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Bidding Information
Lot #    15763
Auction End Date    9/5/2006 1:21:00 PM (mm/dd/yyyy)
          
Title Information
Title (English)    Erlaeuterungen... ueber einen Theil der Propheten
Title (Hebrew)    פירושי שד'ל ז'ל
Author    [Noted Copy] R. Samuel David Luzzatto (Shedal)
City    Lemberg
Publisher    A. Isaak Menkes - C. Budweiser
Publication Date    1876
          
Collection Information
Independent Item    This listing is an independent item not part of any collection
          
Description Information
Physical
Description		    First edition. 210:138 mm., wide margins, usual age staining, stamps, old hand on title, plate. A good copy bound in later boards, rubbed.
          
Paragraph 1    The copy of R. Azriel Hildesheimer (1820–1899), German rabbi, scholar, educator, and leader of Orthodox Jewry was born in Halberstadt into a family of scholars, received his early education in the local Jewish school. He continued his talmudic studies under R. Jacob Ettlinger in Altona and R. Isaac Bernays in Hamburg. At Berlin University he studied Semitics, philosophy, history, and science, and eventually received his doctorate from the University of Halle. By his marriage to the daughter of Aaron Hirsch he became financially independent, enabling him to pursue freely his university studies and his subsequent career.

In 1851 Hildesheimer was appointed rabbi of the Austro-Hungarian community of Eisenstadt; there he reorganized the educational system and established a yeshivah, where secular studies were included in the curriculum. The yeshivah was highly successful, and students came there from all over Europe. However, the great majority of Orthodox Hungarian rabbis bitterly opposed his modernism and the institution he created. In 1869 Hildesheimer accepted a call from Berlin to become rabbi of the newly founded Orthodox congregation, Adass Jisroel. In 1873 he established a rabbinical seminary which later became the central institution for the training of Orthodox rabbis in Europe. Hildesheimer shared with S. R. Hirsch the leadership of the Orthodox Jewish community of Germany. He was an active worker on behalf of stricken Jewish communities throughout the world. Throughout his life, he was an enthusiastic supporter of Palestine Jewry and the building of the yishuv. The Battei Mahaseh dwellings in the Old City of Jerusalem were erected on his initiative. In 1872 he founded a Palaestina Verein with the object of raising the educational and vocational standards of Jerusalem Jews, particularly by the establishment in 1879 of an orphanage. This drew on his head the bitter antagonism of the ultra-Orthodox old yishuv, which placed him under a ban (herem). Hildesheimer supported the Hovevei Zion and the colonization movement.

          
Detailed
Description		    Often referred to by the acronym of Shedal, the Italian scholar, philosopher, Bible commentator, and translator is descendent from a long line of scholars. He wrote his first Hebrew poem at the age of nine. His mother died when he was 13 and his father's pecuniary status declined seriously making it necessary for the young Luzzatto to assist his father in his work. His own wife died after a long illness, and he eventually married her sister. He survived two of his children - one Philoxenus (or Filosseno), had been a young man of especially great promise. Samuel David's translation of the Ashkenazi prayer book into Italian appeared in 1821/22, and that of the Italian rite in 1829. He established a regular correspondence with the Jewish scholar, Isaac Samuel Reggio, and through the efforts of the latter, Luzzatto was appointed professor of the newly established rabbinical college of Padua in 1829. There he spent the rest of his life teaching Bible, philology, philosophy, and Jewish history. His versatility and the scope of his learning are best seen in the mass of letters written to all the outstanding Jewish savants of the day - to Geiger, Zunz, Rapoport, Steinschneider and others. He wrote a Hebrew commentary on the Pentateuch and the Haftarot. It is in this type of work that his attitude to Judaism is revealed. He was a traditionalist and maintained a firm belief in revelation and treated the text of the Torah with sacred regard although he occasionally allowed himself to depart from the traditional phrasing of the words as reflected in the Masorah and the Talmud.
          
Paragraph 2    על ירמיה, יחזקאל, משלי ואיוב... שהניח אחריו ברכה בכת"י... יצאו עתה לאור פעם ראשונה... בשנת א'ח'ר'י'ת' ט'ו'ב'

עמ' [רט]-רטז: תהלים. מזמור מט. בראש הספר (עמ' [I]-IV) הקדמת בן המחבר, ישעיה. כוללת: איגרת שכתב המחבר "לחכם אחד מעיר וויען" ובו "קצת מהדברים הנוגעים אלי". עיין להלן: רשימת המכתבים הנדפסים והבלתי נדפסים.

          
Reference
Description		    CD-EPI 0143594; EJ
        
Associated Images
2 Images (Click thumbnail to view full size image):
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  2   Click to view full size  
  
  
Listing Classification
Period
19th Century:    Checked
  
Location
Germany:    Checked
Russia-Poland:    Checked
  
Subject
Bible:    Checked
  
Characteristic
Autographed:    Checked
First Editions:    Checked
Language:    Hebrew
  
Manuscript Type
  
Kind of Judaica