Rabbi Moshe Shmuel Glasner (1856–1924), a Hungarian Talmudic scholar and communal leader, served as chief rabbi of Klausenburg (Kolozsvár in Hungarian, Cluj in Romanian) from 1877 to 1923. In 1923 he left Klausenburg for Jerusalem where he resided until his death in 1924. He is best known as the author of Dor Revi'i, a classic commentary on the tractate Hullin, and as a supporter of Zionism and a founder of Mizrachi.
His father was Rabbi Avraham Glasner (1825–1877), who preceded him as chief rabbi of Klausenburg, and was his only teacher. His mother, Raizl (née Ehrenfeld), was the oldest granddaughter of the Chatam Sofer.
Method of study
He was noted for his independence as a halakhic authority. He advocated a return to the method of study of the Rishonim (pre-1500 CE rabbinic scholars) which the introduction to the Dor Revi'i states "was to explain with crystal clearness, to examine, to search for truth without any respect for any person"; he opposed the method of pilpul (casuistry) that arose during the era of the Acharonim (post-1500 CE scholars), saying pilpul is "as far from the path of wisdom as East is from West" (id.) and "a weakness developed in the Galut during whose millennia of persecutions and migrations our capacity for straight thinking had been well-nigh destroyed". Similarly, in his monograph "Ohr Bahir" (on the laws of mikva'ot), he rejected halakhic reasoning based on esoteric sources or divine inspiration, arguing that only arguments that can be subjected to rational criticism and evaluated in terms of halakhic sources known to halakhic experts at large carry weight in arriving at halakhic decisions.
His work also developed a method in understanding and applying the code of Maimonides (Rambam). Many of codifications of the Rambam were said by commentators to be at odds with the relevant Talmudic sources. These seemingly anomalous rulings have led to attempts at rationalization by later scholars. Rabbi Glasner suggested that the source of the difficulty was often that the scholars had assumed that the Rambam had interpreted the problematic Talmudic sources for the codification in the same way that the Franco-German school of Rashi and Tosafot had understood those sources. However, Rabbi Glasner maintained, there was usually another approach to understanding the Talmudic sources than that followed by Rashi and Tosafot, often stemming from the Babylonian Geonic school which the Rambam had followed in reaching his codification. Rabbi Glasner's methods coincided with those of Lithuanian Rabbi Haim Soloveichik. When Rabbi Glasner's major work, Dor Revi'i came to the attention of the Lithuanian yeshivot in the late 1920s and early 1930s, it surprised many Lithuanian scholars that a rabbi from Hungary (where theoretical acuity was generally less emphasized than breadth of knowledge of the sources) had independently formulated a method of study so similar to the method of Rabbi Soloveichik.
Zionist activity
Rabbi Glasner's supported Zionism, which was highly unusual among the Hungarian Orthodox rabbinate. A founder of Mizrachi (religious Zionism), he became personally close to Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, especially after taking up residence in Jerusalem in 1923. His independence and in particular his outspoken Zionism led to his estrangement from many of his rabbinical colleagues in Hungary. After the First World War, he increased his efforts in support of the Zionist enterprise. His "Zionism in the Light of the Faith" is the primary source for his philosophy of Zionism. He criticized his colleagues in the Hungarian rabbinate for not supporting Zionism while proclaiming themselves to be nothing more than Hungarians of the Mosaic faith. In 1921 he represented Mizrachi at the 12th World Zionist Congress in Carlsbad, and he undertook speaking tours on behalf of Zionism. His outspoken support of Zionism caused elements of the Orthodox community in Klausenburg to break away from the community that he had headed for over 40 years. In 1923, Rabbi Glasner retired from his position as chief rabbi and was succeeded by his son, Rabbi Akiva Glasner. In his farewell address to his community at the Klausenburg train station as he left for to Palestine, he called for his listeners to follow him to Palestine while they were still able to do so, because he greatly feared that a time would come when they would want to leave Europe to go to Palestine but then would no longer be able to leave.
See further under "Philosophy of the Oral Law and Zionism" below.