Rav Kanievsky’s Son Praises Sefer by Chabad Shliach

By COLlive reporter

The second volume of Margolit Menachem, which explores the disagreements between the Raavad and the Rambam in the Noshim and Kedusha books of the latter’s Mishneh Torah.

It has been 10 years since the release of volume one and the author, Rabbi Mendel Cohen, Director of Chabad in Sacramento, California, still feels humbled by the undertaking.

“Who am I to bring these words in writing,” he notes in the introduction to the 430-page book. “But we are commanded by the Rebbe to print discussions in Torah, a wish expressed in tens of his holy sichos.”

Majority of the material was studied by Rabbi Cohen in chavrusa together with fellow Shliach Rabbi Mendy Zwiebel, Director of the Chabad Jewish Center at Chico State and the North Valley in California.

The Raavad, Rabbi Avraham ben David, was born in the south of France and lived during the years 1125-1198. He wrote the famed Haga’os critical notations to the Mishneh Torah, authored by the Rambam – Rabbi Moshe Ben Maimon (1138–1204).

The idea and inspiration for writing the book came from a note by the Rebbe about the dispute between the Rambam and Raavad at the end of the Book of Mada, end of the laws of Teshuva, “and in other instances.”

Intrigued, Rabbi Cohen set out to explore and discovered that the underlying theme that pervades each dispute of the Rambam and the Raavad is their philosophical approach:

The Raavad is the “supra-rationalist” who feels that Hashem’s revelation to Moshe was the ultimate, whereas the Rambam is the “rationalist,” arguing that by having Hashem permeate and become understood by Moshe’s mind, Moshe had reached the ultimate.

Rabbi Cohen says he wants learners “to appreciate why the Rambam and Raavad will sometimes quibble about seemingly trivial verbiage that appears to have no practical ramification.”

The sefer has received the praise of Dayan Rabbi Yoram Ulman of Sydney, Australia, and Rabbi Zalman Nechemia Goldberg OBM, a dayan in Jerusalem’s Beit Din HaGadol and a renowned halachic posek, before his passing. “It is important to print it and distribute it among learners,” he wrote.

Another noteworthy praise on Rabbi Cohen’s work came from Rabbi Avrohom Yeshayahu Kanievsky, a son of Rav Chaim Kanievsky of Bnei Brak and the grandson of the posek Rav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv OBM.

Writing about the first volume, Rabbi Kanievsky said he “very much enjoyed this very special creation in the depth of study and the toil of Torah.” He encouraged Rabbi Cohen to complete writing in all 14 volumes of the Rambam’s Mishneh Torah.

The new sefer discusses topics such as a mistake written in a gett, civil marriage according to halacha, a marriage that wasn’t blessed with children for 10 years, salting meat, cheese and butter from gentiles and signs of kashrus.

Margolit Menachem Vol. 2 is now available in Judaica and book stores in Crown Heights