Sepher Rav Mordechai. With commentary by Menachem David of Tiktin (entitled Mahara”m)

MORDECHAI BEN HILLEL HAKOHEN

Isaac Prostitz

Cracow

1598

SECOND sEPARATE EDITION. First Edition of Commentary. Former owner’s signature on title

Vinograd, Cracow 209

The Mordechai is a great repository of Aschkenazic or German Halacha, in which over 300 books and authors are cited, most notably the responsa of Rabbi Meir of Rothenburg. The author, Mordechai ben Hillel Hakohen (1240?-1298) was a brother-in-law of R. Meir Hakohen, author of Hagahoth Maimoniyoth, an Aschkenazic gloss to Maimonides’ Code, and an outstanding disciple of R. Meir ben Baruch of Rothenburg. Together with his wife and five children, Mordechai was killed in the Rindfleisch Massacres in Nuremburg. (See EJ, Vol. XII, cols. 311-314). Most of our Mahara”m commentary has been incorporated into the Chidushei Anshei Shem found in the standard Vilna edition of the Talmud, under the rubric “Mahara”m Tiktin.” However, the present first edition of the commentary, contains a number of responsa (viz. verso of title and f. 61b-62a), as well as an introductory essay by the exegete’s son Asher, left out of the subsequent editions