Moshe Shmuel Glasner - Character and Personality

Character and Personality

Rabbi Glasner was embroiled in many controversies in his long tenure as chief rabbi of Klausenburg. A sharp and powerful polemicist, he responded to his critics by seeking to demonstrate, through the force of his own arguments, the validity of his position. At the end of his haqdamah to Dor Revi'i, he summarized his approach. "The reader of this work should not suspect that I would imagine that in every place that I have criticized rabbis who came before us, I have discerned the truth, for such a haughty spirit would be incomparably ignorant... t would contradict my approach completely, for my having dared to criticize is built on the principle that every person ... is liable to err... will undoubtedly find many mistakes that I have made, because man is biased in favor of his own words and ideas. I, too, could not be secure from the snare of error that lies beneath the feet of all men. But this is the way of the Torah: one builds and another comes after and examines his words and removes the chaff from the wheat in order to find truth, which is beloved above all" (haqdamah 5a-b).