Tikun Lavan Ha’Arami.

GUENZBURG, MORDECHAI AARON.

Vilna

1864

First edition . With frontispiece portrait of the author.

Satiric poem and essay concerning a charlatan who masqueraded as a Kabbalist, who used the “Tikun” of the Biblical Laban - a swindler and a scoundrel - to “fix” those whom he ensnared. With an introduction by the author’s brother warning against so-called wonder rabbis (“Baalei Shem.”) The author (1795-1846) was one of the leading spokesmen of the Vilna Maskilim and founder of the first modern Jewish school in Lithuania. Interestingly Guenzberg’s portrait here displays a man of traditional appearance, garbed with peyoth and frock-coat buttoned in the Orthodox style (right-over-left).