Rav Moshe Sofer
The Chasam Sofer, Rav of Pressburg for thirty-three years, who led Klal Yisroel with unbending loyalty to Torah in an age of upheaval.
Biography
Early years
Rav Moshe Sofer zt"l, known the world over as the Chasam Sofer, was born in Frankfurt am Main, the son of Rav Shmuel Sofer. He learned from Rav Nosson Adler of Frankfurt and from Rav Pinchas HaLevi Horowitz, the Baal Haflo’a, himself a talmid of the Maggid of Mezritch.
It is told that the Divrei Chaim of Sanz once said to the Chasam Sofer’s son, Rav Shimon Sofer of Cracow, that it was no chiddush that his father had risen to such heights of greatness and holiness, since his Rebbe was Rav Nosson Adler. The Divrei Chaim had heard from his own Rebbe, Rav Naftali of Ropshitz, who heard it from his Rebbe, Rav Elimelech of Lizhensk, author of Noam Elimelech, that for many years no soul like Rav Nosson Adler’s had come down to this world, apart from the soul of the Baal Shem Tov.
Torah and leadership
His first position was as Rav of Boskovitz in Moravia. He married the daughter of the Rav of Prosnitz, and his brother-in-law, Rav Hirsch, supported him. In time Rav Hirsch lost all his money, and Rav Moshe accepted a position as Rav in the Moravian city of Dresnitz. After five years in Dresnitz he moved to Mattersdorf.
In Tishrei of 1806, Rav Moshe was appointed Rav of Pressburg, and he held that position for thirty-three years. The Chasam Sofer stood at the head of Klal Yisroel in a time of great upheaval. The gates of the ghetto had opened, and new opportunities were calling to Jews. In a single generation, Jewish life in his native Frankfurt was devastated, and Reform was spreading. From Pressburg he showed how to keep authentic Jewish life alive through a strong community, first-class Torah education and refusal to compromise with Reform or with radical change.
Rav Meir Shapiro once visited Prague and Pressburg and found that in Prague Judaism lived mainly in its famous cemetery, while in Pressburg it was fully alive. He attributed the difference to the firm stand of the Chasam Sofer, compared with the conciliatory approach of the leaders of Prague.
What gave the Chasam Sofer his strength was a deep awareness that he spoke for the Jewish people of his time. His son Rav Shimon once asked how he could answer hard sheilos so fast. The Chasam Sofer explained that Hashem sends one leader to guide His people in each generation, and since the majority of the questions were brought to him, he had to be that leader. Even if the reasoning he offered for a psak could be challenged, the psak itself remained right, since it came with divine guidance. He wrote that in forty years of paskening he reversed himself only twice, and that even in those two cases he ought not to have retracted.
He taught thousands of talmidim. His son Rav Shimon recalled hearing him say that from the day he first began to teach, only Tisha B’Av ever passed without his giving a shiur to a large gathering. All who met him felt a divine presence in him. His father-in-law, Rav Akiva Eiger, once spoke of an aguna case in which the Chasam Sofer reached the truth through unexpected questions to the witnesses, remarking, “How great is the strength of tzaddikim; Ruach Hashem spoke through him.”
Although he was a forceful and majestic leader, he was a gentle and caring shepherd of his flock. He davened with great fervor. Though a posek of the first rank, he had a remarkably poetic soul, and every year between Yom Kippur and Sukkos he composed sacred poetry. He was devoted to Eretz Yisroel and urged Jews to settle there, yet he was also a loyal citizen of the country where he lived, and he saw no conflict between the two.
Teachings and seforim
His writings are voluminous. Among the best known are his responsa, his derashos and the Toras Moshe. He also wrote Sefer HaZikaron, a remarkable account of the siege of Pressburg by Napoleon in 1809 and of the miraculous fate of Pressburg’s Jews.
Later years and passing
After the passing of his first wife, Rav Moshe married the daughter of Rav Akiva Eiger. The Chasam Sofer had been childless until then, and she bore him three sons and seven daughters.
It was his habit, when a daughter was born, to write, “and with Hashem’s help I will bring her to the chuppah.” For his younger daughter Simcha he left that line out, and he passed away shortly before her wedding.
The Chasam Sofer passed away on 25 Tishrei 5600 (1839) in Pressburg, after thirty-three years as its Rav.
