Hai ben Sherira (Gaon of Pumbeditha). Shirei Musar Haskel. And: Joseph Ezobi. Ke’arath HaKeseph.

(MINIATURE BOOK)

di Gara

Venice

1578

Vinograd, Venice 629 (not in Jerusalem).

A scarce miniature-book containing two Hebrew ethical poems. Vinograd apparently did not see a copy containing the original title-page. He entitles the work “Musar Haskel Bemelitza” which is the heading on the first text-leaf. The first poem is attributed to R. Hai Gaon (939-1038), the famed Gaon of the Talmudical Academy of Pumbeditha (today, the city of Fallujah, Iraq). The second is by Joseph Ezobi, a 13th-century Jewish poet who lived in Perpignan, Aragon (today France). His Ke’arath Keseph, is an ethical exhortation in 130 verses, written to his son on his wedding day. “Ezobi appeals to his son to follow the ways of the Torah and warns him not to be misled by Greek philosophy, and encourages him to learn grammar, to study the Talmud and its commentators, such as Alfasi and Maimonides, and to follow his own example and become a liturgist. He also enjoins his son not to favor the wealthy over the poor. In an appended note, he requests his son to read this poem every week.” (EJ). “He who desires to understand the culture and world view of an enlightened Jew of the 13th-century stands to gain much by reading Ke’arat Kesef.” See Hayyim Schirmann, Hebrew Poetry in Spain and Provence, 2nd ed., Book II, Vol. I, p. 343.