Mordechai Aschkenazi. Eshel Avraham [commentary to the introduction of the Zohar and selected texts of Genesis and Exodus.]

(SABBATIANA).

Model of Ansbach

Fuerth

1701

FIRST EDITION. Title within borders depicting Moses and Aaron and David slaying Goliath. Kabbalistic charts and diagrams on ff. 45b-46a and 145b-146a-b. A Wide Margined Cop.

Vinograd, Fuerth, 66.

The author states that he entitled this work Eshel Avraham in tribute to his master Abraham Rovigo. Aschkenazi states that through the principles revealed in this book one can understand more of the Zohar in three months than others have been able to do in as many years. The work carries the enthusiastic approbations of the great rabbis of the period including David Oppenheim of Prague. According to Scholem, Aschkenazi wrote the Eshel Avraham “based on a new interpretation of the Zohar he received from heaven.” Steinschneider attributes the work to Rovigo, one of the leading students of Moses Zacuto in the study of Kabbalah. According to E. Carlebach, The Pursuit of Heresy (1990), pp. 76, “Abraham Rovigo was a Sabbatian whose early fervor endured after the apostasy… After he weathered the crisis of Sabbatai Zebi’s death, Rovigo remained a Sabbatian activist of the first rank, his home a nerve center for Sabbatian activities.” See Steinschneider, Cat. Bodl. 4299:1; and G. Scholem, Chalomotav shel HaShabbeta’i R. Mordechai Aschkenazi (1938).