Letters of Responsa by Rabbi Eliyahu Eisenstadter, Av Beit Din of Derecske – To his Teacher, Author of Ktav Sofer

Two letters with halachic responsa, handwritten and signed by Rabbi Eliyahu E.S. [Eisenstadter]. Derecske, 1859. The letters were addressed to his teacher Rabbi Avraham Shmuel Binyamin Sofer, author of the Ktav Sofer. Rabbi Eliyahu Eisenstadter was born in Vilna, Lithuania. In his youth, he traveled to Hungary to study in the Pressburg Yeshiva headed by the Ktav Sofer. In 1852, he married his wife from the Heller family in Surány and from 1855 he served as first rabbi of the Derecske community in Hungary (Bihar district, near the city of Debrecen). He remained at that post for two decades and established all the community institutes, a yeshiva and elementary school. He exchanged halachic correspondence with his teacher, the Ktav Sofer [see the Ktav Sofer responsa, Orach Chaim, Siman 5; Yoreh Deah, Simanim 13, 146, 165; Even HaEzer Simanim 12, 13]. In the book, Shem HaGedolim M'Eretz Hagar, Rabbi Elya is described as a "Complete Tsaddik, famous Chassid, fasted from one Shabbat until the next". After his death in 1876, eulogies about him were printed in Tikun Shlomo, by Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Shpitzer, and in Likutei Chaver ben Chaim, by Rabbi Feivel Plaut. His Torah novellae were never printed. 8 written pages, approx. 21 cm. Good-fair condition, worn.