Jesurun, Isaac. Livro da Providencia Divina [Book of Divine Providence]

(SEPHARDICA)

n.p.

(Hamburg)

1663

FIRST EDITION. Portuguese text. Title within woodcut border. Historiated initials. Endpieces.

Not in JNUL. Kayserling, p. 53; Rodr. Castro, p. 29; Santos, p. 316; Silva, III p. 232

One of the few Portuguese-Jewish works printed for the small, though significant Sephardic Coomunity in Hamburg, Germany. As it's title suggests, the Livro da Providencia Divina is an exposition on Divine Providence according to rabbinic tradition, dealing with such issues of reward and punishment, free will, etc. The second part is organized as a series of sermons on the appropriate religious behavior of a Jew and discusses the moral consequences of the recognition of Providence. The work was written in Portuguese instead of Hebrew - as the author originally had intended, in order to serve those former Marranos, Spanish and Portuguese descendants of Jews, who had been living as Christians in the Iberian Peninsula. The author, Isaac Hayym Jessurun (d. 1665) was the first Haham of the Portuguese Jewish Congregation of Bet Israel at Hamburg. Born in Venice, he was the author of the Halachic work, Panim Chadashoth (Venice, 1651). See M. Studemund-Halevy, Bibliographisches Lexicon der Hamburger Sefarden, pp. 515-16