Etz Hayyim (Tree of Life), Hayyim Vital, 1734, Manuscript on Paper

209 [(1,3),204(1)] leaves (14 3/4 x 9 1/4 in.; 375 x 235 mm), first and last leaves blank. Written in brown ink on paper in  Ashkenazic semi-cursive script, with headings in square Hebrew script. Illustrated pen-and-ink architectural title-page, with Moses and Aaron, topped by King David within a baroque shield, held by two cherubs, at the bottom a plaque containing the chronogram, flanked by two female angels; the chronogram with a loss due to corrosion, repaired on verso; with owner's stamp; another removed with minor loss, repaired at foot. Sefirotic diagram on f.199v.  Ink corrosion in approximately the first third of the manuscript, affecting the text; fols. 21-24 with tape repairs affecting several words of text;  otherwise browned, the larger part of the manuscript well legible. Modern blind and gold-tooled brown morocco, two modern paper flyleaves at back and front, gilt edges, with gauffering.

Daniel Itzig (1723-1799) German court banker, entrepreneur and leader of the Berlin Jewish community- his stamp on title page and his signature (Daniel Berlin) on f.10r.

With prefaces by Meir Poppers and Hayyim Vital, Sha'ar ha-Kelalim and the glosses of Meir Poppers and Jacob Zemah

Hayyim Vital (1543-1620) was the primary disciple of Isaac ben Solomon Luria, and the chief promulgator of Lurianic Kabbalah after his master's death in 1572.  His magnum opus Etz Hayyim is a detailed exposition of Lurianic mysticism. The text of Sha'ar ha-Kelalim, also included here, serves as a preface to some later printed editions of Vital's Etz Hayyim and offers a version of Luria's system which was apparently formulated earlier than Vital's.

Based on a careful examination of the title page, the scribe has been identified as Jacob ben Judah Leib Shamash. This scribe, also known as Jacob Sofer, was active in Hamburg and Altona between 1717 and 1741 and several of his works employ nearly identical title page design (see for example the 1741 Haggadah in the Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana in Amsterdam; Hs. Ros. 573).

This manuscript is a particularly rare example of a non-liturgical text penned by one of the expert scribes of the eighteenth-century school of manuscript illumination. This demonstrates that the artists renowned for their elegant, decorated and illuminated liturgical manuscripts, were still professional scribes who would also copy other texts. This seems particularly likely,  given the dearth of printed editions of certain esoteric works such as Etz Hayyim, which was first printed in 1782, some forty-eight years after this manuscript was copied. The hiring of a skilled scribe to produce this work  also indicates a desire, on the part of those well-off Jews who were able to commision manuscripts from these scribes, to broaden the scope of the works they ordered. 

The manuscript was in the collection of Daniel Itzig, (also called Daniel Jaffe or Daniel Berlin; 1723-1799), a German banker, entrepreneur, and leader of the Berlin Jewish community. The son of a horse merchant, Itzig married into the wealthy Wulff family and began his career as purveyor of silver to the royal mint. In 1761 Itzig received the rights of a Christian merchant and after the Seven Years' War he invested his money in manufacturing leather and iron goods, built himself a palace, and established a bank. Itzig was appointed chief representative of Prussian Jewry by Frederick II. From Frederick William II, whose confidential financier he was, he received, on May 2, 1791, the coveted Naturalisationspatent, bestowing full citizenship on him and his entire family. He was the first Prussian Jew to be so honored.