Maimonides' Commentary on Tractate Rosh ha-Shanah [Oriental: ca. 1600]

8 leaves (6  3/8  x 4  1/8  in.; 162 x 110 mm). Written in brown ink on paper in Sephardic semi cursive Hebrew script. Illustrated with nine diagrams. Minor losses repaired, affecting only individual letters; minor marginal dampstains. Half calf over tree calf. Rubbed.

 

Moses Maimonides (1135–1204), rabbinic authority, codifier, philosopher, and royal physician was the most illustrious figure in Judaism in the post-talmudic era. Frequently referred to as Rambam (an acronym for Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon) Maimonides, was born in Cordoba, Spain but was forced to flee in 1148 as a result of religious persecution. Maimonides' halakhic activity began during his youth with his commentary to parts of the Babylonian Talmud, though only fragments of this work have survived, having been surpassed and overshadowed by the Rambam's later masterpiece, the Commentary on the Mishnah. This meticulously penned manuscript volume comprises Maimonides’ commentary to most of Arba’ah Roshei Shanim, the first chapter of Tractate Rosh ha-Shanah, as well as the beginning of the second chapter, Im Einan Makirin.

Literature: Israel Ta-Shema, “Perush ha-Rambam la-Talmud …,” in Sh'naton ha-Mishpat ha-'Ivri,  # 14-15 (1988-89) pp.299-305.; Saul Lieberman, Hilkhot ha-Yerushalmi le-ha-Rambam, New York:1948, p. 12.; Menachem Kasher, Torah Shelemah vol. 13 (1950) pp. 191-3.; Yehiel Brill, Perush 'al masekhet Rosh ha-Shanah, Paris:1865.