Chaim Elozor Wax

Chaim Elozor Wax (1822, Tarnogród - 1889, Kalisz) was a well-known Hasidic rabbi, posek, and a Jewish leader in Poland. He was a philanthropist and accomplished student of the Talmud.

He is especially known from his responsa work Nefesh Haya, and as the president of Kupat Rabbi Meir Baal HaNes Kollel Polen, Warsaw region.

Wax was born in 1822 in the city of Tarnogród, near the border of Austrian-ruled Polish Galicia. His father, Rabbi Avraham Yehuda Leibish, was also known for his scholarship. According to the introduction of his book "Nefesh Haya", his mother was a devout and supportive woman who, when Wax fell seriously ill as a child, prayed to God to take her life instead of her son's, or failing that (since it would leave the child motherless) to transfer the illness to her and let him recover. The young Wax quickly recovered, apparently answering his mother's prayer: she died, fulling her pledge, after Wax had become established in the community.

At age 18 Wax became the rabbi of Tarnogrod, a post he held for around 20 years.

In 1859 the rabbi of Kalisz, Meir Auerbach, left for Israel and Wax was appointed his successor. His arrival inaugurated a new period of religious observance in the town, during which even shoemakers dedicated hours during the day to torah studies. A new synagogue was also built in Kalisz during his rabbinate.

Wax's first wife, Blime, daughter of Rabbi Moshe Yosef (a brother of Rabbi Chaim Halbershtam of Sanz), died in 1866 while he was rabbi of Kalisz. In 1868 he married Shifra Mirl Trunk, the daughter of the scholar and posek Rabbi Yisroel Yehoshua Trunk of Kutno.

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