Sepher ha-Kuzari [philosophy]. With commentary “Kol Yehudah” by Judah Moscato

HALEVI, JUDAH

Giovanni di Gara

Venice

1594

Third edition. FIRST EDITION with commentary. Title within garlanded architectural arch. Signature of “David Oppenheim” on title. (See below.) Bound between ff.58-9, single manuscript leaf by Samuel Moses Feilbogen of Mezritch, dated 1834

Vinograd, Venice 794; Habermann, di Gara 144; Adams J-401

THE DAVID OPPENHEIMER COPY. Collector par excellance, David ben Abraham Oppenheimer (1664-1736) was Rabbi of Prague and later Landrabbiner (Chief Rabbi) of all of Bohemia. A bibliophile from his early youth, his family wealth enabled him to establish a formidable library, which now resides in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. The paste-in manuscript restores a passage concerning Christianity lacking in our edition due to the constraints of Church censorship. Thus, in Part I, par. 4 of the Kuzari (f.17r.), the word “Parsi”(Persian) has been substituted for “Notzri” (Christian), and an entire paragraph deleted. The writer informs us that the commentary Otzar Nechmad already unmasked the true Christian identity of this feigned “Parsi.” Se Y. Even Shmuel (Kaufman), Sepher ha-Kozari (1972), pp. 5-6, 247 USE FOR NEXT TIME: Kuzari: the “philosophy of anti-philosophy” In the past century, the study of the Kuzari was encouraged by R. Abraham Isaac Kook, Chief Rabbi of Israel; R. Ezekiel Sarna, dean of the Hebron Yeshivah; and R. Shraga Feivel Mendelowitz of Yeshivah Torah Voda’ath, Brooklyn. They valued its experiential approach over and against the rationalism of Maimonides.