Rare Halachic Ruling on the Rights of a "Meshulach, " Handwritten and Signed by the Author of "Igros Moshe." ...

Rare Halachic Ruling on the Rights of a "Meshulach, " Handwritten and Signed by the Author of "Igros Moshe." Hanukkah 1953

A rare halachic ruling on an interesting subject, entirely handwritten and signed [twice] by the greatest halachic authority of American Jewry, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, one of the greatest Torah scholars of the Jewish people. Alongside Igros Moshe, the ruling is also signed by the Lithuanian rabbi, Rabbi Ephraim Oshry of Kovno. New York, Hanukkah 5714 [1953]. Unpublished!

Most of Rabbi Feinstein’s letters—whether the thousands of responsa in his Igros Moshe series or those presented in the Bid Spirit archive—are halachic responses he issued as a decisor or Torah insights. The document before us is a rare halachic ruling, issued while he was sitting as a dayan (rabbinic judge) between disputing parties, a completely distinct discipline that has almost no written documentation of how he ruled when presiding over legal disputes.

The subject of the ruling is also unique and fascinating—a dispute between a Talmud Torah in Israel and its fundraiser (meshulach) in America, regarding the fundraiser’s rights: whether he is entitled to a percentage from a real estate plot donated to the institution by a benefactor [whose name is mentioned in the document], and whether the fundraiser holds proprietary rights in areas where he traditionally collected donations.

Sitting alongside Igros Moshe as an arbitrator was Rabbi Ephraim Oshry of Kovno, one of the greatest halachic decisors of the Holocaust era, who is also signed [twice] on the ruling. His signatures are extremely rare.

[1] Official letter paper. 21.5 x 28 cm.

Condition: Very good. Fold marks.

Biographical Information:

Rabbi Moshe Feinstein (1895–1986) – The leader of American Orthodox Jewry and one of the greatest halachic authorities after the Holocaust. He was the most prominent and influential halachic decisor in the United States, serving as chairman of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah of Agudath Israel of America and as Rosh Yeshiva of Mesivta Tiferes Yerushalayim in New York. He was best known for his series of halachic responsa, Igros Moshe, after which he became known.

Rabbi Ephraim Oshry (1914–2003) – A halachic decisor and Rosh Yeshiva. During the Holocaust, he was in the Kovno Ghetto, serving as the right-hand man of Rabbi Avraham Duber Kahana-Shapiro (the "Dvar Avraham"), who authorized him to issue halachic rulings in his stead. Rabbi Oshry preserved the halachic responsa he recorded during the Holocaust by burying them underground. After the war, he published them in the monumental Shu”t Mi-Ma’amakim ("Responsa from the Depths"). After surviving the Holocaust, he led the Lower East Side Jewish community in New York.