Letter handwritten and signed by R. Chaim Ozer Grodzinski. Vilna, 26th Av 1939.
Addressed to R. Yechezkel Abramsky, head of the London Beit Din. The letter discusses the proposal of the community committee for a fixed time for the Kabbalat Shabbat prayer year-round, which was liable to lead to Shabbat desecration (in England, the day is especially short in winter, and especially long in summer).
R. Chaim Ozer declares this to be in opposition to the halachah as presented in the Shulchan Aruch, and asks R. Abramsky to do all he can to prevent it.
R. Chaim Ozer Grodzinski (1863-1940) was a foremost rabbi of his generation and leader of European Jewry. He was the son of R. David Shlomo Grodzinski, Rabbi of Iwye. He was renowned from his childhood for his exceptional brilliance. He entered the Volozhin yeshiva at the young age of 11, and became a disciple of R. Chaim of Brisk. At the age of 24, he was appointed rabbi and posek of Vilna, succeeding his father-in-law R. Eliyahu Eliezer Grodnansky, a posek in Vilna (son-in-law of R. Yisrael Salanter). He assumed the yoke of public leadership from a young age, and his opinion was conclusive on all public issues which arose throughout the Jewish world for close to fifty years.
The recipient of the letter, R. Yechezkel Abramsky (1886-1976), was a confidant and agent of R. Chaim Ozer of Vilna ever since developing close ties with him in his youth while studying under his influence in Vilna. In winter of 1906, the "prodigy of Masty" Yechezkel Abramsky was forced to leave the Telshe yeshiva and flee to Vilna (then under Polish occupation) to avoid conscription to the Russian army. In Vilna he was accepted into the Ramailes yeshiva and joined the elite class of students who listened to the advanced lectures of R. Chaim Ozer (based on Melech BeYofyo, pp. 29-33). While subsequently serving as Rabbi of Smilavichy and Slutsk, he served often as R. Chaim Ozer's agent in various communal affairs. R. Abramsky smuggled the manuscript of Part I of his Chazon Yechezkel from Slutsk to his teacher R. Chaim Ozer in Vilna, who was involved in its publication in Vilna, 1925, by his confidant R. Aharon Dov Alter Voronovsky (R. Abramsky's wife's cousin). When R. Abramsky was arrested by the Soviets and sent to Siberia in 1930, R. Chaim Ozer made world-spanning efforts to release him.
After his release in 1931, R. Chaim Ozer and the Rebbe Rayatz of Lubavitch joined with R. Abramsky to initiate the project of sending Pesach flour and food packages to Jews under the Bolshevik regime in Russia. Likewise, R. Abramsky was active on missions on behalf of R. Chaim Ozer for yeshivas in Poland and Lithuania and for rabbis of Europe. They also cooperated on many public issues, including the struggles for Jewish marriage and against the anti-Semitic laws in Germany and Europe forbidding Jewish shechitah (requiring stunning animals before slaughtering, which renders the meat non-kosher), and on rescue activity for rabbis and yeshivas who fled as refugees to Vilna at the start of the Holocaust. The present letters reflect some of their cooperation on public and private affairs and assistance to rabbis.
1 leaf, official stationery. 29 cm. Good condition. Light stains and folding marks.
