SHIBBOLEI HA-LEKET (PART 2), MANUSCRIPT ON PARCHMENT Zedekiah ben Abraham Anav [Italy, 14th century] Scribe: Solomon ben Raphael

177 leaves, 8 ¾ x 6 inches; 222 x 152 mm, ruled and pricked,  written in Italian semi-cursive script in black ink, earlier pagination in ink, modern foliation in pencil; fol. 75 loose, browning and scattered worming on fols. 176-177. Stiff vellum; text sprung from casing.

Abraham Joseph Solomon Graziano — Judah Zerahiah Azulai, 1818 (fols. 1r and 5v) — Solomon Halberstam (shelf no. 237)

Hirschfeld (ms. no. 128)

Shibbolei ha-Leket, part two is also known as Sefer Issur ve-Hetter (Book of Prohibitions and Permissions). This legal compendium by Zedekiah ben Abraham Anav  deals with the dietary laws and with the laws of oaths, marriage and divorce, judges and witnesses, commerce (including partnership, loans, and usury), and inheritance. The index lists 173 chapters but in the manuscript chapters172 and 173 are both copied under 172. Actually, only 163 chapters are copied as the numeration skips from 79 to 90 (as it does in other manuscripts of this work and no text is, in fact, missing).  This manuscript was used together with several others to establish the text of the edition printed in Jerusalem, 1988. In Buber’s edition of the first part of Shibbolei ha-Leket (Vilna, 1886), p. 3, notes 10-11 this manuscript is mentioned and Buber correctly concludes that it is the manuscript with 172 paragraphs seen by Hayyim Joseph David Azulai and mentioned in his Shem ha-Gedolim.

This volume was copied by Solomon ben Raphael for a patron whose name was erased. This same scribe copied Mss. Parma, Biblioteca Palatina 2609  and Vatican, Biblioteca Vatican Cod. ebr. 38 for his teacher Jehiel ben Moses and it is possible that this manuscript was also copied for the same person.

Signed by the censors: Luigi da Bologna, 1593, Renato da Modena, 1626, Gio[vani] Montif[alcone], Fra Gir[olamo] da Durazzano, 1640 (fol. 176v) and Camillo Jaghel, 1613 (fol. 177r).