Legacy
His son Rav Shmuel Binyamin, the Kesav Sofer, grew up in his father’s house and, it is told, hid his great hasmadah even from his father. By age fourteen he was writing down his own chiddushei Torah in a secret journal, and he would feign sleep until his father went to rest, then rise to learn. At fifteen he was exchanging letters with the leading poskim and with his father’s talmidim. In that year his mother passed away, and later that year he became engaged to Chava Leah, daughter of Rav Yitzchok Weiss of Gorlitz. They were married in Kamaran the following year.
Before the chasuna he received semichah and the title Moreinu from Rav Daniel Prostitz, Rav Mordechai Task, Rav Zalman and the rabbanim and dayanim of Pressburg. For six years he learned in Pressburg under his father’s support. He passed away on the Sunday of Parshas Shemos, 19 Teves 5632, after serving as Rav of Pressburg for thirty years.
The Chasam Sofer’s seforim remain his lasting legacy, together with the communal and educational path he laid out in Pressburg.
Stories
Waiting for a Tzaddik’s Sunrise
It is told that the birth of the Chasam Sofer’s son was long and difficult. Some of his talmidim and Torah scholars noticed that their Rebbe did nothing to hasten it, and they asked, “Why did the Rav not daven that his wife give birth more easily and quickly?”
The Chasam Sofer answered, “Surely you know the words of Chazal in Yoma 38, that as one sun sets, another rises. When one tzaddik’s life ends like a sunset, another tzaddik’s life begins like a sunrise. My son will surely be a tzaddik. If so, how can I hasten his birth and cause another tzaddik’s life to end before its time?”
The Candles of the Chevra Kadisha
One day, everyone in the household of the holy Chasam Sofer fell ill. Among them was his six-year-old son Shmuel Binyamin, whose illness grew worse until his life was in danger. Everyone davened for him and pledged tzedakah, and they added the name Avrohom to his name. In the course of his life he suffered some five to seven severe, life-threatening illnesses.
The last of these illnesses reached its peak, and the doctors concluded that the end was near. Members of the Chevra Kadisha were called in to perform the final rites, and they lit candles and said tefillos. The physicians turned to the Chasam Sofer and said, “We know you are a holy man. If your prayers go unanswered, there is no hope.”
The Chasam Sofer stood up and began to daven beside the bookcase that held all his writings and manuscripts of his Torah. Suddenly the sick child cried out, “Shema Yisroel,” and the Chasam Sofer answered him. The doctors said, “Now we see how holy you are, and our hope is restored.” “I never gave up hope myself,” said the Chasam Sofer.
Seeing the child’s recovery, the Chevra Kadisha put out the candles and left with a sense of relief. Others heard the tzaddik say quietly, “For one yovel, my prayers have been answered.” And so it was. His son, the Kesav Sofer, lived another fifty years from that day, though he never fully regained vigorous health. He carried physical pain throughout his life, a ba’al yissurim whose suffering, it is said, atoned for his generation.
At the Kesav Sofer’s bar mitzvah, after he gave a wonderful derashah filled with his own chiddushim, he received the customary gifts. One was a silver box from the scholar Rav Ber Frank. When the young man opened it, he found wax candles, and he asked Rav Ber what such a strange gift could mean.
“My child,” Rav Ber answered, “these are your candles. They are the very candles the Chevra Kadisha prepared for you all those years ago. Now they are yours. The word ner, candle, has become ron, joy, from candles for the dead to a song of simchah and light. May the song of the morning star be your melody, and may you shine forth like the morning light and illuminate the whole world like the noonday sun.” The candles were kept in the family for years and passed down from generation to generation.
Rav Yitzchok Aharon Landsberg, the Rav of Grossvardein, said in his hesped for the Kesav Sofer that he remembered him from childhood, when he studied in the Pressburg yeshiva. “We all recognized his greatness. Even at nine years old he davened with tears. He behaved like a true tzaddik yesod olam.”
The Handwriting of the Chasam Sofer
The Chasam Sofer was known to write his responsa very quickly, with no second thoughts or regret. Once an issue concerning an aguna was brought to him, and as was his habit, he wrote a swift reply and handed it to his son, Rav Shimon, to deliver to the Bais Din in Nikolsburg.
Rav Shimon thought that because the matter was so grave, he would hold the letter for a while, in case his father had written in haste and wished to review it. A few days later the Chasam Sofer asked whether he had delivered it. When his son said no, and explained why, the Chasam Sofer said, “In every generation Hashem sets one person as the Godol HaDor, with siyata dishmaya, and the halachic answers follow Hashem’s will. In this generation, I was chosen for this task. Please deliver the answer immediately.”
