(Traditionally attributed to.) Tapuchei Zahav [Zohar on Megillath Ruth.]

SHIMON BAR YOCHAI.

Eliezer ben Naphtali Treves & Joseph ben Naphtali

Thiengen

1560

FIRST EDITION. Commentary to Psalm 41 and notes on rear endpaper including signatures: Yitzchak b. Yehoshua, Meir b. Yitzchak Horowitz who sold it to Meir the son-in-law of Zelig Katz.

Vinograd, Thiengen 3; St., Cat. Bodl. 3501; Weiner 3442; Scholem, Bibliographia Kabbalistica p.177 no. 20.

The third of only seven Hebrew books printed from 1560-67 in this small German town (today called Waldshut-Tiengen) along the Swiss border in the province of Baden-Württemberg - all are very scarce (indeed all are unknown to Adams.) Although on the title-page this work is entitled Tapuchei Zahav, the title on top of the margins reads Yesod Shirim (the foundation of poetry.) This is explained at the bottom of the title and the end of the introduction as referring to King David, the Chief Poet. It was later republished under the title Yesod Shirim in Cracow, 1593. This is the first edition of the Midrash HaNe’elam (”Esoteric Midrash”) to the book of Ruth published during the same period of the Sepher HaZohar in Mantua and Cremona, 1558-60. On the importance of this edition see Daniel Abrams, Introduction to the Facsimile Edition of Midrash HaNe’elam-Zohar Ruth (Jerusalem, 1992). This work should not be confused with a different version of the Zohar on the Book of Ruth issued under the title Har Ado-nai (Amsterdam, 1712) and which according to Gershom Scholem (Kabbalah p. 219) was composed in Poland in the 17th century.