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Letter (22 lines) handwritten and signed by R. Mordechai Gimpel Jaffe. Rozhinoy (Ruzhany), Elul 1881.
Addressed to R. Shlomo Yitzchak Rabbi of Sebezh. The letter discusses the rabbis' livelihood and the government's attitude to the community rabbis. He reports that Baron Günzburg wrote to R. Yitzchak Elchanan Rabbi of Kovno, asking him to come to St. Petersburg to participate in a conference "regarding the true rabbis, so that from now on, they should not be like invalid goods, hidden from the government…", he writes that if this would be approved, it would be a solution enabling rabbis to receive an official salary.
In those times, the Russian government did not recognize the rabbis appointed by the communities (the religious rabbis), and only official rabbis who were appointed by the government (crown rabbis, for the most part maskilim and lacking adequate religious education) were sanctioned. This situation precluded paying the rabbis official salaries, and the communities were compelled to pay the rabbis in circuitous ways, such as by giving the rabbis a monopoly over selling yeast and salt to the members of the community. This letter describes the difficult situation of the rabbis due to this covert arrangement.
R. Mordechai Gimpel Jaffe (1820-1892) was a leading Torah scholar in his generation - the times of the Netziv and R. Yitzchak Elchanan Spektor. He was a disciple of R. Yitzchak of Volozhin, who predicted that he would be amongst the foremost rabbis of the generation. He served as rabbi in Deretchin (Dziarečyn), and later in Rozhinoy (Lithuania, presently Belarus), a position he held for some 36 years, until his immigration to Eretz Israel in 1888. Upon his arrival in Eretz Israel, he settled in the newly established moshava of Yehud, where he founded a yeshiva of outstanding Torah scholars and became the spiritual-religious leader of the new settlement in Eretz Israel. In the 1889 Shemittah polemic, R. Mordechai Gimpel was amongst the leading opponents of the Heter Mechira (maintaining that since the Jewish people's exile from the Land was due to Shemittah desecration, the survival of the new settlement would depend on full observance of the commandment of Shemittah), and he supported the farmers in Ekron who steadfastly observed the Shemittah. He authored many books on Halacha, Talmud and Aggadah, some of which were published, yet most of his writings were lost in fires in Slonim, during WWI and the Holocaust.
Recipient of the letter: R. Shlomo Yitzchak Drozd (1827-1904, Dor Rabbanav VeSoferav, VI, p. 25), disciple of R. Yisrael Salanter in his yeshiva in Vilna. From 1848, he served as dayan in his hometown of Sebezh. He was one of the rabbis active in the founding of the Zionist and Mizrachi movements, together with R. Reines.
[1] leaf. 21.5 cm. Fair-good condition. Damage to right-hand margin. Creases and wear.