Pirkei Avoth. With commentary Lechem Shamayim by Jacob Emden and super-commentary by Tzvi Hirsch of Berlin.

(ETHICS OF THE FATHERS).

Daniel Friedländer

Berlin

1834

FIRST EDITION. Title within floriated border. Engraved frontispiece portrait of Lewin following title. Below the portrait, a Torah scroll is held by a lion and a hart. The hart portrays the author’s name “Tzvi,” while the lion refers to his father’s name “Aryeh Leib”

Vinograd, Berlin 580; Rubens 1773

R. Tzvi Hirsch (b.1721), served from 1756 as Rabbi of London’s Great and Hambro synagogues (where he was known as Hart Lyon), and from 1771 until his death in 1800, as Chief Rabbi of Berlin and provinces (“Oberland-u.Stadt-Rabbiner in Berlin”). Lewin’s son was Solomon Hirschell, Anglo Jewry’s first Chief Rabbi. The present work is a surprisingly critical commentary by Lewin to his eminent uncle Jacob Emden’s explication on the Ethics of the Fathers. The glosses are typically signed TZaV”A, an acronym of Tzvi Berlin Aschkenazi. The author was named after his maternal grandfather R. Tzvi Aschkenazi (“The Chacham Tzvi”). Berlin’s father was R. Aryeh Leib, Rabbi of Amsterdam. (See the Introduction to R. Tzvi Hirsch Berlin, Tzeva Rav (Jerusalem, 2002). The engraved frontispiece was executed specifically for this volume