Auction 96 FINE JUDAICA: PRINTED BOOKS, MANUSCRIPTS, RABBINIC LETTERS, CEREMONIAL & GRAPHIC ART
By Kestenbaum & Company
Feb 9, 2022
The Brooklyn Navy Yard Building 77, Suite 1108 141 Flushing Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11205, United States

The auction has ended

LOT 29:

FRIEDMAN, YISROEL CHAIM
(Rabbi of Rakhiv and author of Likutei Maharya’ch, 1859-1922). Public Letter ...

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FRIEDMAN, YISROEL CHAIM
(Rabbi of Rakhiv and author of Likutei Maharya’ch, 1859-1922). Public Letter Signed.



Attesting that R. Friedman permits a man to marry a second wife, after his first wife had gone insane and could not accept a divorce. (See below for details).
Three pages.
Rakhiv, Ukraine: Thursday of Parashat Ki Tissa 1905


Rabbi Yisrael Chaim Friedman served as the rabbi of Rakhiv, a town in Subcarpathia, for nearly 40 years. He maintained close contacts with the Chassidic elite in the region, especially with members of the Teitelbaum and Halberstam families.


In this letter, the rabbi recounts the sad situation of one Chaim Asher Cohen, a local man, whose wife had gone insane and returned to her parental home. Since Cohen had only one child, he petitioned Rabbi Friedman for the right to marry a second wife while still married to his first wife, by means of a “Heter Me’ah Rabbanim.” Rabbi Friedman’s letter advocates for this solution.