Akeidath Yitzchak [philosophical and allegorical homilies to the Pentateuch and Five Megilloth].

ARAMA, ISAAC.

Giovanni di Gara

Venice

1573

First Edition with commentary to the Five Scrolls. Title within woodcut architectural arch. First words of Genesis and Exodus in white within arabesques. The Elkan Nathan Adler copy, with his book-plate. Also with 19th-century signature of R. Mordechai Eliezer Ya’akov Tanuri.

Vinograd, Venice 587.

Affectionately known as the “Ba’al Akeidah,” Isaac Arama’s work has been consistently quoted and utilized down to the present day. The author’s great popularity stems from his stylistic combination of the Aschkenazic moralizing style with the philosophic tendency popular among Spanish and Provencal Jews. The title of the work, “Binding of Isaac,” refers to the successful binding and connecting of the two forms of homiletics: “Derishah” and “Perishah.” See I. Rivkind, Kiryat Sepher, vol. II p. 60. The commentary to the Book of Esther is actually the work of R. Isaac Arama’s son, R. Meir Arama.