Seder Olam Rabah VeZuta U’Megilath Ta’anith [“The Order of the World, Major and Minor” and the “Scroll of Fasts”: Three early historical narratives]. With commentary by Jacob Emden

EMDEN, JACOB.

Christian Simon Schröder

Hamburg

1757

FIRST EDITION WITH EMDEN’S COMMENTS. With a halachic discussion of Birkath HaChamah

Vinograd, Hamburg 87; Raphael, Areshet III, p.270, no. 28-1

Seder Olam Rabah is traditionally attributed to the 2nd-century Tanna R. Yosé ben Chalafta. The anonymous Seder Olam Zuta is a much later work, Emden speculates that it was composed at the end of the Savoraic period with later additions. Appended to the work Emden provides details relating to Sabbatianism and their followers in Poland, including eyewitness testimony concerning sexual improprieties by the Frankists. Emden also encourages the Vaad Arba Aratzoth to denounce these Jewish heretics to the Catholic Church due to their excessive immoral behavior. Altogether, an invaluable historical account of the heretical Frankist Movement, provided by their most implacable enemy