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SEYMOUR SIEGEL
Saul Lieberman: 1898-1983
T
h e
p a s s in g
o f
S
a u l
L
i e b e r m a n
,
o f blessed memory, on his way
to Israel in an El AI plane on March 23, 1983, left a grea t void in
the Jewish scholarly community. He was universally acknowl
edged to be the world’s greatest rabbinic scholar, perhaps the
world’s greatest Jewish scholar. He was hono red by many aca
demic institutions including the Jewish Theological Seminary,
where he was professor for forty years, H arvard University,
Hebrew University, Bar-Ilan University, and others. He was the
recipient o f the most prestigious prizes and was looked upon as
master and teacher by most o f the scholarly world.
Carved on his tombstone in the Sanhedria Cemetery in
Jerusalem are the words:
Shalshelet Ha-Yuhasin
(Chain o f Geneal
ogy). He was born in Motele, White Russia. On his m o ther’s side
he was the grandson o f Rabbi Shaul Katzenellenbogen, one o f the
most prom inen t and learned rabbis in Eastern Europe. Rabbi
L ieberman’s uncle was Rabbi Malkiel Zevi, the rabbi o f Lomza
and the au tho r o f the famous book,
Divre Malkiel.
He was the
cousin o f the Hazon Ish. Most o f his cousins and uncles were
famous rabbis and the young Saul followed in the ir footsteps.
A fter his Bar Mitzvah, Saul Lieberman went to study in the
famous yeshiva in Slabodka. T he re he not only absorbed rabbinic
learning bu t also the teachings o f the
mussarniks
th rough the
famous Rabbi Neta Hirsch Finkel, the
a lte ro i
Slabodka. When the
first World War broke out, the yeshiva ceased to function and
Lieberman went to Minsk to continue his studies. He witnessed
the Russian Revolution and frequently spoke o f the cruelties that
accompanied tha t event. He left Russia, spending some time in
France, and then em igrated to Erets Yisrael. It was in Jerusalem
that he began to devote himself to the study o f the Jerusalem
Talmud. In 1929 he published his first scholarly work,
AI
ha-Yerushalmi
, in which he discussed the erro rs tha t have crept
into the ord inary text o f the Jerusa lem Talmud and suggested
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