06:55:31


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Bidding Information
Lot #    17708
Auction End Date    4/24/2007 10:45:00 AM (mm/dd/yyyy)
          
Title Information
Title (English)    Massekhet Purim
Title (Hebrew)    îñëú ôåøéí
City    Warsaw
Publisher    ha-Ahim Levin-Epstein
Publication Date    193?
          
Collection Information
Independent Item    This listing is an independent item not part of any collection
          
Description Information
Physical
Description		    24 ff. octavo 200:132 mm., usual age staining. A good copy loose in contemporary boards.
          
Detailed
Description		    Purim parody in the form of a talmudic tractate, with Perush Rashi and Tosafot. Also included are hagadah le-lil Shikhurim, and selihot for Purim. Its humor is meant to be harmless, mocking drunkards, gluttons misers, and idlers. At the bottom of the page is an additional commentary, a parady of the Maharsha, entitled me-ha-Rasha. The second work is a parody of the Pesah haggadah for Purim quoting from Rabbi Bakbuk, Rabbi Shakrun, and others. The last work is selihot for Purim. All three works are clever, of great humor, and in a tradition of printing such works as early as the sixteenth century.

Despite their generally good natured humor these Purim parodies have been the subject of rabbinic disapproval, for example, by R. Samuel Aboab (1610-94, Devar Shemu’el (Venice, 1702), no. 193) and R. Hayyim David Azulai (Hida). R. Aboab writes,

because of moshav latzim and they transgress because of ‘Turn ye not unto the idols’ (Levitiicus 19:4), and one who writes such works, who transcribes them, and it is not necessary to mention those who print them cause the multitude to sin, etc. . . . [the Torah] clothes itself in sackcloth and says Thy children have made me as a harp upon which the scorners play . . .

          
Paragraph 2    ... âí äâãä ììéì ùëåøéí... ñìéçåú ìôåøéí... ùéø çãù...
          
Reference
Description		    BE mem 2549; Israel Davidson, Parody in Jewish Literature (New York, 1907, reprint New York, 1966), pp. 19-29, 117; Heller, Sixteenth Century Book; Waxman, A History of Jewish Literature, II pp. 606-08; CD-EPI 0178964
        
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Listing Classification
Period
20th Century:    Checked
  
Location
Russia-Poland:    Checked
  
Subject
Parody:    Checked
  
Characteristic
Language:    Hebrew
  
Manuscript Type
  
Kind of Judaica