Ohr HaYashar [Kabbalistic commentary to the prayers, with text/.

POPPERS, MEIR HAKOHEN.

Moshe Diaz

Amsterdam

1709

FIRST EDITION published under this title with the full text of the Siddur, Pirkei Avoth and additional material by Tzvi Hirsch Chazan, Dayan of Posen. The YIVO copy.

Vinograd, Amsterdam 880; St. Cat. Bod. 2285; Ohr Ha-Yashar, C. Y. Waldman, ed., Jerusalem. 1981

Part of this work was originally published under the title Ohr Tzadikim in Hamburg, 1690. The new editor, Tzvi Hirsch Chazan states that the Hamburg edition is an abbreviated version of a manuscript in his possession and filled with errors. The present editor added a section entitled Tephilah Yesharah BeKavanath Halev in which he included the entire text of the prayer book interspersed with his own material based upon the Ari z"l and others. The Ohr Hayashar as edited by R. Tzvi Hirsch Chazan is held in the highest esteem within Chassidic circles. The first Rebbe of Belz, R. Shalom, stated that his "initial entry to Yirath Shamayim was through this work." See approbation by R. Yehoshua of Belz to Siddur Tephillah LeMoshe (Cordovero) with Ohr HaYashar (Przemysl, 1892). R. Meir Hakohen Poppers (d. 1662), the last editor of the Lurianic writings, is considered one of the most authoritative interpreters of that system of Kabbalah. His tripartite division of the Lurianic corpus into Derech Etz Chaim, Peri Etz Chaim and Noph Etz Chaim, became the accepted arrangement in Germany and Poland.