Excerpts
from the introduction:
Rav Eliezer Dan Ralbag the author of Damesek Eliezer zt’’l was one of
the earliest Roshei Yeshiva of Etz Chaim and a contemporary of Rav
Shmuel Salant and Rav Yehoshua Leib Diskin.
Rav Eliezer Dan was born in 5592 (1832) in
Yerushalayim. Tradition maintains that he was the first child of the
newly renewed Ashkenazi community, known as the Prushim, whose birth was
in Yerushalayim.
By the year 5611 (1851) Rav Moshe Eliezer Dan was
already the principle disciple of HaRav Shmuel Salant who granted him
Semicha.
For eighteen years, from the time the Maharil
Diskin arrived in Yerushalayim, in Av, 5637, (1877) until Rav Eliezer
Dan’s death in Av, 5655 (1895), he was one of the most prominent of the
outstanding group of scholars who congregated around Rav Yehoshua Leib
and virtually never left his side. The Sefer includes many unpublished
quotes that the author heard directly from the Maharil Diskin.
This Sefer appears for the first time from a
manuscript which was passed down over the generations in the Ralbag family.
It was edited and published by his descendant Rabbi Eliezer Ralbag of
Lakewood N.J.
