Ma’ayenei HaYeshu'ah [commentary on the eschatological chapters of the Book of Daniel]

Ma'ayenei HaYeshu'ah (“Wells of Salvation”) is the first book of Abrabanel's trilogy on the imminence of the Messiah's coming. It was followed by Mashmi'ah Yeshu'ah (“Announcing Salvation,” Salonika, 1526) and Yeshu'oth Meshicho (“The Salvation of His Anointed,” Tarnopol, 1813). As Zevach Pesach, Abrabanel's commentary to the Passover Hagadah (see lot 16), this work was also completed in Monopoli (Apulia), Italy, on the first of Teveth, 1497. (See colophon on f.139v.) Following the Spanish Expulsion of the Jews in 1492, the survivors of this catastrophe, including Don Isaac Abrabanel himself, were seized with acute passions of Messianism. Likewise, after the Chmielnicki Massacres of 1648-9, East European Jewry desperately awaited Messianic salvation. And finally, after the Holocaust of 1939-45, longing for the Messiah once again intensified. In some circles this hope was pinned on the State of Israel; in other circles a certain Chassidic Rebbe became the focus of salvific expectation