Tzeror ha-Mor [“Bundle of Myrrh”: Kabbalistic commentary to the Pentateuch]

AUCTION 34 | Tuesday, September 12th, 2006 at 1:00

Exemplary Hebrew Books: The Library of Joseph Gradenwitz, Esq.

Back to Catalogue Download Catalogue

<Previous Lot

/150

Next Lot>

Lot 135

SABA, ABRAHAM

Tzeror ha-Mor [“Bundle of Myrrh”: Kabbalistic commentary to the Pentateuch]

Title within architectural arch surmounted by vignette depicting the Sacrifice of Isaac. Final page contains medical prescriptions in Yiddish in a 17th-century hand ff. 165, (1). Previous owners signature on title (Yitzchak b. Azriel). Stainined and foxed. Modern elegant tan calf. Folio Vinograd, Cracow 184; Mehlman 675

Cracow: Isaac Prostitz 1595

Est: $500 - $700

PRICE REALIZED $1,100

The author (b. Spain, c. 1440-1508), a disciple of Isaac de Leon, was exiled from his native Castile. No sooner did he find refuge in Oporto, Portugal, than King Emanuel ordered all Jews converted and all Hebrew books burned. Saba’s sons were forcibly baptized and his extensive library plundered. He escaped to Fez, Morocco, where he attempted to recommit from memory his own works that he was forced to abandon. See N.S. Libowitz, R. Avraham Saba u-Sepharav (1936)