Sefer HaAroch MiShach Part II - A Remarkable Discovery of The Lost Work by the Schach on Tur Yoreh De'ah - Only ...

Sefer HaAroch MiShach Part II - A Remarkable Discovery of The Lost Work by the Schach on Tur Yoreh De'ah - Only Copy in the World, Press Unknown, Printing Never Fully Executed
Sefer HaAroch MiShach Part II, on Tur Yoreh De'ah (Simanim 112-189), by R. Shabtai Katz, the Shach. Four unopened gatherings (32 pages) of a book whose printing was never fully executed, apparently from one of the Hungarian-Transylvanian presses. [Grosswardein?, ca. 1920s-1940s?].
These sheets were discovered by us, inserted at the end of a volume of Part I of the Sefer HaAroch MiShach on Tur Yoreh De'ah (Simanim 1-110), Vienna, 1809 (Second edition). They contain part II of HaAroch MiShach, which is considered a "lost work".
Sefer HaAroch MiShach is a work by the Ba'al HaShach on Tur Yoreh De'ah. The Shach began this work prior to writing Siftei Cohen on the Shulchan Aruch Yoreh De'ah. Part I of this work was first printed in Berlin in 1767 by the author of Minchat Aharon (Aharon MiGeza Zvi, the grandson of the daughter of the Shach), who added his own novellae within the book. Several more editions of it were published subsequently (Vienna 1809, Russia-Poland ca. 1820), and many editions of Arba'a Turim added the work at the end of Part I of Yoreh De'ah.
Part II of the work was not published at that time, and it is considered a "lost work". Inspection of bibliographical listings and library catalogues did not uncover any indication of an actual printing of Part II.
From what is known, the manuscript of Part II was inherited by the son of the author of Minchat Aharon, R. Eliezer of Schwabach, who wrote the Chidushei Bnei Aharon. From there the manuscript was passed down to his descendants - the Berlinger and Levi families. Since the Holocaust of European Jewry all traces of the manuscript disappeared; in all likelihood it was lost in the Holocaust.
The first reference to the existence of a manuscript of Part II appeared in an 1867 article in the weekly Der Israelit (1867, No. 51, December 18, p. 885), which stated that the manuscript was held by R. Naftali Hirsch Berlinger (a family member of the descendants of the Shach and of the Minchat Aharon who published Part I), who is interested in publishing it. Then the manuscript was passed on to R. Shimon (Sandor) Levi from Fürth, who was the husband of R. Naftali Hirsch Berlinger's granddaughter. In 1907, R. Shimon Levi published the novellae of R. Eliezer of Schwabach in the Chidushei Bnei Aharon (Munkács, 1907). The publisher states in his introduction that he hopes to bring to print additional works in his possession, that have never before been published, "in particular Aroch MiShach Part II by the Ba'al HaShach - because they have not yet seen the light of print".
The book "Megillath Mishpachtenu - Records concerning the ancestry of the Levi, Berlinger and Ellinger families of the Zvi branch" (Izhak Risch, published by the author, Haifa 1974, p. 29), describes the travails of the manuscript until the Holocaust, and indicates that the book has never been published - stating the following: "One manuscript penned by the Shach was inherited by the Berlinger family, but was apparently lost in the Holocaust... Part II of that book was passed on to R. Naftali Hirsch Berlinger. The weekly 'Der Israelit', in the article mentioned above, called out to the public (in 1867) to assist the holder of the manuscript R. Naftali Hirsch in publishing Part II of the Aroch MiShach... The manuscript then came into the possession of R. Shimon Sandor Levi, the husband of Kresla, daughter of R. Eliezer, who was the son of R. Naftali Hirsch... R. Shimon Sandor Levi did not ultimately publish the Aroch MiShach Part II. He passed away in Fürth in 1933, 10 years after his wife Kresla. From that point the manuscript was held by Hermina, R. Shimon Sandor's second wife. Torah-learned family members petitioned to be given the manuscript, in order to carry out the wish of their patriarch, the Shach. This transpired shortly before the Holocaust. From then on, nothing is known of the Aroch MiShach Part II manuscript...". R. Shlomo Englard (the Radziner Rebbe) writes of this in the Yeshurun anthology (Volume 13, Elul 2003, pp. 1981-1982, note 146): "...Part II was maintained as a manuscript and was in the possession of the family until just before the Holocaust, at which time all trace of it was lost (see Megilat Mishpachtenu p. 29). Based on unsubstantiated rumors, there are still pages of the manuscript among antique and manuscript collectors, but this must still be checked and verified. In any event, anyone with knowledge of the whereabouts of the manuscript or any of its parts - would be doing a great service to the Torah world, and the merit of the public will be credited to him".
