Remembering Rabbi Shlomo Eger: A Legacy of Scholarship

Rabbi Shlomo Eger was born in 1787 to Rabbi Akiva and Rebbetzin Klikel Eger in the city of Lissa, Poland. He studied in his father's yeshiva and was recognized as a "prodigy" in Torah, becoming one of the leading students. In 1801, he married the daughter of Rabbi Yisrael Hirschzon of Warsaw and lived there for 35 years.

During the Polish uprising against Russian rule in 1831, he lost all his possessions and had to take on the rabbinical position in Kalisz to support his family. In 1840, two years after the passing of his father, Rabbi Akiva Eger, who served as the rabbi of Poznan, he was appointed as the head of the community and was regarded as his father's successor. Rabbi Shlomo Eger passed away on the 11th of Tevet, 1852, and was buried in Poznan.

Rabbi Akiva Eger highly revered and valued the Torah knowledge of his son, Rabbi Shlomo. When individuals who supported the Slavita press on the Talmud wrongly published that Rabbi Akiva Eger's endorsement of the Vilna press on the Talmud was not trustworthy due to his advanced age—claiming over seventy years old, he was considered elderly and potentially influenced by his son Rabbi Shlomo Eger—Rabbi Akiva was outraged by the disparagement of his son, a great scholar, and his teachings. He penned a strong letter against the slanderers:

"My heart is very troubled by this audacity and disrespect, and their words are blasphemous, against my son the esteemed scholar, may he be well, who supposedly influenced my thinking. I do not forgive them at all, for the disrespect of Torah cannot be forgiven."