AVIEZER BEN ISAAC OF TITKIN. Sha’arei Tzedek LeZera Yitzchak [“Gates of Righteousness”: Kabbalistic treatises]

(KABBALAH)

Israel Bak

Jerusalem

1843

Only edition. Author’s inscription on front fly-leaf. The David Yellin Copy.

Halevy 16

The author, was a renowned Lithuanian kabbalist, who migrated to Eretz Israel in 1840. See N.Z. Friedman, Otzar ha-Rabbanim, A-40. The present work is divided into four she’arim (gates): 1. Sha’arei Orah (which bemoans the tragedies that befell the three cities of Safed, Jerusalem, and Tiberias); 2. Sha’arei Teshuvah (on repentance); 3. Sha’arei Yosher (responses to sectarians); 4. Sha’arei Yeshu’ah (belief in imminent salvation). As an afterthought, the author appended Ne’ilath HaSha’ar, wherein he predicts redemption in the year 5620 [1860], the numerical value of “Zaphnath” (the Egyptian name of Joseph). This Josephic motif appears also in the “Kol HaTor” by R. Hillel of Shklov, a disciple of the Vilna Gaon. (The Author, R. Aviezer of Tiktin cites the famous passage in the Vilna Gaon's commentary to Siphra DeTzeni'utha, wherein the Gaon states that all future events - in their most minute details - are alluded to in the Pentateuch. See f.47r.) The third part of the work, Sh’arei Yosher was in response to the extraordinary incident in 1843, when exasperated by the failure of the Redemption to materialize in the year 5600 (1840) as predicted by the Zohar, two members of the elite Jerusalem community of Perushim converted to Christianity. R. Aviezer postulates that the Redemption did indeed commence in the year 1840 but will not become evident until the year 1846 or at latest 1860 (f.68r.). In a dazzling discourse on the dimension of Time (foreshadowing Einstein’s theory of relativity), R. Aviezer demonstrates that Ein Sof (the Infinite) cannot be constricted to Man’s limited conception of Time. See A. Morgenstern, Ge’ulah BeDerech HaTeva (1979) pp. 12-16.