Lot 170
  • 170

Seder Olam Rabbah ve-Zuta u-Megilat Ta'anit (The Order of the World, Major and Minor, and the Scroll of Fasts) Jacob Emden, Hamburg, Christian Simon Schröder: 1757

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Description

  • paper
36 leaves (6 1/4 x 3 3/4 in.; 158 x 95 mm). Browned. Ex-library with stamps on title page and final leaf; ownership note on title page. Nineteenth century half calf with marbled boards, library markings; boards and extremities worn.

Provenance

Jewish National University Library, Jerusalem—deaccesioned

Literature

Vinograd, Hamburg 87; Raphael, Areshet III, p.270, no. 28–1

 


 

Catalogue Note

The present lot comprises three early rabbinic historical narratives, Seder Olam Rabah, Seder Olam Zuta and Megilat Ta'anit,  accompanied by the commentary of Jacob Emden (1697-1776). While Seder Olam Rabah is traditionally attributed to the second-century mishnaic scholar Yose ben Halafta, the anonymous Seder Olam Zuta is a much later work, probably composed between the sixth and seventh centuries CE. The Talmud ascribes composition of Megilat Ta'anit to the school of Hananiah ben Hizkiyah. The earliest portion of Oral Law to be committed to writing, it consists of a list of commemorative dates in the course of the year when fasting is forbidden. To these historical texts Emden appended a halachic discussion of the Birkat ha-Hamah (Blessing of the Sun), recited once every twenty-eight years.

The volume ends with an essay comprising Emden's letter to the rabbinic leadership in Poland who had sought his advice as to how to combat the Frankist movement that had recently appeared there. Emden, who had spent the past decade embroiled in a polemical dispute with those he considered to be believers of the false messiah Sabbatai Tzvi, now focused his efforts at the newest iteration of Sabbatian apostasy, the followers of Jacob Frank. Emden excoriates the Frankists while at the same time showing a remarkable degree of openness to the members of other faiths such as Christianity and Islam. Whether Emden's liberal attitudes were based solely on the need to discredit the apostate Frankists, or represented a truly ecumenical worldview has been the subject of several important scholarly articles. This final section was reprinted with significant additions as "Resen Mat'eh," an appendix to "Meteg la-Hamor," the second of the three works that comprised Emden's Sefer Shimush.

We are greatful to Prof. J.J. Schachter for providing information which assisted in the cataloging of this lot.

Literature:H. Lichtenstein, "Die Fastenrolle," HUCA, Vols. VIII-IX (1931- 32), pp. 257-351; Chaim Milikowsky, Seder olam : a rabbinic chronography (PhD dissertation): 1981."Rabbi Jacob Emden: The Views of an Enlightened Tradionalist on Christianity,"Judaism: A Quarterly Journal of Jewish Life and Thought , Summer 1978; "Rabbi Jacob Emden's Attitude Toward Christianity Moshe Miller" in  Turim: Studies in Jewish History and Literature, Presented to Dr. Bernard Lander; Lior Gottlieb, "'Resen Mat'eh' le-Rabi Ya'akov Emden – Mahadurah Kama u-Batra," in Binyamin Ish-Shalom, ed., Be-Darkhei Shalom: Iyyunim be-Hagut Yehudit Mugashim le-Shalom Rosenberg (Jerusalem, 2007), 295-321.