When the Bais Din of Nikolsburg received the long responsum, Rav Mordechai Banet opened it and read only the last few lines. The Bais Din asked why he had not read the whole psak din. He answered, “In truth, all I need to see is the final word, whether the Chasam Sofer said muttar or assur. But I read the last few lines because the handwriting of the Chasam Sofer itself brings great yiras shomayim.”
First in Lichtenstadt, Then in Nikolsburg
Rav Mordechai Banet was the Rav of Nikolsburg. In the last years of his life he fell ill and moved to Lichtenstadt, near Carlsbad, for treatment. When he passed away, the people of Lichtenstadt buried him quickly, because they wanted him to remain in their town. When Nikolsburg heard, there was an uproar, until the question of whether to move him came before the Chasam Sofer.
In his teshuvah, the Chasam Sofer gave three reasons why it was permitted to reinter Rav Mordechai in Nikolsburg, even though it was very unpopular, because it gave non-Jews an excuse to move bodies as they pleased. He also wrote that the people of Nikolsburg should not be believed when they said Rav Mordechai had wanted his body returned. Rav Mordechai had said in his lifetime that anyone who needed salvation after his passing should come to his kever and his tefillos would be answered, and the Chasam Sofer reasoned that this gave the people of Nikolsburg a motive to bring him back near them.
While he was writing the teshuvah, the Chasam Sofer fell asleep. In his dream, Rav Mordechai appeared to him and said that he did in fact want to return to Nikolsburg, but Hashem wanted him buried in Lichtenstadt for a reason. When he was a young man, a shidduch with a certain girl had been broken off. She suffered embarrassment, and later she married the Rav of Lichtenstadt. With the help and tefillos of the Rav of Lichtenstadt, it was determined that the only kapparah Rav Mordechai could have was to be buried next to her in the cemetery for six months. And so it was. After six months his holy body was raised and reburied in Nikolsburg.
Eating Gebrokts
Some chassidim of the Sanzer Rav were once in Pressburg for Pesach and were guests at the Chasam Sofer’s table. Chassidim customarily avoid gebrokts, matzah that has touched liquid. The Chasam Sofer did not follow that custom, and kneidlach were on his table.
When the kneidlach were brought out, the guests did not know what to do. Gebrokts had never touched their lips, and they were well aware of how strict their Rebbe was about this minhag. One chassid held back. The other thought, “This is the table of the Godol HaDor, and who am I to be more stringent than he?” and he ate.
On their return, they told the Sanzer Rav about the visit. To the chassid who had eaten, he said, “You have earned Olam HaBa.” To the one who had held back, he said, “Be sure to stay close to me on Yom Kippur; I shall try to plead for your forgiveness.”
Teachings
Tzedakah for the Elevation of a Righteous Soul
Whenever the Chasam Sofer needed a yeshuah, a salvation in any matter large or small, he gave tzedakah for the elevation of the soul of the pious Rav Akiva of Frankfurt. His grandson Rav Shlomo Sofer, son of the Kesav Sofer, testified that the family kept this custom from the Chasam Sofer. Rav Akiva of Frankfurt himself was the first to establish the kupos, the tzedakah boxes, and he urged people to give tzedakah le’illui nishmaso in any time of danger or distress. In the name of the Chasam Sofer, it is also good to make a vow to give tzedakah for the elevation of the soul of Rav Akiva of Frankfurt in order to find lost objects and to succeed.
Chut HaMeshulash, p. 197; Alef Kesav, vol. 2, p. 840
Seforim
- Responsa: His halachic responsa, from which he is popularly known as the Chasam Sofer.
- Derashos: His collected derashos.
- Toras Moshe: One of his better-known works.
- Sefer HaZikaron: His account of Napoleon’s siege of Pressburg in 1809 and the miraculous fate of the Jewish community.
Family & talmidim
Teachers: Rav Nosson Adler of Frankfurt, Rav Pinchas HaLevi Horowitz, the Baal Haflo’a
Children: Rav Shmuel Binyamin Sofer, the Kesav Sofer, Rav Shimon Sofer of Cracow, Simcha, his younger daughter, Three sons and seven daughters in all from his second marriage
Also on 25 Tishrei
All hilulos on 25 Tishrei ›Historical sources
- Four Chassidic Masters (Rav Dr. Abraham Twerski)
- Chut HaMeshulash
- Alef Kesav