Sefer ha-Kavanot (Book of Intentions), attributed to Isaac Luria, Kunitz: 5480 (1720)

338 leaves including several blanks (8 x 6 in.; 204 x 154 mm). foliation: [1], 1-33 [7], 2-297 [1]= 338 leaves. Written in brown ink on paper in an early-eighteenth-century Ashkenazic semi-cursive Hebrew script. Decorated title page. Owners' notes on ff. 1-2, addenda on ff. 3-5, 9, 22. Early foliation in Hebrew characters. Very lightly soiled and stained; ocassional minor tears or losses not affecting text; a few leaves strengthened or extended not affecting text. Quarter vellum over buckram; spine lettered and decorated in gilt.

Sefer ha-Kavanot is an important kabbalistic work, which details and explicates the proper intentions necessary to maximize the potential of prayer, for the entire Jewish liturgical year.

Despite the presence of copies of Sefer ha-Kavanot in a number of manuscript collections, the present manuscript represents an important and unique version, unknown from any other source. Edited and arranged independently by the scribe himself, the manuscript includes numerous passages explaining the exclusion or inclusion of specific material, based on its availability either in print or in other manuscript volumes to which the scribe had access (see for example ff. 132v, 135r, 144v, 157r, 158r, 238v, 241v, 261v).

The material in this manuscript is arranged in ”gates,” chapters, and sub-headings, rather than the continuous uninterrupted text found in other versions. In this fashion, it bears a strong stylistic resemblance to the Pri ‘Etz Hayyim edited and arranged by Meir Poppers, a text often copied with the Sefer ha-Kavanot.

Of particular note is a gloss (f. 139v) citing a sharply-worded critique by Rabbi Menahem de Lonzano of the Lurianic kavvanah for a verse (Ps. 20:10), found in the “Gate of Ashrei and u’Va le-Zion.” Lonzano’s criticism of Hayyim Vital and other students of Isaac Luria is known from several of his other other works. These include: ‘Omer Man, a commentary on the Idra Zuta and the Sifra de-Ẓeni'uta (printed in the 1883 Vilna edition of the Zohar, but with anti-Luria passages expunged), and Imrei Emet, a strongly sharp criticism critique of Luria's interpretation of Sifra de-Ẓeni'uta and repudiations of Ḥayyim Vital (extant only in manuscript). this important gloss is unknown from any other source.

Sotheby's is grateful to Rabbi Yosef Avivi for providing information which aided in the cataloging of this lot.

LITERATURE:
Yosef Avivi, Binyan Ariel, Jerusalem:1987, p.24; Avivi, Kabbalat ha-Ari, Jerusalem:2008, pp. 252-54

PROVENANCE:
Moshe Yosef Shov; Yehuda Leib Wohl; Yosef Moshe ben Alexander Yehoshua Ziskind; Yonah ben Natan me-Pincow Ginzberg; Aharon ben Leibush Sidlov; Hirtz [?] in Vienna; Simha Bunim me-Lublin--owners' notes on first two leaves.