Torah M'Cincinnati - The Kever of Rabbi Yissachar Dov [Bernard] Illowy, Student of Chasam Sofer

this torah class is brought to you by torahanytime.com okay thank you very much uh mr harris for your time uh this afternoon this morning and we commend you for your wonderful work on behalf of the jewish community and the honor that you bring to the masim and the kaavo that you bring them brings cover to the jewish people and may hashem repay you and your family in kind so it's a great honor to be at the grave of rabbi bernard illoy rav yosaka daviloi who lived from 1814 to 1871. ravilloy was born in kalin in bohemia and kolin was a very prestigious jewish city it had many notable rabbanim you have the arkha dash revelation who wrote up sachim you had rabbi eleazar fleckels who was one of the primary disciples of the noida bihouda who's a rebbe a rav in kolin and he came from a line of prestigious rabbanim and he was an interesting uh breed an interesting mix because he was a student in budapest from the impressburg from the sam soifer so reveal roy had smikha from the one of the most prestigious smikhas of the time on the other hand he also enrolled in university where he earned a doc doctorate and he was unusually equipped to fight the tides of assimilation when he came to united states of america now he did not have intentions from the united states of america but in vienna he was considered a revolutionary and he could not get a government job as a rev anywhere in the european continent because he was considered a revolutionary so he came to the united states of america where revolutionary activity was not considered a liability and he arrives in america in 1853 now you have to understand in that time all public uh display of judaism was strictly orthodox so you had a few notable rabbinam who preceded him yet isaac lisa philadelphia who came in 1824 and abraham rice who came in 1840 i had the privilege to be at rabbi lisa's gravesite in philly and rabbi rice's the graveside in baltimore however in the 1840s through german reform many of the immigrants were not knowledgeable in authentic judaism many of the immigrants were not interested in practicing the judaism of their ancestors and that was fertile ground for individuals like isaac wise and max lilienthal to start to make fundamental changes in the way judaism was observed and rabbi ill roy came as a warrior to battle any challenges against authentic judaism and his unyielding disposition toward any accommodations in judaism made him the number one voice of orthodox jewry and even in his own congregations he was not necessarily always popular among the orthodox who began to feel the pressure of assimilation and the pressure of changing tides so in 20 years robbie o'boy served seven congregations okay so and then finally he he was a rabbi in syracuse in baltimore and his longest tenure as a rabbi was five years okay that's uh it sounds funny but quite typical for european rob on him all the great rabbis in europe album one city to the next to the next to the next because as uh many rabbanum here know the rabbonus is the tightrope and if you're going to speak the absolute truth sometimes it's time to find a new job very quickly so rabbi iowa is very involved in polemics and uh he was const in constant battle with isaac wise and he was the main voice piece aside from rabbi isaac lisa in the accident that we mentioned before so some of the in 1856 isaac wise allowed a yavama to remarry without khalito you know somebody passes away without children then the um their wife is obligated to marry the brother of the deceased and she has to marry that uh the brother otherwise she cannot marry anybody else and isaac wise sort of made away with the institution of jalitsa and he wrote a very vehement letter against him and in 1853 wise published history of the jew which denies the historical truth of the bible whereupon rabbi iloi pen the famous words how could your heart entice you thus to outstep all bonds to distort the truth and to shelter under the wings of falsehood in order to make yourself a name what will you do on that coming day when your master shall question you i set thee to guard the vineyard but the vineyard thou has not kept and then when max lillianthal started to lessen what we call the all mitzvos the yoke of mitzvos the letter to max lilianthon he said you know with all your good intentions to make sabbath more palpable to make the thila easier how many bali chuva have you created none how many people have embraced judaism in a more meaningful way none where are all those who have stopped their hands from working on the sabbath day what happened to rambam's ninth principle i believe with perfect faith that this torah will not be changed and that there will never be any other torah from the creator and as we mentioned on the bus in 1856 they came up with the new prayer book and rabbi ilway said this prayer book is good as a decorative item but not as an authentic version of jewish prayer so we stand here at his grave and we wonder where are the great institutions that he founded and the answer is he was living at a time where he was really fighting the tide and he risked his life and his health at the end of his life in 1865 from 1860 to 1865 he's the rabbi new orleans during the civil war who came up from the south to become part of the new orleans community and they wanted to make a radical change in uh orthodox jewry starting with mixed choir and then the new president of the board made an announcement that to him the safer torah is as meaningful as any other document of antiquity whereupon bernard ilwoy stepped down he quit and he was jobless and he was offered a job in cincinnati which he was very pleased with but by the end of his life he was a broken man he suffered from uh dyspepsia he was forced to retire to live on a farm but he continued his sharpen and if we are able to practice orthodox jewry today if we ever are able to practice authentic judaism the way it was been practiced from the day that god gave the torah to be it's because of men like rabbi ilhoy who risked his life and his health and his livelihood to stand up for the truth under all circumstances some of the interesting halachic shilohs that he dealt with were in in new orleans they were eating the muscovy duck and so where'd you get this duck from you know we didn't eat this in europe they said well minha america is to eat the duck he said you can only have authentic jewish custom if it was under the auspices of learned rabbis but there has never been a learned rabbi in the united states of america and therefore there is no such thing as minhag america and he wrote a letter to rabbi shamshin fell hirsch and nathan marcus adler and they concurred with him that the muskie duck does not have authentic tradition and it cannot be eaten another issue that rabbi iowa dealt with was estroygum in america here he is in new orleans and the the the orchards of the khazanesh's destroyed him had not yet made it to new orleans and the question is as a is a an american esrog is it a kosher for the usan sukis and he ruled that it is not kosher where there are gentlemen over here remind me where rabbi burlap thank you reminded me that there's another interesting issue regarding the conscious of esrogim from the west indies that max lillianthal was mahmur that no that is not good but isaac lisa of philadelphia hiposki passed in that it is good and you know who supported him rabbi yahoo rabbi yahay seth schwartz who is the author of of a very interesting safer on various manim tvs he actually traveled from europe to america to meet rabbi isaac lisa and they both concurred that the esrog from the west indies is kasha but regarding american estrogem cincinnati es roigem i don't think there's anything i don't think that that exists but new orleans destroyed him are uh some people have it no only is this argument were considered not kosher so what did they use in new orleans in the 1860s they could not make a bracha on the dalai meenam as per the rabbi bernard before you've just experienced another torah class brought to you by torahanytime.com