Toldoth Yitzchak [commentary to the Pentateuch]

KARO, ISAAC BEN JOSEPH

Jacob Alvares Soto, Moshe Ibn Yakar Brandon, and Benjamin de Jonge

Amsterdam

1708

On page of endorsements a cornucopea; on p. 1 a cherubic face. Owner’s signature on title and final page: “Moshe Hayyim grandson of Aaron.” On end paper, lengthy endorsement of a fund-raiser dated [5]469 (1709).

Vinograd, Amsterdam 872

“A concisely written commentary on the Pentateuch, which included literal, homiletical, kabbalistic and philosophical interpretations. [Karo’s] book reveals him as a man of very wide culture. Its extreme popularity is evidenced by the fact that four editions were published in the short period of [44] years.” EJ, V col. 193. The author, Isaac ben Joseph Caro (not to be confused with his more famous nephew R. Joseph Caro, author of Shulhan ‘Arukh, whom he adopted), was a native of Toledo. Several years before the Spanish Expulsion in 1492, Caro moved his yeshivah to Portugal. With the subsequent expulsion of the Jews from Portugal in 1497, Caro fled to Turkey. He entered the rabbinate of Constantinople, where Toldoth Yitzchak was first published in 1518. Remnants of Karo’s responsa are extant in manuscript at the Library of The Jewish Theological Seminary (JTSA ms. no. 0348)