Manuscript Booklet – Responsum Handwritten and Signed by Rabbi Yehudah Navon, with Responsum Handwritten and Signed ...

Manuscript Booklet – Responsum Handwritten and Signed by Rabbi Yehudah Navon, with Responsum Handwritten and Signed by Rishon LeTzion Rabbi Shlomo Moshe Suzin – Jerusalem, 1835

Manuscript booklet, halachic query and responsum handwritten and signed by R. Yehudah Navon, with responsum on the issue handwritten and signed by the Rishon LeTzion, R. Shlomo Moshe Suzin. [Jerusalem, 1835].

Question and answer regarding a woman who was betrothed to a certain man, while her brother claims that she had been betrothed as a minor by her father to another man. The query begins: "A question that came from Safed, from R. Avraham Anhori, referred to him from Deir al-Qamar [Lebanon] by R. Mordechai Shuraki…".

R. Yehudah Navon's responsum extends for ten pages. At the beginning of the responsum, R. Yehudah Navon writes that R. Mordechai Shuraki wanted to permit the woman to remarry, but R. Avraham Anhori disagreed, and he was asked to refer the question to the Rishon LeTzion R. Shlomo Moshe Suzin. In his lengthy responsum, R. Yehudah Navon permits the woman to remarry, but conditions his ruling on the agreement of "our teacher, the great rabbi, rabbi of Israel".

On the last page of the booklet appears the responsum of the Rishon LeTzion R. Shlomo Moshe Suzin, who affirms R. Yehudah Navon's permissive ruling.

Since R. Yehudah Navon's responsum cites a testimony from Adar 1835, and the Rishon LeTzion R. Shlomo Moshe Suzin passed away at the end of the same year (in Kislev), the present responsum must have been written in that year, mere months before the passing of R. Suzin. In his responsum, he mentions that he is sickly and weak: "I am very sickly and crushed, and I do not have the strength to stand…".

R. Shlomo Moshe Suzin (d. 28th Kislev 1835) was a leading Torah scholar and Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem – the Rishon LeTzion (from 1824). He was a Torah scholar at the Beit El kabbalistic yeshiva, and travelled several times as an emissary to North Africa. He headed the Bnei Moshe yeshiva he founded in Jerusalem. He entertained close ties with R. Menachem Mendel of Shklow, disciple of the Gaon of Vilna, and with his colleagues, founders of the Ashkenazi settlement in Jerusalem, and assisted them in acquiring the ancient Ashkenazi courtyard – the Hurva.

R. Yehudah Navon, known as Morenu, "our teacher" (ca. 1765-1844), a rabbi and leader of Jerusalem, served in the Beit Din of R. Suzin. He went out several times as emissary to North Africa on behalf of Hebron and Jerusalem (his second trip was in 1836). In 1841, after the passing of his relative R. Yonah Moshe Navon, who succeeded R. Suzin as Rishon LeTzion, R. Yehudah Navon was also briefly appointed Rishon LeTzion, for less than a year, after which (due to a dispute between his supporters and supporters of R. Chaim Avraham Gagin) he was compelled to relinquish the position to R. Gagin. In Jerusalem, R. Yehudah Navon served as head of the Damesek Eliezer yeshiva. In addition, he served as a treasurer of the kollels and was a leader of the Sephardic community in Jerusalem.

[8] leaves (11 written pages; two leaves blank). 21 cm. Good-fair condition. Stains. Tears and wear to margins.