Sepher HaZichronoth [ethics].

ABOAB, SHMUEL.

(Prague

1650)

Title within wreathed arch.

Vinograd, Prague 367.

A work of practical halacha (halakha le-ma’aseh). There is some question as to the authorship of the book. It is attributed alternatively to Samuel ben Abraham Aboab or to Isaac ben Abraham Hayim Jesurun of Hamburg (d. 1655). The final four leaves of the book transcribe a lengthy admonition of Rabbi Judah Löw (MaHaRa”L) of Prague concerning the drinking of stam yeinam (non-Jewish wine). Prof. Haym Soloveitchik has shown how lax Italian and also Moravian Jewry were in this respect, and how halakhists dealt with this challenge to traditional observance. See H. Soloveitchik, Principles and Pressures: Jewish Trade in Gentile Wine in the Middle Ages (Hebrew: “Yeinam”) (Tel Aviv, 2003), p. 118, n. 76.