Leilão Bidspirit | Knesset HaGedolah – Fürth, 1692

Knesset HaGedolah – Fürth, 1692 – Copy of the Baal HaTanya, Gifted to His Nephew, Rabbi Shimon Lipschitz (Son-in-Law of His Brother, Rabbi Mordechai Posner) - Knesset HaGedolah, Choshen Mishpat section, by R. Chaim Benveniste. Fürth: Yosef son of Zalman Shneur, [1692]. Without title page. The personal copy of the Alter Rebbe, R. Shneur Zalman of Liadi, author of the Tanya, which he gave as a gift to his nephew, R. Shimon Lipschitz, son-in-law of his brother, R. Mordechai Posner (the Alter Rebbe may have presented this as a wedding gift upon his nephew's marriage to his niece). The back endpaper bears various handwritten inscriptions (some likely in the recipient's handwriting) attesting to the fact that the book was a gift from the Baal HaTanya, R. Shneur Zalman son of R. Baruch of Liozna: ”This Knesset HaGedolah belongs to the excellent and renowned... R. Shimon [son of R. Avraham Shimshon], son-in-law of the leader R. Yehudah Leib of Mstsislaw, which was given to him by his uncle, R. Shneur Zalman of the holy community of the capital Liozna – so says Natan Nata, prayer leader and trustee of Vyetka”; ”This book Knesset HaGedolah belongs to the foremost rabbinic leader, the excellent officer and magnate, renowned in Torah and fear of heaven, R. Shimon son of R. Avraham Shimshon, son-in-law of the leader Yehudah Leib...”; ”And there is another sign upon this book that my uncle, R. Zalman son of R. Baruch gave me”. An additional inscription on the endpaper by R. Shimon Lipschitz bemoans the passing of his mother in 1800: ”For these I weep, my eye, my eye runs down with water without pause, refusing to be comforted over the passing of my mother, my teacher, who passed away on Shabbat, 3rd Cheshvan, and was buried the following day, in the year 1800 – her son who weeps copious tears, Shimon, son of R. Avraham Shimshon of the Lipschitz family”. Furthermore, the endpapers feature various inscriptions and signatures of R. Ze'ev Wolf son of R. David of Vitebsk: ”This book Knesset HaGedolah belongs to... Ze'ev Wolf... residing here in Vitebsk”; ”This book belongs to... the leader... R. Ze'ev known as Wolf son of R. David.” Another inscription reads: ”Yitzchak son of R. Avraham Yitzchak”. On the verso of the endpaper is a late-18th-century handwritten Polish inscription from Vitebsk. It is a protocol of a Vitebsk city council meeting, discussing the leasing of a municipal property to a Jewish resident named Meir, and includes military-administrative directives regarding the division of authority for housing soldiers between the municipal authority and the Russian army. R. Shimon Lipschitz was the son of R. Avraham Shimshon Lipschitz (son-in-law of R. Yehudah Leib of Mstsislaw) and the son-in-law of R. Mordechai Posner (brother of the Baal HaTanya). His son, R. Dov Ber Lipschitz, author of Gulot Iliyot (1830-1888), was a follower of the Tzemach Tzedek of Lubavitch. He served as rabbi and posek in Vyetka (Mogilev governorate) for thirty years, where he maintained a yeshiva; he was a disciple of R. Natan Gurary (Bilayevker), Rabbi and yeshiva dean of Vyetka. In his Gulot Iliyot (Warsaw, 1887), discussing mikveh laws, he frequently refers to his great-uncle, the Baal HaTanya, whom he calls ”the Gaon of Liadi”, and his brother the Maharil of Yanovitch. His rabbinic position and lineage are recorded in Beit Rebbe. He is also known to have authored another work titled Gulot Tachtiyot. His father-in-law, R. Mordechai son of R. Baruch Posner (d. 1823), was the brother of the Baal HaTanya. He officiated over the Torah schools in Liozna, and young scholars were required to present their questions and deliver pilpulim before him at set times (HaTamim, II, p. 51). R. Mordechai assisted in proofreading the Shulchan Aruch HaRav, as the Mitteler Rebbe notes in the introduction: ”...and also my uncle, the eminent R. Mordechai, proofread it to the best of his ability”. R. Mordechai also managed the printing of the Tur and the Talmud in Slavita on behalf of his brother, R. Shneur Zalman of Liadi, who calls him ”the singular and special, my brother, the wondrous rabbi, the leader R. Mordechai” (approbation to Tractate Berachot, Slavita, 1808). Similarly, R. Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev calls him ”the eminent and pious R. Mordechai son of Baruch of Orsha” (approbation to the Slavita edition of the Tur, 1801-1802). The Tzemach Tzedek attested that his great-uncle, R. Mordechai Posner, ”possessed a wondrously sharp intellect and a straightforward logic with incredible depth. When studying a Talmudic passage, he would progress from the simple to the complex, studying each passage five or six times, generating new and exceedingly sharp insights each time, climbing from level to level, and his analysis was delightful and pleasant” (HaTamim, II, p. 51). In his final years, he served as Rabbi of Orsha in the Vitebsk governorate, and he is buried in the Kopust cemetery. His facial features reputedly closely resembled those of his brother,