Reshith Chochmah ha-Katzar

R. Elijah de Vidas, disciple of the famed kabbalist R. Moses Cordovero, wrote this ethical treatise based on the teachings of the kabbalah. De Vidas' (reconstructed) tomb may be seen to this day in the ancient cemetery of Hebron. Joseph Poieto, himself a kabbalist, created this abridged form of the Reshith Chochmah, which became extremely popular, going through twenty-five editions over the next two and a half centuries. (See Vinograd I, p. 138, s.v. Reshith Hochmah Hakatzar.) Prof. Mordecai Pachter of Haifa has analyzed Poieto's method and agenda in his abridgement. See M. Pachter, “Sepher Reshith Hochmah…ve-kitzurav,” in Kiryath Sepher, Vol. XLVII (1972), pp. 696-698. Our printing was expedited by “Solomon Mor David, emissary of Safed, from the hesger (in the Sephardic community, term for Talmudic academy) of Ein Zeitoun.” This emissary to Italy was the son-in-law of R. Moses ben Machir, rosh yeshivah of Ein Zeitoun. While in Italy, he also published his father-in-law's book Seder ha-Yom (Venice: Zanetti, 1599). See Abraham Ya'ari, Sheluhei Eretz Israel (1977), pp. 844-5. According to the title-page, appended to our work there should follow Marpeh la-Nefesh of R. Isaac Luria and Tikkunei Shabbath of R. Abraham Halevi. Mehlman describes the appendix as ff. 19. Our copy has the appendix first, followed by the main body of Reshith Hochmah Hakatzar