RICCHI, IMMANUEL CHAI. Mishnath Chasidim [mystical theosophy and meditations for various prayers]

Immanuel Chai Ricchi (1688-1743) was one of the greatest Italian rabbis of the day. Besides charting the Lurianic universe, Ricchi's Mishnath Chasidim provides the kavannoth of the Ar"i for the prayers of the entire year. The work has remained of fundamental authority for generations of kabbalists - mystics of both the Mithnagdic and Chassidic schools viewed this neat summary of Lurianic kabbalah as the last word. Of late, several researchers claimed to have found evidence of Sabbatian influence in Ricchi's works. See Roland Goetschel, “Le problème de la kawwanah dans le 'Yosher Lebab' d'Emmanuel Hay Ricchi (1737)” in Prière, Mystique et Judaisme (Paris, 1987). Actually, such suspicions were expressed already by none other than the indefatigable foe of Sabbatians, R. Jacob Emden. See B. Naor, Post-Sabbatian Sabbatianism (1999), pp. 53-57, 177-184. The book is prefaced by the text of the Semicha, or rabbinic ordination, granted to the author by R. Hillel Aschkenazi of Hania, Crete. (Of recent interest, while in the process of reconstructing the destroyed synagogue of Hania and surrounding courtyard, Dr. Nikos Stavroulakis discovered the gravesite of R. Hillel Aschkenazi. See R. Alpert, Caught in the Crack: Encounters with the Jewish Muslims of Turkey (2002), p.139)