer: ḥeleḳ oraḥ ḥaim (Pressburg: Franz Edlen von Schmidschen, 1855), 19a (responsum 51), https://www.nli.org.il/en/books/NNL_ALEPH002036631/NLI.

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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