Letter handwritten and signed by R. Moshe Feinstein, with an enclosed halachic responsum (4 large pages) handwritten and signed by R. Moshe Feinstein. Lyuban (Belarus), Isru Chag Sukkot [Tishrei] 1929.

Halachic responsum on the issue of insanity, regarding an individual with messianic delusions who also performed acts of madness. To avoid an agunah situation, R. Moshe rules him mentally fit to give his wife a document of divorce. The present document is his handwritten copying of his permissive ruling with its reasons.

R. Moshe Feinstein forwards his ruling to R. Yechezkel Abramsky, then Rabbi of Slutsk, adding he was unable to consult with R. Abramsky on the issue due to his personal troubles [probably alluding to the persecution he was suffering at the time by the Russian authorities and the Yevsektsiya (the Jewish section of the Communist Party)].

In the margins R. Moshe apologizes for being unable to send him a clean copying, because he was unable to get quality paper.

The present lengthy responsum, dated 13th Elul 1929, is printed in Responsa Igrot Moshe (Even HaEzer I, 120, pp. 285-293).

R. Moshe Feinstein (1895-1986), foremost halachic authority in the United States. A leader of Orthodox Jewry, he served as president of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada, and chairman of the Moetzet Gedolei HaTorah. He was the dean of the Tiferet Yerushalayim yeshiva in New York. He authored Responsa Igrot Moshe, Dibrot Moshe – Talmudic novellae, and Darash Moshe – novellae on the Torah.

R. Moshe Feinstein had served as Rabbi of Lyuban, Belarus in 1921-1936 under the Bolsheviks, and it was during this period that he met R. Abramsky (1886-1976), who served as Rabbi of Slutsk from 1923-1930 until his arrest and exile to Siberia.

Letter: 19X11 cm. Good-fair condition. Stains, wear and folding marks. Tears to upper edges.

Responsum: Double leaf (4 written pages), 34 cm. Fair condition. Wear and tears. Open tears to tops of leaves, affecting text.