AUERBACH, ISAAC. Girsa di-Yenuka [Hebrew grammar for children]

(CHILDREN’S LITERATURE)

Hirsch b. Chaim of Fuerth

Wilhermsdorf

1718

FIRST EDITION. With Yiddish translation. Title in typographic border. Decorative endpiece

Vinograd, Wilhermsdorf 94; M.N. Rosenfeld, Jewish Printing in Wilhermsdorf (1995), no. 84

The exercises in this Hebrew grammar - and in many others to come - involve conjugating the verb PKD, “to command.” An interesting anecdote is told concerning Rabbi Kook, Chief Aschkenazic Rabbi of Eretz Israel, who is reputed to have said in jest: “I am unable to dictate and command others (“pakod pakadeti”) - for I did not learn Hebrew grammar from this exercise book.”