Levush Ohr Yekaroth [commentary to Chumash].
Auction 94 |
Thursday, June 17th,
2021 at 11:00am
Rare & Excellent Hebrew Printed Books: From the Library of Arthur A. Marx
Lot 219
JAFFE, MORDECHAI.
Levush Ohr Yekaroth [commentary to Chumash].
Lublin: Kalonymus ben Mordechai Jaffe 1594
Est: $30,000 - $40,000
<<Two signatures on a singularly important work that collectively spans the Ashkenazic experience over three centuries.>>
The author, R. Mordechai Jaffe (c. 1535-1612) a native of Prague, studied in his youth in Poland under the greatest Rabbinic scholars of the day: R. Solomon Luria (Maharsha”l) and R. Moses Isserles (RaM”A). In subsequent years, he would sojourn in Italy and once again in Poland before finally returning to his native Prague in 1592, at which time he succeeded the famed R. Judah Loew (Mahara”l) as Av Beth Din.
The first signatory, R. Yair Chaim Bacharach (1638-1702), was an outstanding Worms-based rabbinic scholar known for his systematic approach to Talmudic literature and Halacha based on his exhaustive knowledge of all branches of Jewish scholarship and the sciences.
The second signatory, R. Shmuel ben Naphtali Hertz was the Av Beth Din of Warka, Poland. A colleague of R. Akiva Eiger, he studied Chassidism under the Maggid of Kozhnitz and the Chozeh of Lublin.
This work comprises the last three “Atires” (Levushim), for a total of ten, which comprise R. Mordechai Jaffe’s monumental Levush Malchuth, including commentaries on classic meta-halachic works. As a whole, “the Levush Malchuth is thus not only a code of law which sums up the Halachic scholarship of the day, but rather an entire summa of rabbinic Judaism both halachic and non-halachic.” See L. Kaplan, Jewish Thought in the Sixteenth Century (1983) p. 274.