Be'er ha-Golah, Judah ben Bezalel Loew (Maharal), Prague: 1598

46 leaves (11 ¾ x 7 ¼ in.; 297 x 185 mm). Title within historiated woodcut frame; geometric diagram, f.37r. Lightly browned and stained; owners’ notation and inkstamp on title; marginal tape repairs to verso of title; minor marginal tears; corners slightly rounded. Modern half calf.

Vinograd, Prague 91.

In this defense of rabbinic literature, and particularly of aggadah, the author chooses to make extensive use of water metaphors, beginning with its title Be’er ha-Golah (The Well of Exile). The work is divided into seven parts, each enumerated as a be’er, or well, and each beginning with the word mayyim (water). “One of the hardest forms of recognition that may be attained by man,” writes Rabbi Loew in his introduction “is the recognition of the self.” Accordingly, he delves into “deep wells” of Talmudic Aggadot and explains how they can be used in order to refine one’s “recognition of the self.” In a process he describes as the escorting of the reader into “the bottom of the wells,” He likens his task to that of Jacob, removing the stone from the well when he met Rachel. At the “bottom” of each “well” the reader is encouraged to finally meet himself. The text also presents a sharp critique of the writings of Azariah de Rossi, whose popular work Me'or Einayim (Mantua, 1573-74) cast doubts on both talmudic chronology and the veracity of the aggadah.