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Bidding Information
Lot #    13165
Auction End Date    1/24/2006 12:16:30 PM (mm/dd/yyyy)
          
Title Information
Title (English)    Kadmut Sefer ha-Zohar
Title (Hebrew)    קדמות ספר הזוהר
Author    [First Ed. - Kabbalah] R. David Luria
City    [Koenigsberg]
Publication Date    [1856]
          
Collection Information
Independent Item    This listing is an independent item not part of any collection
          
Description Information
Physical
Description		    First edition. [2], 38, 8 ff., 190:118 mm., nice margins, light age staining. A very good copy bound in modern half cloth boards.
          
Detailed
Description		    Notes to the Zohar, aimed at proving that its author was indeed R. Simeon b. Yohai by R. David b. Judah Luria (1798–1855), Lithuanian rabbi and scholar. R. Luria was born in Bykhow, Mogilev region. He studied under R. Saul Katzenellenbogen in Vilna, but in 1815 returned to his native town, where he remained for the rest of his life and where he founded a yeshivah. A false accusation that grew out of a family quarrel in Bykhow, supported by letters forged in his name attacking the czarist government, led to his imprisonment in the fortress of Schluesselburg, from which he was released when the forgeries came to light (1837/38). Luria was active in communal affairs and together with Isaac Volozhyner met with Sir Moses Montefiore when the latter visited Vilna in 1846 to investigate the condition of the Jews in Russia. R. Luria corresponded with I. B. Levinsohn, encouraging the translation of his book, Zerubavel, as a useful weapon against the calumnious attacks on the Talmud by anti-Semites and the maskilim. In one of his responsa to the rabbis of Mantua, he vehemently attacked the reformists for their attempts to delete from the liturgy the prayers for the coming of the Messiah and the future redemption (Responsa, Ra-Dal (1898) 21c–d).

R. Luria was regarded as one of the Torah leaders of his generation, particularly after the death of his spiritual mentor, R. Elijah b. Solomon (Gaon of Vilna). His literary works embrace almost all the books of the Oral Law. They are chiefly textual glosses, notes, source references, and expositions of the sayings of the talmudic scholars, reflecting extraordinary knowledge of Torah together with a feeling for scientific criticism and an understanding of the plain meaning reminiscent of the methods followed by the Gaon of Vilna.

Of his works the following are particularly worthy of note: his commentary to the Mishnah (Vilna, 1886–90); his notes to most of the Talmud, and his glosses to the Midrash Rabbah, which were published in the large Vilna (Romm) editions; his commentaries to the Midrash Samuel Rabbati (1852); to the Pesikta Rabbati de Rav Kahana (1893), to the Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer (1852) with an extensive and detailed introduction; Kokhevei-Or (1877), notes to Sefer Yuhasin and to Seder ha-Dorot; notes to the She'iltot of Ahai Gaon (1861); Nefesh David (appended to the Yahal Or (1882) of the Vilna Gaon), expositions of the Zohar and the Zohar Hadash; a commentary on the Book of Esther (1887); and several responsa (1898). R. Luria also arranged for the publication of several works of the Vilna Gaon, adding to them his own notes: To'elet Eliyahu (1856) on the aggadot to Bava Kamma, the glosses of the Gaon on the Jerusalem Talmud; order of Zera'im, and R. Luria's own glosses on the order Mo'ed (1858). He also wrote notes on Aliyyot Eliyahu (1882), R. Joshua H. Lewin's book on the Gaon.

          
Paragraph 2    כי ... מרשב"י [ר' שמעון בר יוחאי] ותלמידיו מקורו הנאמן ... נחלק לחמשה ענפים ... מעשי ידי ... מו"ה דוד לוריא מבוחאב זצוק"ל. ונלוה אליו... קינה לדוד, מספד מר על פטירת הגאון המחבר ז"ל אשר קונן עליו הרב ... יחיאל העליר נ"י אב"ד דק"ק סוואלק ... נדפס והוגה ע"י נכד דודו של ... המחבר [ר' שמואל לוריא] ...

שנת הדפוס על-פי קינה לדוד, מאת ר' יחיאל הלר, שיצא לאור עמו, עם שער-מעטפת, ובו הפרט: ה'ר'ב' ה'ג'א'ו'ן' מ'"ו' ד'ו'ד' ל'ו'ר'י'א' ז'"ל' [תרט"ז], בראש הספר: הצעה ... [מאת] המוציא לאור. בה הוא מביע את צערו "על אשר לא עלתה מחשבת ... המחבר ז"ל, אשר הי' עם לבבו הנאמר להוסיף עוד ענף במאמר הנוכחי ... להראות חכמות רמות ומדעים נשגבים הכלולים בזוהר הק'". דף ו-כב: ענף השני. לברר שכבר הגאונים ... הביאו מאמרים בעניני הקבלה בשם מדרש ירושלמי כלשון ס' הזוהר ... ומדי הביאי דברי תשו' הגאונים האלו, מצאתי חובה לעצמי להעיר עליהם ולפרשם ... בתשובת הגאונים הנדפס ס"ס [סוף ספר] נהרות דמשק [לר' שלמה ב"ר אברהם קאמונדו] בשם שערי תשובה (נדפס בשאלוניקי תקס"ב), נמצאים כמה תשובות לר' האי ושארי גאונים ... והנני מעתיקם בלשונם ... עם הערות ופירושים עליהם. כן הובאו תשובות גאונים בודדות מתוך שאלות ותשובות ר' משה אלאשקאר סימן יח, ומתוך ספר הפרדס לרש"י.

          
Reference
Description		    CD-EPI 0178612; EJ; I. B. Levinsohn, Be'er Yizhak (1899), 163–5; H. N. Maggid-Steinschneider, Ir Vilna (1900), 157–9.
        
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Listing Classification
Period
19th Century:    Checked
  
Location
Germany:    Checked
  
Subject
  
Kabbalah:    Checked
Polemics:    Checked
  
Characteristic
First Editions:    Checked
Language:    Hebrew
  
Manuscript Type
  
Kind of Judaica