Shlomo Ganzfried
Appearance
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/38/Shlomo_Ganzfried.jpg/230px-Shlomo_Ganzfried.jpg)
Shlomo Ganzfried (or Salomon ben Joseph Ganzfried,
Ungvár, Com.Ung, Royal Hungary – 30 July 1886, in Ungvár, Ung, Royal Hungary) was an Orthodox rabbi and posek best known as the author of the work of Halakha (Jewish law), the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch (Hebrew: קיצור שולחן ערוך, "The Abbreviated Shulchan Aruch"), by which title he is also known.[1]
Biography
Ganzfried was born in 1804 in
ordination
and marriage. After his marriage he worked briefly as a wine merchant.
In 1830, he abandoned commerce and accepted the position of Rabbi of
dayan, a judge in the religious court. At that time Ungvár's spiritual head, Rabbi Meir Ash, was active in the Orthodox camp, in opposition to the Neologs. Through serving with Ash, Ganzfried realised that in order to remain committed to Orthodoxy, "the average Jew required an underpinning of a knowledge of practical halakha (Jewish law)". It was to this end that Ganzfried composed the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch. This work became very popular, and was frequently reprinted in Hebrew and in Yiddish
. This work often records more stringent positions.
Rabbi Ganzfried remained in the office of Dayan until his death on July 30, 1886.
Works
Kitzur Shulchan Aruch
The Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, first published in 1864, is a summary of the Shulchan Aruch of Joseph Karo with reference to later commentaries. This work was explicitly written as a popular text, in simple Hebrew, and does not have the same level of detail as the Shulchan Aruch itself.
Other works
- Kesset HaSofer (קסת הסופר), a scribespublished in 1835. Ganzfried composed this while he was still engaged in business.
- Pnei Shlomo (פני שלמה), an elucidation of portions of the Talmud.
- Torat Zevach (תורת זבח), a halakhic handbook for practitioners of shechita, ritual slaughter.
- Sefer Apiryon (ספר אפריון), a commentary on the Bible. It contains a piece on every weekly Torah portion except for Parshat Massei, which is also the week in which his yahrzeit falls.
- Lechem V'simlah (לחם ושמלה) on the laws of Niddah.
- Ohalei Sheim (אהלי שם) on the official spellings of Hebrew names, as pertaining to gittin.
- Sheim Shlomo (שם שלמה) on various sugyos in Shas.
- Sefer Galuy A letter written at the time of the Congress of 1869.
References
- S2CID 151138150.
- Rabbi Ganzfried's two million Kitzurs, Jack E. Friedman
- Ganzfried, Solomon, jewishencyclopedia.com
- What is the Kitzur Shulkhan Arukh?, faqs.org
External links
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fa/Wikiquote-logo.svg/34px-Wikiquote-logo.svg.png)
Wikiquote has quotations related to Shlomo Ganzfried.
- Works by or about Shlomo Ganzfried at Internet Archive
- Works by Shlomo Ganzfried at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)