Lot 189
  • 189

Sefer Nahal Kedumim (Kabbalistic Commentary on the Torah), Rabbi Hayyim Joseph David Azulai, Scribe: Suleiman ibn Musa al-Kairouani, [Yemen]: 1880

Estimate
1,000 - 2,000 USD
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Description

  • Ink on paper
[ii], 170 = 172 folios (6 7/8 x 4 3/4 in.; 173 x 121 mm) (collation: i-ii4 [i1 cancelled], iii-xxii8, xxiii4) on paper; contemporary and modern foliation in pen and pencil in Hebrew characters and Arabic numerals at upper-outer margin of recto; written in a combination of square and semi-cursive Yemenite scripts in black ink; outer margins ruled in blind; intermittent vocalization of selected words; catchwords at foot of virtually every page; marginalia and strikethroughs in hand of primary scribe throughout. Enlarged titles and incipits; justification of lines via dilation of final letters, insertion of ornamental fillers, and use of abbreviations; intermittent use of purple paint and ornamental section breaks; headers frequently throughout; decorated title page; the word hayyim periodically enlarged in reference to the author’s name (see ff. 46r, 90v, 110r, 140v, 165r, 168v, 169v); illustration on f. 109r; pen trials on ff. 25r, 110v, 144r, 169v-170r; additional text added on f. 170v. Periodic smudging and/or staining; lower half of f. 170 lacking, without loss; edges slightly worn throughout. Contemporary blind-tooled box binding, rebacked and moderately worn; edges colored purple; modern flyleaves and pastedowns.

Catalogue Note

A neat, complete copy of Sefer nahal kedumim, a kabbalistic commentary on the Torah by the famous halakhist, kabbalist, emissary, and bibliographer Rabbi Hayyim Joseph David Azulai (Hida; 1724-1806). The book features material, particularly gimatreya’ot (homiletic interpretations based on Hebrew numerology), that had not appeared in Hida’s previous Torah commentary, Sefer penei david (Livorno, 1792), including not only his own insights but those of earlier sages like Rabbis Ephraim ben Isaac of Regensburg (1110-1175), Eleazar ben Judah of Worms (ca. 1165-ca. 1230), and Solomon Astruc of Barcelona (fourteenth century).

Sefer nahal kedumim was first published in 1795-1797 in Torah or, a five-volume edition of the Hebrew Pentateuch, at Livorno, to which Hida had arrived seven years earlier and where he would live out the rest of his life. Like many of Hida’s other works, Sefer nahal kedumim was highly popular in the East, especially in Yemen, where some resorted to copying the book by hand because the editio princeps and subsequent editions had sold out. The present manuscript is one example of this phenomenon, and a note on f. 169v dated 10 Marheshvan [5]710 (November 2, 1949) attests that the book was brought along by its owner when he immigrated to Israel.

Provenance

Yahya (f. [i])

Suleiman ibn Musa al-Kairouani (f. 110v)

Literature

Meir Benayahu, Rabbi hayyim yosef david azulai (Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1959), 150 with n. 140.