Lithograph of Rav Asher Leib Ginzburg-Wallerstein by Frederic-Emile Simon of Strausbpirg, circa 1820.
R' Asher was born in 1754, in the old age of his father, the Sha'agas Aryeh (one of the greatest Torah scholars of the 18th century). R' Asher was a student of his father and of R' Meir Zayeh of Metz, and later served as rabbi of Karlsruhe.
R' Gedaliah Rothenburg of Bodingheim, a student of the Sha'agat Aryeh and of R' Asher, writes of the latter (in his approbation to the former's Talmud commentary, Gevurat Ari): The son is a limb of his father . . . and is a famous rabbi known throughout the diaspora. . . As a youngster, seven or eight years old, he already had a sharp and well-honed mind. At that age, if he was shown a difficult passage by Rambam and was told in what part of the gemara the answer lay, he could work out the answer in a short time.
“When he became bar mitzvah, his father said to him, "Because I know that you have a clear mind and that you are a vessel which is fit to receive the Torah of Hashem, therefore be strong and become a person who is great in Torah - "A wise son pleases his father" [in the words of Mishlei 10:1] - then I will be honored because of you in the world of Truth."
When he was 15 years old, he studied with his father an entire tractate every day . . . When he was 17 or 18, the rabbinical court and the Torah scholars of Metz and all the travelers who passed through Metz were amazed by his sharpness and vast knowledge, and his father publicly declared that his son was sharper than he.
The best-known student of R' Asher was R' Yaakov Ettlinger, author of the popular Talmud commentary, Aruch La'Ner, and teacher of R' Samson Raphael Hirsch. R' Ettlinger attributed to R' Asher the most powerful influence on his way of learning. Some of R' Asher's Talmudic interpretations are printed in Sheilos U'teshuvos Sha'agas Aryeh Hachaddashos and in R' Ettlinger's Binyan Zion. R' Asher died in 1837. (Gedolei Hadoros ; Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch [Artscroll])
Reprinted from the Parshat Chukat 5785 email of R’ Yedidye Hirtenfeld’s whY I Matter parsha sheet for the Young Israel of Midwood in Brooklyn.
