Amarot Tehorot and Likkutei Hakdamot le-Hokhmat ha-Kabbalah (Kabbalistic Compendium), Solomon Ben Moses Ha-Levi Alkabez [Italy: 16-17th Century]

72 leaves including 2 blanks (8 x 5 ¾ inches; 205 x 150 mm), written in Italian semi-cursive Hebrew script in brown ink on paper, catchwords, modern foliation in pencil; final blank imperfect.   Owner's paper stamp on front pastedown endpaper; ink stamps on ff. 1, 70. Contemporary Italian brown morocco, ruled and stamped in blind, string ties; 2 (of 4) ties still attached, worming on spine head wormed and along hinges.

Solomon Alkabez (ca. 1505-1584), a kabbalist and mystical poet, is best known as the composer of the Sabbath eve hymn, Lekhah Dodi (Come, My Beloved). He was instrumental in establishing Tikkun Leil Shavu'ot, the now nearly-universal custom of staying awake through the night of Shavuot to study Torah. In his writings, he was among the earliest kabbalists to cite and explicate complete passages from the Zohar.

contents:

Fols. 1r-26r: Amarot Tehorot by Solomon Alkabez, being a response to Joseph Karo concerning the tombs of the righteous. It was printed in the 1862 edition of the author’s Berit ha-Levi.

Fols. 27r-56r: Likkutei Hakdamot le-Hokhmat ha-Kabbalah, an unpublished, yet extremely important collection of introductions to the doctrine of Kabbalah, also by Alkabez. This work should be seen as a essential precursor to the famed Pardes Rimmonim, by Moses Cordovero. Many of the concepts articulated by Alkabez in this treatise are reprised in Cordovero’s later work.

Fols. 57r-70r: Extracts on Lurianic kabbalah.

LITERATURE:
Hirschfeld (ms. no. 334); M. Benayahu, in Jubilee Volume in Honor of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik (Jerusalem and New York, 1984), vol. 2, p. 797, note 48 (in Hebrew).

PROVENANCE:
Solomon Halberstam (shelf no. 13); Important Hebrew Manuscripts from the Montefiore Endowment, Sotheby’s NY: October 27– 28, 2004, Lot 407.