Yonath Elem [kabbalah]

FANO, MENACHEM AZARIAH DA.

Judah ben Mordechai and Partners

Amsterdam

1648

Vinograd, Amsterdam 150; Fuks, Amsterdam 254.

One of ten Kabbalistic treatises, collectively entitled Asarah Ma’amaroth. R. Menachem Azariah (1548-1620), of a well-to-do banking family in Bologna, Italy, was first a follower of the Cordoveran system of kabbalah but afterward, under the influence of an elusive figure, R. Israel Sarug, switched his allegiance to the Lurianic school. The propagation of kabbalah emanating from Safed in Europe was largely due to his prolific efforts. The title cites the words of the “Shelah HaKadosh” R. Isaiah Horowitz, who advised a colleague to attach himself to this work, which is “pleasing in the eyes of God and man”. See Robert Bonfil, New Information on Rabbi Menahem Azariah da Fano and his Age” (Hebrew) in: Studies in the History of Jewish Society in the Middle Ages and in the Modern Period [Jacob Katz Festschrift] (1980), pp. 98-135.