Sha’ar Bath Rabim [prayers for the entire year]. According to Aschkenazi rite. With commentary Hadrath Kodesh by Isaac Segal of Herlisheim

(LITURGY)

Bragadin

Venice

1711-15

Two parts in two volumes (complete). Titles within magnificent engraved border. Introduction by Isaac Pacifico. A fine, wide-margined set

Vinograd, Venice 1596

This sumptuous and extraordinarily large Machzor was printed for the use of the Chazan at the request of the Aschkenazi congregations of a number of leading Italian communities: Venice, Padua, Rovigo, Verona, Mantua, Casale Monferrato, and Gorizia. Because of the enormous expense involved in this publishing endeavor, preceding the volume’s customary rabbinic endorsements, two Italian magisterial documents appear, providing copyright protection for twelve years. In his commentary here, R. Isaac Segal, who served as Cantor in the town of Herlisheim, not only reflects upon the texts of the prayers, but also provides a compilation of laws and customs based on Aschkenazic source material. Segal defends the recitation of the somewhat controversial piyut Mal'achei Rachamim - that beseeches God via an intermediary. The issue is treated at length by Isaac Lampronti in his encyclopedic work, Pachad Yitzchak, s.v. Tzerachav. For a full discussion, see S. Sprecher, Ha-Pulmus al Amirath Machnisei Rachamim in: Yeshurun, Vol. III (1997), pp. 706-29