Hebrew, PENTATEUCH & HAPHTAROTH). Orchoth Chaim. With commentary by Rashi and Or Ha’chaim

(BIBLE

Meir di Zara-Vendermin

Venice

1742

FIRST EDITION OF R. CHAIM IBN ATTAR’S COMMENTARY, “OR HA’CHAIM.” Two title pages, each within woodcut architectural borders flanked by Moses and Aaron, with Biblical roundelle vignette depicting David’s victory over Goliath

Vinograd, Venice 1814; Mehlman 624 (incomplete). T. Z. Rabinowicz, The Encyclopedia of Hasidism p. 30.

Moroccan born Chaim ibn Attar, renowned as a saintly Kabbalist, migrated to Eretz Israel, temporarily to Acre (due to an epidemic raging elsewhere in the country), before settling in Jerusalem where he established the Midrash Keneset Israel Yeshivah. Chaim ibn Attar is one of the few outstanding scholars to have the honorific “Hakadosh” (The Holy) attached to his name. (Others are the Shalo"h and the Alsheich). It is said the reason for the Baal Shem Tov’s (aborted) pilgrimage to the Land of Israel was in order to meet Chaim ibn Attar, so that together they would have sought to hasten the advent of the Messianic Redemption. The Or Ha'Chaim commentary was circulated extensively in Germany and Poland where it achieved great popularity and veneration especially among Chassidim. In many Chassidic synagogues it is the custom to study Or Ha’Chaim on Thursday night in preparation for the Sabbath. USE FOR ANOTHER TIME (written by massye): The author, popularly known as the Or HaChaim HaKadosh was born in Sale, Morocco. He spent most of his life there, first leaving the country to travel to the printing press of Solomon Proops in Amsterdam, to publish his first work, Chefetz Hashem. Upon his return to Morocco, a combination of shifting social winds within the community, harsh famine, and a mystical pull towards Eretz Israel drove him to move to the Holy Land. However, Ibn Attar first tarried in Italy for a a few years, primarily in Livorno. The local community pledged to support the Yeshivah he hoped to found in Eretz Israel, and a number Italian Jews joined what was now coalescing into an organized movement. Numbering 30 families, the group left Italy in 1741. After months of uncertain wanderings between Acre, Haifa and Tiberias, it finally became possible for to settle in in Jerusalem. They were received by the community with great respect, and Ibn Attar immediately inserted himself into the social fabric of the community. He passed away less than a year after his arrival in Jerusalem, in 1743, and was buried at the Mount of Olives.