The Maharsham—Rabbi Shalom Mordechai Schwadron מהרש״ם — רבי שלום מרדכי שבדרון
the posek of Galicia; rabbi of Berezhany; nine volumes of responsa
He was born in 1835 at Zolochiv in Galicia, into a family of kohanim. He studied under his father and under Rabbi Yosef Shaul Natanzon in Lvov, who gave him his ordination. He was rabbi in several towns and from 1881 at Berezhany, where he remained for thirty years.
His fame is his answers. He knew the halakhah so that he could hold in his mind the place of every opinion, and yet he was not afraid of the new: he answered on the telephone, on factory matzah, on medicines, on the emigrants across the ocean. His responsa are the nine volumes of the She'elot uTeshuvot Maharsham; the Daat Torah is a commentary on Yoreh Deah, the Mishpat Shalom on Choshen Mishpat. A chasid in spirit, he was received in Lithuanian and chasidic houses alike, and rabbis of every side turned to him.
He died at Berezhany on 16 Shevat 5671 (1911). His grandson, Rabbi Shalom Schwadron, became in Jerusalem the maggid, the preacher, whom the whole city came to hear.
Places
Related
Sources
Acharonim and later rabbinic literature
- The She'elot uTeshuvot Maharsham — the nine volumes of answers
- The Daat Torah on Yoreh Deah — the working-out of the law down to new things
Scholarship
- The standard reference works and encyclopedias — Zolochiv, the ordination by Natanzon, Berezhany from 1881, 16 Shevat 5671
Basis: documents and evidence.