Notebook handwritten by R. Shlomo Zalman Auerbach – clarifying the Talmudic topics pertaining to using milking machines on Shabbat. [Jerusalem, ca. 1948].
Autograph manuscript, with many deletions, additions and glosses. This notebook comprises addenda to two halachic responsa on this topic sent by R. Shlomo Zalman to the chief rabbi of Israel, R. Yitzchak Eizik HaLevi Herzog. The first page of the notebook contains a draft letter addressed to R. Herzog, in which he writes that he reviewed the previous two letters he had sent to R. Herzog on the matter, and wishes to make some amendments and additions, he therefore asks R. Herzog to append the present letter to the previous two. The notebook (which is full of emendations and deletions) presumably served as a draft for a letter sent to R. Herzog (the first two letters were published in Otzrot HaShabbat, Bnei Brak, 1996 – see enclosed material. Other responsa by R. Shlomo Zalman on the topic of using milking machines on Shabbat were published in Minchat Shlomo, II, section 26; and in Mahadura Tinyana, section 31. We were not able to ascertain whether the contents of the present notebook appear in the aforementioned books).
R. Shlomo Zalman Auerbach (1910-1995), dean of the Kol Torah Yeshiva and leading posek of his times. Born in Jerusalem to R. Chaim Yehuda Leib Auerbach, dean of the Shaar HaShamayim yeshiva for kabbalists. He was a close disciple of R. Isser Zalman Meltzer, who held him in high esteem and quotes him in his book Even HaEzel. In 1935, at the age of only 24, he published his first book – Meorei Esh on using electricity on Shabbat, which received the approbations of the Torah leaders of the generation, including R. Chaim Ozer Grodzinsky (who was very impressed by the ability of the young Torah scholar from Jerusalem to analyze the halachic status of a new invention, which is not discussed in halachic literature), his teacher – R. Isser Zalman Meltzer and R. Kook. In his youth, R. Shlomo Zalman was a household member of R. Zelig Reuven Bengis, head of the Edah HaChareidit, who despite being an elder Lithuanian Torah scholar, held the young Torah scholar in high regard. In the home of R. Bengis, R. Shlomo Zalman made acquaintance with his colleague R. Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, and elder Jerusalem Torah scholars such as R. Gershon Lapidot and the rabbi of Teplik. In time, R. Shlomo Zalman became one of the leading poskim and the foremost authority in several Halachic fields, such as medicine and halachah. His pleasant ways and refinement earned him the veneration of all sects of Orthodox Judaism, as was expressed at his funeral which was attended by some 300,000 people.

Notebook: [32] leaves (approx. 40 written pages). 20.5 cm. Good condition. Stains and wear. Original card cover, slightly torn.