Sacred Splendor: Judaica from the Arthur and Gitel Marx Collection
Sacred Splendor: Judaica from the Arthur and Gitel Marx Collection
SEFER HA-HINNUKH (EXPOSITION OF THE COMMANDMENTS ARRANGED ACCORDING TO THE WEEKLY TORAH PORTION), ATTRIBUTED TO RABBI AARON, VENICE: DANIEL BOMBERG, 1523
Auction Closed
November 20, 08:47 PM GMT
Estimate
10,000 - 12,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
SEFER HA-HINNUKH (EXPOSITION OF THE COMMANDMENTS ARRANGED ACCORDING TO THE WEEKLY TORAH PORTION), ATTRIBUTED TO RABBI AARON, VENICE: DANIEL BOMBERG, 1523
178 of 179 folios (8 5/8 x 6 1/2 in.; 219 x 164 mm) on paper; modern foliation in pencil in upper-outer corner of recto (ff. 2-10) and in lower margins (ff. 11-178). Decorated initial word panel on f. 7v; a few marginal manuscript comments in pen toward rear; manuscript poem (?) on f. 178v. Lacking f. [15]; slight scattered staining; minor worming intermittently throughout, usually repaired and usually not affecting text; a few words on f. 77 expurgated. Modern blind-tooled morocco, slightly scratched; spine in five compartments with raised bands; title, place, and date lettered on spine; modern paper flyleaves and pastedowns.
The first edition of an important resource for the weekly study of Jewish law.
Sefer ha-hinnukh rearranges the 613 commandments enumerated by Rabbi Moses Maimonides in his Sefer ha-mitsvot (see lot 208), listing them according to the weekly Torah portion and systematically delineating the details of and ideas behind their observance, to whom and when they apply, and how one can be found to be in violation of them. The identity of the book’s compiler has been among the greatest riddles of medieval Jewish bibliography. In his introduction, the author, who refers to himself only as “a Jew of the house of Levi of Barcelona,” writes that he composed the work in order to arouse the heart of his young son and his youthful companions to regularly study the commandments. Jacob ben Hayyim Ibn Adonijah, the editor of the present, first edition, ascribes the treatise to a certain Rabbi Aaron, understood by the publishers of the second edition (Venice, 1600-1601) as a reference to Rabbi Aaron ben Joseph ha-Levi of Barcelona (Ra’ah; ca. 1235-1300). More recently, some have suggested that the true author was Ra’ah’s brother, Rabbi Phinehas ben Joseph ha-Levi, though the debate continues.
Provenance
Ezra ben Joseph Shealtiel (f. 1r)
Isaac (f. 1r)
Literature
A.M. Habermann, Ha-madpis daniyyel bombirgi u-reshimat sifrei beit defuso (Safed: The Museum of Printing Art, 1978), 45-46 (no. 82).
Marvin J. Heller, The Sixteenth Century Hebrew Book: An Abridged Thesaurus, vol. 1 (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2004), 160-161.
Chaim and Betzalel Stefansky, Sifrei yesod: sifrei ha-yesod shel ha-sifriyyah ha-yehudit ha-toranit (n.p.: Chaim and Betzalel Stefansky, 2019), 70 (no. 216).
Israel M. Ta-Shma, “Mehabbero ha-amitti shel sefer ‘ha-hinnukh,’” Kiryat sefer 55,4 (1980): 787-790.
Vinograd, Venice 78