Yesterday (Shabbat, 27th Tamuz) was the Yarzheit of the author of the kitzur shulchan Aruch – Rabbi Shlomo Ganzfried.

He was born in Uzhhorod (Ungvar) in the Carpathian region of the Habsburg Empire (now Ukraine). His father Joseph died when he was eight. Rabbi Ganzfried was considered to be a child prodigy and Ungvar’s chief rabbi and Rosh yeshiva, Rabbi Zvi Hirsh Heller assumed legal guardianship; Heller was known as “Hershele the Sharp-witted” for his piercing insights into the Talmud. Heller later moved to the city of Bonyhád, and Ganzfried, then fifteen, followed him. He remained in Heller’s yeshiva for almost a decade until his ordination and marriage. After his marriage he worked briefly as a wine-merchant.

In 1843 he abandoned commerce and accepted the position of rabbi of Brezevitz. In 1849, he returned to Ungvar as a dayan, a judge in the religious court.

Rabbi Ganzfried realised that in order to remain committed to Orthodoxy, “the average Jew required an underpinning of a knowledge of practical halakha (Jewish law)”. It was to this end that Ganzfried composed the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch.

Here is a link to a video of a class I gave about Rabbi Ganzfried and the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch on WebYeshiva

And here is the source sheet from that shiur:

May His Soul Be Bound in the Bonds of Eternal Life