R. Shimon Levi of Fürth invested a great deal of effort in the emendation of the Aroch MiShach, and he apparently intended to publish both parts of the book in a newly annotated and corrected edition. The VaYelaket Yosef anthology (edited by his dear friend R. Yosef HaCohen Schwartz from Grosswardein - Siman 14 in 1911, Simanim 23 and 114 in 1912) contains novellae and comments taken from R. Yitzchak Grieshaber's handwritten comments on the margins of Part I of the Aroch MiShach, with footnotes to them under the heading "Glosses of Shem MiShimon - from R. Shimon Segal Levi of Fürth". The work before us, too, contains a publisher's footnote on page 31 under the heading "Comments of Shem MiShimon", in which R. Shimon Levi refers to his own comment to Siman 65 - in Part I, that seemingly was meant to be redacted as part of this edition.
Printed at the end of this work [p. 32] is a copy of the colophon from the original manuscript. From this colophon it is clear that the manuscript from which
this work was printed is the same one from which Part I was printed in Berlin (1767). The name of the scribe signed on the colophon is R. Dov Ber Katz, son of R. Yitzchak (publisher of Gvurat Anashim, Dessau, 1697), son of R. Moshe Katz, son of the author R. Shabtai Katz. This same R. Dov Ber Katz is mentioned in the Minchat Aharon's introduction to the Sefer HaAroch MiShach Part I, as follows: "...this book came into my possession from the grandson of my uncle, the renowned R. Dov Ber, preacher of Opatów".
A beginning of a responsum that was among the manuscripts of the publisher is printed after the colophon. The author of the responsum is unknown to us.
These sheets were discovered (in the course of our examination) in a volume of Part I, on whose title page are ownership stamps of R. Yisrael Weltz, Av Bet Din of Budapest [a preeminent rabbi in Budapest after the Holocaust. R. Yisrael Weltz was the first of the Budapest rabbis to settle in Eretz Israel after the Communist revolution in Hungary, leaving the majority of his books with his fellow rabbis who remained in Hungary]. Based on the shape of the letters and the typography in this book, it appears that it was printed in a Hungarian-Transylvanian press in the period preceding the Holocaust [an adornment appears at the end of the work on p. 31, identical to that found in other books printed in the 1930s by R. Yosef HaCohen Schwartz in the city of Grosswardein (Oradea). The Hebrew press in Grosswardein continued to be active during the war, through the end of the winter of 1944]. It is not known when these sheets were printed - it may have been in the 1920s or 1930s by R. Shimon himself [who died in 1933]; alternatively, they may have been printed later by family members who obtained the manuscript already edited for printing from his widow.
Here is a book which was never completed at the press and is bibliographically unknown - and may even be the only copy in the world. A surprising discovery of the lost work HaAroch MiShach Part II. It appears that the manuscript from which this work had been copied was lost in the Holocaust and all that remains of the work is this printed version - which, to the best of our knowledge, is the only issue of that printing to have survived. Thus, this book possesses the importance of a manuscript - as it is the only existing source from an entire work of R. Shabtai Katz, the Ba'al HaShach - Part II of an important work whose first part is included today in most editions of the Tur.
[1], 2-31, [1] pages. 34 cm. 4 unopened gatherings, 2°. Good condition.
+ Part I: [2], 3-70 leaves. 35 cm. Good condition.