Sepher Zikaron [Yoseph Karo’s Code, abridged, versified in rhyme and arranged mnemotechnically].

The author, Rabbi of Mehzeritch, was entitled HaGaon, an honorific sparingly used at the time. He was mentor to R. Yoel Sirkes (The Ba”CH), one of Poland’s most outstanding Talmudists. This work is variously assigned to Cracow or Prague, but the watermarks (according to Felix de Marez Oyens) strongly point to the latter. For another (incomplete) copy of this work offered at auction, see Christie’s, Hebrew Printed Books, Duplicates from the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary, 22nd May 1986, Lot 66. Although Y. Yudlov in Ginzei Yisrael (no. 877) conjectures the date to be circa 1640 (following Zedner and Roest), the present cataloguer has determined an earlier date, based upon the following two considerations: 1. The first approbation is by R. Nathan Shapiro, author of Megaleh Amukoth, Rabbi of Cracow who passed away in the summer of 1633; (See Kestenbaum, Sale 25, Lot 48; and the comprehensive monograph by Eliezer Katzman, Toldoth HaMegaleh Amukoth (2003), republished with additions and revisions in Yeshurun, Vol. 13, pp. 617-700; and Vol. 14, pp. 935-964). 2. Yudlov himself cites M. Nadav (former chief librarian of JNUL), who states that the tenure of the Rabbi of Pinsk R. Joseph, was from 1628-1631; thus his approbation was written in that time period. The printer states that the approbation is by the Rabbi who had been in Pinsk (in the past tense). This would seem to indicate that the book was published right after he left Pinsk in 1631 and before the death of R. Nathan Shapiro on Shabbath Va’ethchanan, 1633. <<* Bound with: SHAPIRA, ISAAC BEN NOAH COHEN>>. Pethichath Halev [abridgement of the Author’s (unpublished) Harchavath Halev - Kabbalistic discourses]. <<First edition.>> ff. 38 (of 40), lacking final two leaves. (Prague?, 1632?) Vinograd, Prague 347; Mehlman 941.