Letter (10 lines) handwritten and signed by R. Yosef Shaul HaLevi Nathansohn, Rabbi of Lviv and the region. Lviv, Friday of Parashat Shemot [January] 1868.

Continuation of another responsum regarding shaatnez in clothing and identification of the linen forbidden to be worn with wool. Written on the back of a lengthy letter (2 large pages) he had received from R. Shmuel Rosenblatt of Czernowitz (Chernivtsi), to whom the responsum was sent.

R. Yosef Shaul Nathansohn, in a previous letter, had said that other Torah scholars should be consulted, since people would be unwilling to accept an innovative stringent ruling. R. Shmuel Rosenblatt writes that he asked the Rabbi of Czernowitz for his opinion, which he provided in a lengthy responsum opposing R. Nathansohn's ruling, provoking a halachic debate in Czernowitz. He asks for R. Yosef Shaul Nathansohn's conclusive ruling, and he also asks, in the name of the Rabbi of Czernowitz, for the enclosed letter to be sent back, "in order to send it to a great Torah scholar…".

The Shoel UMeshiv answers with an acknowledgement of receipt of the letters, and a criticism of the Rabbi of Czernowitz for dismissing his view without answering his proofs. He states that he enclosed the letter as requested, and apologizes for writing briefly, signing his name: "Yosef Shaul HaLevi Nathansohn, Rabbi of Lviv and the region". After the signature, he adds several more lines: "I again looked at what the Rabbi wrote…".

The present responsum has not been published, but a responsum written by R. Yosef Shaul Nathansohn is printed in Shoel UMeshiv, Mahadura Kama, Part III (apparently printed ca. 1868-1869; see Bibliography of the Hebrew Book, entry 000152914), addressed to R. Shmuel Rosenblatt, on the present subject, the identification of the forbidden linen as cannabis or flax.

The first part of the printed responsum appears to have been written before the present correspondence, but its latter part was written after the present letters, since he writes that he retracts his opinion forbidding it and rules that it is permitted: "I now retract my opinion, and in my opinion even if we agree that the cannabis called hemp is a species of linen, it is still not forbidden with wool… Since the linen is called cannabis, it is a byname… And thank G-d, I merited to support the common custom to permit hemp cannabis, which in accordance with what I had said above would appear to be forbidden, but according to what I say now are totally permissible…".

R. Shmuel Rosenblatt of Czernowitz did not retract his opinion forbidding the species of hemp in question, and in 1870 he published a booklet in Czernowitz, She'iltot DiShmuel, with claims on a few matters, including his protest mentioned here, identifying cannabis as the forbidden species in shaatnez mixtures. He mentions the responsum R. Yosef Shaul Nathansohn had sent to him: "…agreeing with my above opinion [that it is forbidden], and I also saw it printed in his book called Shoel UMeshiv… in section 154, a complete copying of what was written to me; however, afterwards he wrote 'I retract my opinion'… and in response I wrote to him that the opposite is true…". He goes on at length to claim that the confusion in the names of this species is due to the Satan, "who incited all the nations" to call this species by other names.

Interestingly, in 1872, the Shoel Umeshiv wrote at the end of his approbation to Shev Shemateta a sharp attack on R. Shmuel Rosenblatt's She'iltot DiShmuel: "I hereby make known that one agitator from Czernowitz printed some leaves called She'iltot DiShmuel, full of folly, nonsense and heresy against the words of our Sages. Therefore, let our fellow Jews know not to believe in this author's folly and nonsense…" (see enclosed material).