Siddur ha-Ari, edited by Meir Poppers, [Krakow?: mid-17th century]

191 folios (7 x 5 ¾ in.; 178 x 146 mm). Modern foliation in pencil: 1-54, 56-191=190 folios; 20-30 lines to a page; Ashkenazic square and cursive scripts, catchwords; owner’s signature on f. 69r; illustrations: ff. 79v, 81v. Soiled and stained; ff. 1-2 loosely bound at foot, ff. 100-101 detached; numerous marginal tears, some repaired; lightly wormed; many leaves reinforced or mounted, occasionally with losses; repairs to corners. Early blind-tooled leather, worn; two leather ties for fastening.

Zevi Hirsch, son of the head of the rabbinic court and yeshivah of Płock (f. 69r.)

Bezalel Deblitzky, “A Prayer Book with the Intentions of Rabbi Isaac Luria, of Blessed Memory, among the Manuscripts of the Auerbach Family of Geniuses and Leaders in Ashkenaz,” Yeshurun 24 (2011): 942-952 (in Hebrew); Pinchas Giller, “Between Poland and Jerusalem: Kabbalistic Prayer in Early Modernity,” Modern Judaism 24,3 (October 2004): 226-250; Shlomo Tal, “The Influence of Lurianic Kabbalah on the Development of the Shape of the Prayer Book,” De‘ot 43 (1973): 181-185 (in Hebrew).

Isaac Luria Ashkenazi (1534-1572) was by far the most important kabbalist of the sixteenth century. Settling in Safed in about 1570, he gathered around himself two groups of students to whom he transmitted a novel cosmic theology and numerous secrets of the Kabbalah. In the realm of prayer specifically, he delivered long lectures about the inner meanings of the liturgy and the special kavvanot (mystical meditations) that should be kept in mind when reciting the prayers. However, while these discourses were transcribed by his students in various versions, none of them organized the discussions in the form of a prayer book. That task was left to the following generations of kabbalists, including Hayyim Cohen of Aleppo (1585-1655), Jacob Zemah (d. 1667), and Meir Poppers (c. 1624-1662), the latter’s student. Poppers’ siddur, entitled Or Penei Melekh, is by far the most important and widespread of the Lurianic prayer books that have come down to us.

The present lot would appear to be one of the earliest surviving recensions of this prayer book. It has several significant differences from the other known manuscript copies, as well as from the printed edition. The distinctive hand bears a strong resemblance to the writing of Jacob Koppel, Poppers’ secretary in Krakow.