To’aliyoth ha-RaLBa”G [Moral Exhortations of the Pentateuch]

LEVI BEN GERSHOM (GERSONIDES).

Joseph Ottolenghi - Jacob Marcaria

Riva di Trento

1560

FIRST EDITION. Inscriptions on title

Vinograd, Riva di Trento 27; not in Adams

Gersonides was unique among the Biblical exegetes in that he provided the morals or “to’aliyoth” to be derived from the various stories of the Bible. Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Lubavitch (1789-1866), known as “Tzemach Tzedek,” commended Gersonides’ To’aliyoth when he presented to the Tsarist government his defense for the continued, uncensored and untrammeled instruction of Pentateuch to children. (See J.I. Schneersohn, The Tzemach Tzedek and the Haskala Movement). Other Chasidic leaders were less than fond of Gersonides. R. Nachman of Braslav, for instance, considered Gersonides’ philosophic views as an example of heresy