Torath ha-Adam [Kabbalistic ethics]

OSTRER, SAMUEL BEN SHALOM

n.p.

“Safed” (i.e. Lemberg)

n.d. (1860)

Second edition. Title in typographic border. On title, stamp of “Samuel Noah ben R”P of Karev.” (See below)

Friedberg T-979

The author was the grandson of R. Moses ben Hillel Ostrer (from Ostroh, d. 1785). The latter, together with R. Chaim Sanzer (not to be confused with the later R. Chaim Halberstam of Sanz), headed the kabbalistic conventicle or “Kloiz” of Brody. R. Moses Ostrer’s commentary to the Song of Songs, “Arugath ha-Bosem,” was held in the highest esteem by the founder of Chassidism, R. Israel Ba’al Shem Tov, who is reported to have said that at the time R. Moses Ostrer composed the commentary, the soul of King Solomon [author of Song of Songs] was invested in him. See A.I. Sperling, Ta’amei ha-Minhagim u-Mekorei ha-Dinim (Jerusalem: Eshkol, n.d.), p. 12, citing R. Shalom of Belz. No doubt it was due to the Ba’al Shem Tov’s recommendation that R. Isaac of Komarno saw fit to include “Arugath ha-Bosem” in his edition of the Pentateuch, “Heichal Berachah.” See EJ, Vol. X, col. 554. R. Noah of Karev (1794-1855) was a disciple of the famed “Chozeh of Lublin,” R. Jacob Isaac Horowitz. In 1841 he became a chassidic rebbe in his own right, nevertheless, maintained deference to the famed R. Menachem Mendel of Kotzk. R. Noah authored a Chassidic work on the Pentateuch, “Kav Chen” (Breslau [i.e. Warsaw], 1866). See Y. Alfasi, Ha-Chassiduth (1977), p. 176, no. 146. It is assumed that the erstwhile owner of this copy was a grandson of the famed Chassidic Rebbe R. Noah of Karev