Book announcement: Ta’aroch Lifonai Shulchan by Rabbi Eitam Henkin H”YD

By Eliezer Brodt

הרב איתם שמעון הנקין הי”ד, “תערך לפני שלחן: חייו, זמנו, ומפעלו של הרי”ם עפשטיין בעל ערוך השלחן,” הוצאת קורן 413 עמודים

It’s with great pleasure that I announce the second printing of the book Ta’aroch Lifonai Shulchan by R’ Eitam Henkin H”YD, published by Maggid Press. I had the unique privilege to edit this work, together with R’ Eitam’s special,learned parents. The first printing of this book was issued on January 2 earlier this year and sold out shortly after its released.

 

This book is an intellectual biography of R’ Yechiel Michel Epstein, author of the classic work Aruch HaShulchan. In 2006 R’ Eitam began publishing essays about the Aruch HaShulchan in various journals. Over time they became more and more renowned, for their comprehensiveness, clarity, high quality, and at times for new discoveries. They were read by a wide-ranging audience. In general, R’ Eitam’s numerous writings demonstrate an excellent command in both the halachic aspects and the historical aspects of the topics he set out to write about. Alongside his many historical essays are his many Torah articles and full-fledged halachic works. [Most of which are available here]. He was a unique combination of a first-rate talmid chacham and historian who was also blessed with  gifted writing and research skills. [See earlier on the Seforim Blog for hespedim on him here, here and here].

At one point he was invited to print all his articles related to the Aruch HaShulchan as a book for Touro College Press. R’ Eitam began collecting his unpublished material, updating what he already printed, for this work until the tragic day in 2015, the third day of Chol Hamoed Succos, when R ’Eitam was murdered together with his wife Na’ama.

After his murder his family accessed his computer and found this work on the Aruch HaShulchan amongst many other files of material. Various chapters were in different stages and many were even ready for print. After carefully reading through all the files about the Aruch HaShulchan and figuring out what which version was the most updated. The material which was found to be already printworthy were than then collected and organized into this book. Some other printed articles of his related to the Aruch HaShulchan were added to the book, such as his article about the rebbe of the Aruch HaShulchan.

Among R’ Eitam’s many qualities were his excellent writing skills; he was capable of making bibliographic essays  that of the kind that are generally boring to the regular reader interesting to such audiences. The material in this book was completely written by R’ Eitam, however the order of some sections was shifted around to flow better as a whole. Additionally, as various sections were written for different publications and at different times as were the various citations in the footnotes were adjusted/synchronized with the rest of the work. That said, one chapter was not entirely finished by R’ Eitam (Part 2, Chapter 4); and his parents completed it based on his notes, and another small chapter (Part 1, Chapter 8) was completed by his brother.

We are currently working on printing a several more volumes of his material. The next project which is very near completion is an English translation of twenty-five of his essays [for some articles in English see earlier on the Seforim Blog (here) and in Hakirah (here and here)]. Another project which we are working on is a two-volume Hebrew work consisting of his material related to Eretz Yisrael, shemittah and Rav Kook. Dedication opportunities are still available for these works. Dedications are tax refundable. Email me at eliezerbrodt@gmail.com for more information.

The book should be available for purchase at local seforim stores or via Maggid Press. If one is interested in the introduction of the book and some sample pages, email me at eliezerbrodt@gmail.com.Here are the Table of Contents from Ta’aroch Lefonai Shulchan: