A rabbinic responsa autograph I sold this past week is a good example of the process in which teshuvot of rabbis develop and are eventually printed. Written by Rabbi Shlomo Eiger, in his response to a query posed by his father, the famed Rabbi Akiva Eiger, the discussion revolves around a Tosafot commentary on Masechet Zevachim. This responsa was printed in his father’s sefer, Teshuvot Rabbi Akiva Eiger (siman 169), though in the printed version it is elaborated more extensively and written at greater length. It appears that while the original responsa presented here was the original response that was sent, in preparation for printing many changes were made and effort was made to make the text easier to understand. I have found many similar such occurrences where small changes as well as major additions were added in the process of publication, for a wider audience.
Rabbi Shlomo Eiger was the son of Rabbi Akiva Eiger and his first wife, Glickel. His older brother, Abraham Eiger (1781–1853) was also a rabbi and served as rav in Rawicz. R. Shlomo Eiger was a firm disciple of his father, having studied with his father in his youth. He later worked as a merchant in Warsaw, but in 1831 he lost his fortune due to the Polish–Russian War of 1830–31. Later he became the rabbi of Kalisz and, after the passing of his father in 1837, in 1839 he was appointed rabbi of Posen, taking over his father’s position.
Following the Rabbinical Conference of Brunswick and Frankfurt held in 1844, where the Reform movement’s leaders met and imposed changes to Judaism (including banning Kol Nidre and allowing interfaith marriages with Christians), he decided to issue a ban on Reform Judaism, and even traveled to Rabbi Yaakov Ettlinger (author of the Aruch Laner) in Altona and to Rabbi Nathan Marcus Adler in Hannover to gain support for his initiative, but, despite agreeing with R. Shlomo Eiger’s reasoning, they were wary to fully support his proposal.
Many of R. Shlomo Eiger’s letters appeared in his father’s collected responsa, but he was in correspondence with other leading rabbis of his generation as well. He is also well remembered for taking his father’s side during the debate between the Romm publishing house in Vilna and the Shapiro press in Slavita, which was a part of the long-standing feud between the misnagdim and chasidim movements.
The response sold for $5,000.
