Sha’ar Bath Rabim [prayers for festivals]. According to Aschkenazi rite. With commentary Hadrath Kodesh by Isaac Segal of Herrlisheim. Introduction by Isaac Pacifico.

(LITURGY)

Bragadin

Venice

1710-17

Two parts in four volumes. Titles within extravagantly engraved borders. Illustrations of signs of the Zodiac on ff. 175-7. Marginalia written in various hands, mostly providing variations on the liturgy esp. Vol. IV. Wide-margined copy on thicker paper.

Vinograd, Venice 1596.

This extraordinarily large Machzor was printed for the use of the Hazan at the request of the Aschkenazic congregations of a number of leading Italian communities: Venice, Padua, Rovigo, Verona, Mantua, Casale Monferrato and Gorizia. Due to the enormous expense involved in this publishing endeavor, preceding the volume’s customary rabbinic endorsements, two Italian magisterial documents appear, providing copyright protection for twelve years. In his commentary, R. Isaac Segal, who served as cantor in the town of Herrlisheim, not only reflects upon the texts of the prayers, but also provides a compilation of laws and customs based upon Aschkenazic source material. Segal defends the recitation of the somewhat controversial piyut “Malachei Rachamim” that beseeches God via the mediation of angels. The issue is treated at length by R. Isaac Lampronti in his encyclopedic work, Pachad Yitzchak, s.v. tzerachav. For a full discussion, see S. Sprecher "HaPulmus al Amirath Machnisei Rachamim" in: Yeshurun, Vol. III (1997) pp. 706-29.