Vayakhel Moshe [“Moses Assembled”: Collected sermons]

ALFALAS, MOSES

Daniel Zanetti

Venice

1597

FIRST EDITION. Title within architectural arch. Former owners’ stamps and inscriptions. On title, f.2r. and final page, “Ya’akov David, Gaon, Av Beith-Din of Wyschogrod.” (See below.) On f.2r. and penultimate page, censor’s inscription, “Gio[vanni] Dom[enico]Vistorini, 1609.” (See Wm. Popper, pl. III, no. 6)

Vinograd, Venice 831; Adams M-1862

The late 16th-century preacher Moses Alfalas was a native of Tetuan, Spanish Morocco. A contemporary of R. Judah Löw (MaHaRa”L) of Prague, he too employed philosophical terms in his sermons, while giving them novel meaning. Vayakhel Moshe is a collection of 25 homilies preached in Venice, Salonika, and Tetuan. R. Jacob David Biderman (1808-63) was a grandson of R. Ezekiel of Kozhnitz and a disciple of R. Menachem Mendel of Kotz. Known as an outstanding halachist and kabbalist, he served as rabbi of the communities of Mezritch, Kozhnitz, and Wyschogrod. His punctilous observance of the Sabbath earned him the epithet “Shomer Shabbath.” Biderman’s grandson, R. Jacob Meir Biderman (1870-1941), married the daughter of R. Judah Aryeh Leib Alter of Gur, author of the classic work of Chassidic thought “Sephath Emeth.” See N.Z. Friedmann, Otzar Harabanim, p. 210, J-10036; Yitzchak Alfasi, Ha-Chassiduth (1977), p. 233, no. 27