Sabba de-Mishpatim (Zohar on Parshat Mishpatim) with commentary of Moses Cordovero [Morocco: 17th-18th centuries]

97 leaves (9 1/4 x 7 1/4 in.; 235 x 185 mm). ff. 2-7, 9-15, 17-95, 97-101; lacking ff. 1, 8, 16, 96, and probably several at the end. About 32 lines to a page, in two elegant Moroccan hands. Losses, lower-outer corner, ff. 26, 33. Pen trials, ff. 64v-65r, 88v, 90v-97r.

 

The synagogue of Rabbis Aaron Peretz and his son Hezekiah Peretz, rabbis of Djerba (ff. 1r, 25r).

Moses Cordovero (1522-1570), the preeminent kabbalist of Safed prior to Isaac Luria Ashkenazi’s arrival, composed a lengthy commentary on all parts of the Zohar entitled Or Yakar (Precious Light). The present manuscript, concerning the transmigration of souls, contains the text of Cordovero’s Or Yakar commentary on Sabba de-Mishpatim, a section of the Zohar on the pericope Mishpatim (Ex. 21:1-24:18), with Cordovero’s commentary elegantly arranged surrounding the Zoharic text. Although Or Yakar on Sabba de-Mishpatim was printed in Jerusalem in 1991 as part of a project to publish Cordovero’s complete commentary on the Zohar, that edition based itself entirely on a single manuscript. A close study of the present lot is likely to reveal textual variants which may serve to further our understanding of this important early kabbalistic commentary on the Zohar.