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Sefer ha-Mefo'ar, R. Judah Khalaz, Constantinople, Eliezer ben Gershom Soncino, 1537. First edition.
Ethical work with kabbalistic content. R. Judah ben Abraham Khalaz (d. before 1537), scion of a distinguished family, left Castile for Granada in 1477, due to persecution of the Jews. Five years later he removed to Malaga, then, in 1486, to Honain, and finally to Tlemcen, Algeria, where he was a leader of the community, a teacher, and was regarded as one of the great rabbinic figures of his time. The family name Khalaz is, perhaps, derived from the Arabic khallaz, collector of taxes.
Sefer ha-Mefo'ar, better known by its subtitle, Sefer ha-Musar, is essentially an abridgment of Israel ben Joseph ibn Al-Nakawa's (Alnaqua, d. 1391) Menorat ha-Ma'or. A popular, but also a long, extensive, scholarly work-it was first printed in the twentieth century-Khalaz made the Menorat ha-Ma'or more accessible for the average person. Strangely, Al-Nakawa's name is not mentioned in the Sefer ha-Mefo'ar, nor in the lengthy introduction written by Moses ben Eliezer Khalaz, the nephew (grandson?) who brought the book to press. It has been suggested that this is due to the fact that Menorat ha-Ma'or was so well known to the Jews of North Africa that it was not necessary for Khalaz to mention his source, and that, as in many of his other books, Khalaz's sole objective was to provide a practical work for students and the average person. Furthermore, he does not, anywhere in the Sefer ha-Mefo'ar, take credit for having written the book.
A considerable amount of kabbalistic content is to be found in Sefer ha-Mefo'ar. Khalaz explains the inclusion of this material in the introduction, primarily from the Zohar. He has included it to elucidate the precepts and to aid in disseminating kabbalistic concepts among the Jewish public.
Sefer ha-Mefo'ar is divided into twenty chapters dealing with such topics as charity, repentance, humility, respect for parents, flattery, and rejoicing in one's lot, following the order of the Menorat ha-Ma'or. Sefer ha-Mefo'ar, however, is much more than a simple abridgment. Although the fourth chapter, on the obligations of prayer, comprising about a fifth of the book, is taken almost in its entirety from Al-Nakawa's work, the contents of other chapters do not follow the order of the original, and the style and language are completely different. Commentaries on earlier works and variant positions of earlier sages are omitted. Khalaz also added material of his own, as did Moses Khalaz, the latter primarily of kabbalistic content. Moses Khalaz's lengthy introduction was much abbreviated in later editions.
Khalaz wrote several other works, also primarily for students, among them a commentary on the Ramban's (Nahmanides, Moses b. Nahman) novellae on Bava Mezia; an introductory work to the Talmud; Alaggid Mishneh on the laws of shehitah in the Rambam (Maimonides); and Mesi'ah Illemim, on Rashi's Bible commentary.
Mivhar ha-Peninim, R. Solomon ibn Gabirol, Venice, Daniel Bomberg, 1546. Second edition.
Philosophy attributed to R. Solomon ibn Gabirol (c. 1020–c. 1057), Jewish poet and philosopher. The main source of information on Gabirol's life is his poems, although frequently they offer no more than hints. He was apparently born in Malaga - or at any rate he lived there and regarded it as his native city, signing a number of his poems "Malki," i.e., from Malaga - but as a child he was taken to Saragossa, where he acquired an extensive education. Orphaned at an early age, he wrote a number of elegies on the death of his father; on his mother's death in 1045, he mourned both his parents in "Nihar be-Kore'i". Gabirol complained of his weak physique, small stature, and ugliness, and it is apparent that he was frequently ill in his childhood, suffering particularly from a serious skin disease that he seems to describe in his strange and terrifying poem "Ha-Lo Ezdak." Beginning to write poetry at an early age, at the latest 16 when he wrote Azharot (Venice, 1572), Gabirol likened himself to a 16-year-old with the heart of an 80-year-old ("Ani ha-Sar," 8). His self-esteem, at times verging on arrogance, brought him into frequent conflict with influential men of his day, whom he attacked virulently. Since he wanted to devote his life to philosophy and poetry, he was dependent on the support of wealthy patrons, a subservience against which he rebelled from time to time. One of his more important supporters was Jekuthiel b. Isaac ibn Hasan, whom he praised in a number of poems for his knowledge of the Talmud and the sciences, his interest in poetry, and his generosity ("Ve-At Yonah"). In 1038 Gabirol wrote a number of elegies on the death of R. Hai b. Sherira Gaon. At the age of 19, he completed his great didactic poem, "Anak." In the next year, when Jekuthiel was killed as a result of court intrigues, Gabirol wrote two elegies, one of which ("Bi-Ymei Yekuti'el Asher Nigmaru") is regarded as one of the greatest of Jewish medieval secular poems. With the loss of his patron, Gabirol's financial status and social standing were drastically lowered and his incessant squabbling with the town nobles caused him considerable suffering. It is thought that he wrote Tikkun Middot ha-Nefesh ("The Improvement of the Moral Qualities") in 1045, and soon afterward he seems to have left Saragossa; from then on few details are available on his life and work. Some scholars believe that he lived for some time in Granada, where his patron was R. Samuel ha-Nagid, with whom he later quarreled as a result of his criticisms of Samuel's poems. Gabirol appears to have spent the year 1048–49 under the patronage of Nissim b. Jacob ibn Shahin, but it is doubtful if he ever was actually Nissim's student. He was on friendly terms with Isaac ibn Khalfun and Isaac Kapron.
