BABYLONIAN TALMUD, TRACTATE NEDARIM, VENICE: DANIEL BOMBERG, JUNE-JULY 1523

122 folios (14 5/8 x 10 1/8 in.; 374 x 257 mm) (collation: i-xii8, i-ii8, iii10 [final leaf blank]) on paper; modern foliation in pencil in Hebrew characters in upper-outer corner of recto on ff. 97-122. Extensive manuscript marginalia, references (titled Ein mishpat ve-ner mitsvah), and corrections (some of them smudged) on ff. 2r-48v, 97r-99v, 101v, 105r-v; pen trials on f. [1r]. Slight scattered staining; repairs and staining in gutter, especially at foot, throughout; small repairs in outer corners, particularly at foot, intermittently throughout; a few non-repaired worm tracks at front and rear, mostly affecting only individual letters; f. [1] loose at foot, with damage in upper, inner, and lower margins repaired. Modern half leather over cloth, very slightly stained; title, place, and date lettered in black on spine; upper board separating from book block; modern paper flyleaves and pastedowns.

Nedarim (Vows), the third tractate in the order Nashim, treats, in eleven chapters, the vow formulas that do and do not bind a person; the circumstances under which vows are or are not taken seriously; legal definitions of vows taken to prevent benefit from a specific person, as well as those pertaining to specific produce, places, and times; and the laws concerning the absolution of vows. The treatise’s inclusion in the order Nashim stems in part from its concern, in chapters 10 and 11, with the circumstances under which a father or husband can annul or revoke the vows of his minor daughter or wife, respectively, as well as those of their vows that require no revocation (see Num. 30). Nedarim, like Nazir, Temurah, Kereitot, Me‘ilah, and part of Tamid, is one of the “special tractates” written in a peculiar dialect of Aramaic that seem not to have benefited from final editorial polishing. Aside from its language, the Bomberg edition of Nedarim is also anomalous in at least three other ways. First, the Talmudic text is surrounded by the commentaries of Rabbi Nissim ben Reuben of Girona (ca. 1310-ca. 1375), and Rabbi Asher ben Jehiel (ca. 1250-1327), and one attributed to Rashi; the comments of Tosafot are relegated to the end of the volume. Second, the “Rashi” commentary ends abruptly on f. 22b, where it is replaced by that of Rabbi Gershom ben Judah of Mainz (ca. 960-1029). Finally, some copies of the first edition of Nedarim have title pages dated June-July 1522. According to Raphael Nathan Note Rabbinovicz, this original title page was later replaced by the present one due to a self-deprecating phrase used on the former in regard to the “extremely corrupt” text of the Tosafot.

Provenance

Jewish National and University Library (ff. [1r], [121v])

Literature

A.M. Habermann, Ha-madpis daniyyel bombirgi u-reshimat sifrei beit defuso (Safed: The Museum of Printing Art, 1978), 36 (no. 63).

Vinograd, Venice 80