Sepher Hachassidim

AUCTION 11 | Tuesday, November 28th, 2000 at 1:00

Important Hebrew Printed Books and Manuscripts From the Library of the London Beth Din

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Lot 73

JUDAH THE CHASSID.

Sepher Hachassidim

FIRST EDITION. Marginal notes in a clear 18th century hand ff. (27),121,(1). Lightly browned and stained in places, gently damp-wrinkled. Later half-morocco marbled boards, rubbed, upper cover detatched. 4to Vinograd, Bologna 10; Adams J-398

Bologna: Silk Weaver’s Guild 1538

Est: $2,000 - $3,000

PRICE REALIZED $5,500

Many of the passages in Sepher Hachassidim are homiletic and exegetic, explaining the philosophical or mystical meanings of Biblical verses and Talmudic sayings. Nonetheless, it is primarily a masterwork of ethical instruction: Enjoining how to resist temptation and avoid sin; how to dress, speak, pray and work; how to choose a wife and select companions; how to harmonise the necessities of existence with the requirements of religious life; how to choose a righteous teacher, and many other subjects. No other Hebrew work of ethics devotes such close attention to detail, rendering it an important historical souce for the study of everyday Jewish life in medieval Germany. For an extensive treatment of Aschkenazic Pietism see I. Marcus, Piety and Society: The Jewish Pietists of Medieval Germany (1981). See also Ch. Soloveitchik, Three Themes in the Sefer Hasidim in: AJS Review I (1976) pp. 311-357