Shulchan Aruch al Derech Ha’Emeth [i.e. Nagid U’Metzaveh]. With: Tikunei Teshuva.

TZEMACH, YA’AKOV BEN CHAIM.

26th Iyar

Meron

1646

Manuscript in Hebrew written in a semi-cursive Sephardic hand on paper. Marginalia in another hand.

This manuscript, with the title “Shulchan Aruch al Derech HaEmeth,” is a different recension of the popular “Nagid U’Metzaveh,” customs and laws extracted from the writings of the Ar’i za’l. Nagid U’Metzaveh served as the basis for the “Shulchan Aruch shel Ha’Ari” published in Prague, 1660, which in turn served as the source for the Kabbalistic customs cited by the Magen Avraham in his commentary to Shulchan Aruch Orach Chaim (see Y. Avivi, Kabbalath Ha’ari, Vol. II, pp. 752-53). This text thus served as the vehicle for the introduction of Lurianic customs into classical halachic works. R. Ya’akov Tzemach (c.1580-1667) was born in Lisbon and moved to Salonika where he returned to live a fully Jewish life. His studies took him to Damascus and to Safed where he became the foremost student of R. Shmuel Vital. See G. Scholem, On the Life of the Kabbalist Jacob Zemach and his Literary Activities in: Kiryat Sepher Vol. 26, (1950) pp. 185-94. The colophon (f. 64a) notes that the manuscript was composed in Meron, alongside the grave of R. Shimon bar Yochai. MANUSCRIPTS WRITTEN IN MERON ARE MOST UNCOMMON.