My ancestor, Rabbi Ezekiel Katzenellenbogen, was born in 1667, the son of Rabbi Avraham Katzenellenbogen, in the city of Brisk Lithuania. There he studied and was educated by Rabbi Mordechai Ziskind. He married the daughter of Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Sirkis of Brisk, whose wife was a grand-daughter of the Tosephos Yom Tov, Rabbi Yom Tov Lipman Heller.
Rabbi Yechezkel Katzenellenbogen served for thirty years as the Rabbi of the three communities of Altona, Hamburg and Wansbeck. I have previously written about his book Knesset Yechezkel, which was published in 1732 and contained questions that were posed to him with his answers.
Rabbi Yechezkel died on the night of the 25th of Tammuz, July 9, 1749, after midnight.
He wrote this ethical will, before he died, which was first published in Amsterdam in 1750. My copy is the second edition, published in Vilna in 1871.
The will includes some precise details about how he wanted to be buried, including that he requested that seven square holes be bored in his coffin, and supplied a diagram (below) with specific measurements. He mentions not changing a minhag (custom) because in his whole life he never changed a minhag.
The book includes a eulogy by his pupil Leib Prager and was published by Rabbi Yechezkel’s descendant, Abraham Tzvi Hirsch Katzenellenbogen, who was a book dealer in Vilna. The book also includes a eulogy written by Rabbi Abraham Danzig, for the Vilna Gaon, Elijah ben Solomon Zalman.
Jewish Miscellanies 