DERASHOT HA-TORAH (HOMILIES ON THE PENTATEUCH), JOSHUA IBN SHUAIB MANUSCRIPT ON PAPER BEJAR, SPAIN: 1477 SCRIBE: YOM TOV BEN SAMUEL ZARFATI

204 leaves in original quires of 16 ( 11 ½ x 8 ½ in.; 292 x 212 mm). Ruled in hardpoint, single-column text, 32 lines, written in Sephardic semi-cursive script in brown ink, catchwords, modern foliation in pencil on every fifth page; one leaf missing following fols. 96 and 110, dampstaining, several leaves repaired (with some loss of text on fols. 203–204), some edges frayed, some marginal cropping touching marginalia, minor worming. Modern blind-tooled calf, spine lettered gilt; fol. 143 should be bound after fol. 96, fol. 176 is bound backwards.

F. T. Dent, London — Mossad Ha-Rav Kook, Jerusalem (ms. 39)

C. Horowitz, The Jewish Sermon in Fourteenth-Century Spain: The Derashot of Rabbi Joshua ibn Shueib (Cambridge, 1989); C. Sirat and M. Beit–Arié, Manuscrits médiévaux en caractères hébraïques portant des indications de date jusqu'à 1540 (Jerusalem-Paris, 1972), I, no. 140

A collection of weekly sermons on the Pentateuch, delivered in the local synagogue by Joshua ibn Shuaib, who lived in Spain at the beginning of the fourteenth century.   The author, a pupil of the famous Talmudic scholar Solomon ibn Adret (rashba), was well-versed in halakhic literature as well as in kabbalah, and his homiletical work work reflects this expertise in the realms of both halakhah and Jewish thought.  These sermons were printed twice, first in Constantinople, 1523 and again, from another manuscript, in Cracow, 1573.  A facsimile of the Cracow edition was reprinted in 1969 with a prefatory essay by the late Professor Shraga Abramson.  A new edition based on the 1523 editio princeps was published in Jerusalem in 1992.  Some thirty complete and partial manuscript copies of this popular work can be found in public collections around the world, attesting to the enduring popularity of ibn Shuaib's work.  A critical edition based on these manuscripts has yet to be compiled despite the many textual variations to be found in them.

The manuscript was copied in Bejar (Castile, Spain) by Yom Tov ben Samuel Zarfati for his own use and completed on Tuesday, 4 Av 5237 (14 July 1477).  It includes many notes, additions and selections from various works, copied by other hands in the margins.  Among these are the Zohar as well as Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer and other midrashim.