Yitzchok Yaakov Weiss - Works

Works

Rabbi Weiss authored an important nine-volume set of responsa, entitled Minchas Yitzchak, discussing many contemporary technological, social, and economic issues. In a special section therein entitled Pirsumei Nissa ("publicising of the miracle") Rabbi Weiss recorded the harrowing ordeals that he experienced in the Second World War, and his miraculous survival.

Dayan Weiss reached his decisions by the classic "Hungarian" method of consulting recent Halachic authorities and then tracing the principles thus established back to the more basic sources of the Talmud and Codes. His fellow sage, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein of New York, worked in the opposite direction, going straight to the Talmud and especially Rambam in a search for precedents, and then applying the relevant reasoning directly to the question at hand, often without reference to any intermediate views.

Though Rabbi Weiss was often uncompromising and quite severe in his rulings, he was extremely kind by disposition and was always anxious to avoid conflicts, often in the face of severe provocation. In the modern age, there is no rabbinic court and no legal work which does not quote or rely on Rabbi Weiss's verdicts in applying Jewish law to modern conditions, particularly in the field of medical ethics.