NORA TEHILLOT (COMMENTARY ON PSALMS), RABBI JOEL IBN SHUAIB, SALONIKA: JOSEPH BEN ISAAC JABEZ, 1568

Rabbi Joel Ibn Shuaib was a fifteenth-century preacher who lived in Tudela and Saragossa before the expulsion of 1492. Nora tehillot is his commentary on Psalms, printed in two volumes on paper of different sizes. In it, the author sharply criticizes the Spanish conversos and exhorts them to return to their ancestral faith. In the introduction to this work, the author’s son Samuel notes that his father had composed commentaries on the entire Pentateuch (Doresh tov), Job (Ein mishpat), the Five Scrolls, and Pirkei avot (Sekhel tov), as well as a collection of weekly Sabbath sermons (Olot shabbat). Of these, only the present title, plus the commentary on Lamentations (Salonika, 1521) and Olot/Olat shabbat (Venice, 1577), have appeared. This copy of Nora tehillot was owned by British Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi Solomon Hirschel (1762-1842).