RAZIEL HAMALACH. Anonymous

AUCTION 24 | Tuesday, June 29th, 2004 at 1:00

Fine Judaica: Printed Books, Manuscripts, Ceremonial Art and Holy Land Maps Including Ceremonial Art from the Collection of Daniel M. Friedenberg

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Lot 147

(KABBALAH)

RAZIEL HAMALACH. Anonymous

FIRST EDITION. Title within elaborate woodcut architectural border. Unusual Kabbalistic charts and diagrams throughout. A Wide-Margined Copy. Previous owners’ signatures and stamps on the title page including “Tzvi Hirsch... of Berlin”. ff. 18, [1], 19-45. Lightly foxed and stained, ex-library. Old calf over wooden boards, chipped, rebacked. 4to Vinograd, Amsterdam 731; Fuks, Amsterdam 573

Amsterdam: Moses Mendes Coitinho 1701

Est: $5,000 - $6,000

PRICE REALIZED $5,000

A cornucopia of mystical texts and magical recipes. Though the title purports that the book was handed by the angel Raziel to Adam, it has long been known even in the most traditional circles that the work is in fact medieval in origin. The perspicacious Rabbi Zadok Hakohen of Lublin, a hasidic rebbe with a critical faculty, attributes authorship to Rabbi Elazar of Worms, author of Roke’ach. (See Rabbi Zadok Hakohen of Lublin, Sepher ha-Zichronoth, appended to Divrei Sophrim (Lublin, 1913), 34c-d; Uziel Fuchs, “‘Critical’ comments in the writings of R. Zadok Hakohen of Lublin,” in Gershon Kitsis ed., Me’at la-Tzadik (Jerusalem, 2000), pp. 266-267. Because of the popular belief that the book is protection from fire, many keep a copy of Raziel in the home, or today, in the automobile