Sepher Eilim

“The most sumptuously illustrated of early scientific works in Hebrew, and unique in printed Hebrew literature before the modern period.” One of the great scientific books of Hebrew Literature, with treatises relating to: geometry, algebra, chemistry, astronomy, physics, medicine and metaphysics. See National Library of Canada Catalogue, The Jacob H. Lowy Collection (1981), no.80 (illustrated); A. Neher, Jewish Thought and the Scientific Revolution of the Sixteenth Century (1986), pp.251-2; H. Friedenwald, Jewish Luminaries in Medical History-Catalogue (1946), p.111; A.J. Karp, From the Ends of the Earth: Judaic Treasures of the Library of Congress (1991), pp. 199-200. R. Baruch Friedenberg of Bialystok (1845-1921) was the author of Mekor Baruch (Jerusalem, 1929), a highly original commentary to Bible and Talmud, which combines traditional rabbinic learning and utter familiarity with “chochmoth chitzoniyoth” (worldly wisdom). In his youth in Bialystok, Baruch was known as “Bogaleh Iluy” and was the study partner of R. Meir Simcha Cohen, later to become the illustrious rabbi of Dvinsk, Latvia