Physical Description

First edition, 8 ff., octavo, 204:130 mm., light age and use staining, nice margins. A good copy bound in contemporary marbled paper over boards, rubbed.

Detailed Description   

Supplications to protect from a raging Cholera pandemic affecting the Dutch community by R . Samuel Bernstein, Chief Rabbi of Amsterdam. Cholera is an acute diarrheal illness caused by infection of the intestine with Vibrio cholerae bacteria. People can get sick when they swallow food or water contaminated with cholera bacteria. The infection is often mild or without symptoms, but can sometimes be severe and life-threatening. The disease has killed thousands over the years.

The cholera pandemic (1846–1860) was the third major outbreak of cholera originating in India in the nineteenth century that reached far beyond its borders, which researchers  believe may have started as early as 1837 and lasted until 1863. In Russia, more than one million people died of cholera. In 1853–54, the epidemic in London claimed over 10,000 lives, and there were 23,000 deaths for all of Great Britain. This pandemic was considered to have the highest fatalities of the 19th-century epidemics.

R . Samuel b. Dov Bernstein, Dutch rabbi; born in Hanover about 1767; died in Amsterdam Dec. 21, 1838. He was the descendant of a long line of distinguished rabbis, his father and his grandfather, R. Aryeh Loeb—who was the son of Rabbi Jacob Joshua of Cracow, Lemberg, and Frankfort (author of the "Pene Yehoshua")—having been rabbis of Hanover. Rabbi Samuel Berenstein was educated as a rabbi, and for many years held that office at Groningen, Holland. He was probably the first rabbi of Holland to preachin the Dutch language, and a speech which he delivered in 1805 to arouse sympathy for those who were ruined by the great fire that almost destroyed the city of Leyden in that year is preserved in a Hebrew translation ("Ha-Meassef," 1809, pp. 291, 342; 1810, pp. 40 et seq.). Later he became rabbi of Leeuwarden, Friesland, and remained there till 1815, when he was elected chief rabbi of the Ashkenazic community of Amsterdam, to succeed his father-in-law, Jacob Moses Löwenstamm, who had held that position since 1790. His orthodoxy and skill as a Talmudist can be seen from a responsum dated 1819, addressed to him by R. Moses Sofer of Presburg. That uncompromising opponent of progress in any form calls R. Samuel "Geon Yisrael," "Ner Yisrael," "'Ammud ha-Yemoni," "Patish ha-Ḥazaḳ," "Kebod Ḳadosh Shemo Tifarto" (see "Ḥatam Sofer"; "Eben ha-Ezer," part ii., responsum 139); the last being an appellation which is used only in the case of the greatest and most pious rabbis.

Hebrew Description  

 סדר התפלות אשר יתפללו בית ישראל בעד עצירת חולי הקאלערא ר"ל ועל כל צרה שלא תבא כאשר יסד וסדר אותן אדונינו מורינו ורבינו הרב הגאון הגדול מוהר"ר שמואל ברנשטיין אב"ד ור"מ דק"ק אמשטרדם

בראשי העמודים: תפלה

כולל פרקי תהלים, סליחות שונות, "פרשת עקדה" ו"סדר הקטורת".

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Reference

Winograd Amsterdam 2562;  L. Landshuth, Toledot Anshe ha-Shem, p. iii., Berlin, 1884; G. Falk, in Ha-Karmel, No. 40; M. L. Malbim, Arẓot ha-Ḥayyim, Breslau, 1837 (approbation). From the 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia: http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/3053-berenstein-samuel-b...; Bibliography of the Hebrew Book 1470-1960 #000306477; Yudlov, Ginze Yisroel #546