Giv'ath Shaul [eulogy for Saul Halevi, Av Beth Din of The Hague]

DERKHEIM, ISAAC.

Widow and Orphans Proops

Amsterdam

1786

FIRST EDITION. Title within typographic border. Printer’s device on title, f.8v. and final leaf. On title, signature of former owner "Elazar Lazar Berlin," and the notation "purchased from the estate of my father Isaac Berlin, Sivan 1720"

Vinograd, Amsterdam 2151

Rabbi Saul Halevi (1712-1785) served as Rabbi of the Hague from 1748 until his death. His wife, Dinah, daughter of Chief Rabbi Aryeh Leib of Amsterdam, was famous for her vast Jewish knowledge and her ability to write Hebrew verse, as attested to by the Jewish traveller R. Chaim Joseph David Azulai (Chid"a). See M.H. Gans, Memorbook, p.243. On f.10v. the author makes mention of the recent inventions of the microscope and telescope as a means of solving the philosophical conundrum of Free Will versus Divine Foreknowledge. On the next page (f.11r.), he includes a fascinating insight by Maimonides on the inevitability of high-speed air travel, whereby, a traveller may be in Surat, India in the morning, and by evening, have reached Philadelphia, America. See M. Silber, America in Hebrew Literature, p. 45.