Pirkei Shirah. With Kabbalistic commentaries Siach Yitzchak and Sha’ar Shimon by the brothers, Yitzchak and Shimon Wolf, sons of Meir Nikolsburg of Prague

(KABBALAH)

Bragadin

Venice

1664

FIRST EDITION of commentaries. On title, printer's device (see Yudlov, Hebrew Printers’ Marks pp. 53-4). Title within double columns featuring Moses and Solomon, at top, two angels presenting the Decalogue

Vinograd, Venice 1368; Steinschneider 3287

Pirkei Shirah is an ancient composition thought to be part of the corpus of 2nd-century Hechalot Literature. In Perek Shirah each member of the Animal Kingdom is assigned a verse from the Bible which it utters in praise of the Creator. See EJ, Vol. XIII, cols. 273-5. In the approbations to this edition, the rabbis of Venice, Verona and Mantua have only superlative praise for the two brothers who co-authored the work. R. Moses Zacuto, the leading contemporary Italian kabbalist, was especially effusive in his praise, titling R. Yitzchak, “sover ha-razim...mekubbal, he-chasid ("explainer of secrets...the pious kabbalist).” In the commentary Sha’ar Shimon (f.14r.) there is a discussion of the holy name “Ke-DaT” written on the forehead of Messiah, son of David. The origin of this motif is R. Samson of Ostropolia, martyred in the Chmielnicki massacres of 1648. See Y. Liebes, "Mysticism and Reality" in: Twersky and Septimus (eds.) Jewish Thought in the Seventeenth Century (1987) p. 226