Pithchei Ya-h [Kabbalah].

ISSACHAR BAER BEN PETHACHIAH MOSHE OF KREMENETZ.

Gershom ben Bezalel Katz

(Prague)

1609

First Edition. Title-page serves as introduction. Illustration featuring tree of the Ten Sephiroth on f. 10v.

Vinograd, Prague 181.

Rare. R. Yissachar Baer of Kremenetz (d. before 1648) was one of the first Aschkenazi Jews to compose Kabbalistic works in the early-modern era. The present text is an introduction to the fundamentals of Cordoverian Kabbalah as set forth in the fundamental text “Pardess Rimonim.” The author writes in his introduction that in addition to being named for his father (Petachiah), the work is also an opening (Petach) leading from the threshold to the Inner Chamber of God (Ya-h). See Andrea Gondos, Kabbalah in Print: Literary Strategies of Popular Mysticism in Early Modernity (doctoral dissertation, Concordia University, 2013) pp. 209-.