Omer Mann [commentary to Idra Zuta, with text]

DI LONZANO, MENACHEM BEN YEHUDAH.

Krotoschin

1709

Manuscript in Hebrew, written in a neat rabbinic hand on paper. Copyist: R. Azriel ben Shmuel, endpaper with signature of previous owner: Eliezer Joel… Brod. Marginalia in a later hand.

This complete Zoharic commentary remains unpublished. The version of di Lonzano’s Omer Mann that was published in Vilna in 1883 is only a small part of the complete commentary. The present manuscript contains lengthier, more complete variant readings - even of those portions that have been published. This manuscript was written by a scribe who clearly was also an accomplished Kabbalistic scholar. The author disagrees in places with both R. Chaim Vital and the Ar’i za’l – the copyist in turn, defends them. The scribe records his own Kabbalistic insights (ff. 3a-b, 5a-b,17b, 33a, 38a and 44b. The scribe, R. Azriel ben Shmuel was a well known scribe/scholar and was hired by R. David Oppenheim to copy manuscripts on his behalf. R. Azriel was multi talented and was able to write both in the Italian script as well as in the Ashkenazic script. R. David Oppenheim had difficulty reading scripts other than the Ashkenazic type. In R. Oppenheim’s library we find many manuscripts written by this scribe. R. Menachem di Lonzano emigrated from Italy to Eretz Israel where he died in 1624. His works include Derech Chaim, (Constantinople, 1573) and Shtei Yadoth (Venice, 1618).