(The SHeLa”H HaKodosh). Shnei Luchoth HaBrith. With: Vavei Ha’Amudim by the author’s son, Shabthai Sheftel.

HOROWITZ, YESHAYA BEN AVRAHAM HALEVI

Immanuel Benveniste

Amsterdam

1648-49

FIRST EDITION. Divisional title-page for Vavei Ha’Amudim.

Vinograd Amsterdam 163.

The Rare First Edition. A native of Prague, R. Isaiah Halevi Horowitz (1565-1630), was educated in the talmudic academies of Poland. After a stint as Av-Beth-Din of Frankfurt a/Main, he served as Rabbi of Prague. In 1621, he settled in Jerusalem, where he became Rabbi of the Aschkenazic community of the city. In Eretz Israel he availed himself of the esoteric teachings of the Ar’i (1534-1572) and his disciples. These Kabbalistic teachings, only recently revealed, were duly incorporated into R. Horowitz's magnum opus, Shnei Luchoth HaBerith. Part Halachic code and part Kabbalistic treatise, the Shnei Luchoth Habrith exerted tremendous influence upon the Aschkenazi Jewish world and helped more than any other work to introduce the Kabbalah into daily religious life. The SHela”H HaKadosh is the source for many of the fundamental teachings of the early Chassidic Movement. See M.J. Heller, The Seventeenth Century Hebrew Book, Vol. 1, pp. 654-655.