According to Ibn Ezra, Gabirol died in Valencia at the age of 30, while R. Abraham b. David states that he died in 1070, when he was approximately 50. However, the most exact date seems to be that given by Ibn Said: 450 A. H. or 1057–58, when he was between 35 and 38. The many legends surrounding his life attest to the awe in which the man and his works were held after his death. One legend (found in the commentary to Sefer Yezirah (publ. Mantua, 1562), attributed to R. Saadiah Gaon) relates how Gabirol made a female golem out of wood; another (in Shalshelet ha-Kabbalah by Gedaliah ibn Yahya, Venice, 1587) tells how he was murdered by an Arab.
Behinat Olam, R. Jedaiah Bedersi (ha-Penini), Venice, Daniel Bomberg, 1546. Extensive marginal notes in a beautiful 16th century Italian rabbinic script. Fourth edition.
Popular poetical and philosophical work on the vanity of worldly things by R. Jedaiah ben Abraham Bedersi (ha-Penini, c. 1270–1340). This, the most famous of R. Jedaiah’s works, is also known as Shamayim la-Rom from its initial words, “The sky for height (shamayim la-rom) and the earth for depth” (Proverbs 25:3). It was written after the expulsion of the Jews from France in 1306, referred to in the book.
Behinat Olam discusses the uncertainties of fortune and the correct path to be followed. Its great popularity is demonstrated by the fact that an other edition was printed elsewhere the same year. Behinat Olam is a lyrical, ethical monograph on the theme of the futility and vanity of this world, and the inestimably greater benefits of intellectual and religious pursuits. Behinat Olam, written in florid prose and rich in imagery, combines philosophic doctrine and religious fervor with a good measure of asceticism and pessimism. It has been translated into English (Behinat Olam or An Investigation of... Organization of the World, London, 1806), Latin, French, German, Polish, and Yiddish, and numerous commentaries have been written on it.
R. Jedaiah ben Abraham Bedersi (ha-Penini, c. 1270–1340) was a poet and philosopher. Possibly a native of Beziers, R. Jedaiah is known to have spent time in Perpignan and Montpellier. Little is known of his personal history. He may have been a physician. R. Jedaiah's intellectual interests were literary and philosophic, although the two spheres were not clearly separated. In his youth, he composed a poetic prayer of 1,000 words entitled Bakkashat ha-Memim, every word of which begins with the letter mem (in Olelot ha-Bohen, 1808). He is also credited with a similar composition, every word of which begins with alef, but many believe that this latter poem was written by R. Jedaiah's father. In popular style he composed Ohev Nashim. R. Jedaiah also wrote Sefer ha-Pardes (Constantinople, 1516), reflections on isolation from the world, divine worship, the behavior of judges, grammar, and astronomy. The last chapters deal with rhetoric and poetry. R. Jedaiah was the author of commentaries on various Midrashim (Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, Ms. 738; De Rossi, 222), as well as a commentary on Pirkei Avot (Escurial, Ms. G. IV, 3). He may also have written a super-commentary on Ibn Ezra's commentary on Genesis.
R. Jedaiah also wrote a number of works which are more strictly scientific and philosophical. He was the author of explanatory notes on Avicenna's Canon (Bodleian Library, Ms. Mich. Add. 14, and Mich. 135), and on Averroes' commentary on Aristotle's Physics (Steinschneider, Uebersetzungen, 109; HB, 12 (1872) 37). A number of Jedaiah's philosophical works are found in manuscript 984 of the Hebrew manuscript collection of the BibliothIque Nationale in Paris (see S. Munk, in Archives IsraMlites (1847), 67–72): Ha-De'ot ba-Sekhel ha-Homri ("Theories Concerning the Material Intellect"), an epitome of Aristotle's De Anima; Ketav ha-Da'at ("Treatise on the Intellect"), a paraphrase of Sefer ha-Sekhel ve-ha-Muskalot, the Hebrew translation of al Farab<'s Kitab al-'Aql wa al-Ma'aqulat ("Treatise on the Intellect"); Ma'amar be-Hafkhei ha-Mahalakh ("Treatise on Opposite Motions"), in which Jedaiah criticizes the views of another scholar, whose name he never mentions, concerning Averroes' commentary on Aristotle's De Caelo Bk. 1, ch. 4; and Ketav ha-Hitazzemut ("Book of Confutation"), a refutation of the scholar's reply to Jedaiah's Ma'amar be-Hafkhei ha-Mahalakh. This same manuscript contains a treatise entitled Ma'amar ha-Dan ba-Zurot ha-Peratiyyot o Ishiyyot ("A Treatise Upon Personal or Individual Forms"), which deals with the problem of whether individuals of the same species differing in accidents also differ in their essential forms. In this latter treatise there is reference made to another essay by Jedaiah, Midbar Kedemot, which is a commentary on the 25 propositions with which Maimonides opens the second part of the Guide of the Perplexed. This treatise is no longer extant.
Even Bohan, R. Kalonymus ben Kalonymus, Venice, Daniel Bomberg, 1546. Second edition.
R. Kalonymus ben Kalonymus (Ben Meir ha-Nasi; 1286–after 1328), author and translator. Probably born in Arles (Provence), Kalonymus pursued his studies in Salonica and devoted himself from his youth to the translation of Arabic scientific works into Hebrew. His first translation, Ibn Ridwan's Principles of Medicine, is believed to have been lost during the expulsion of the Jews from the territories directly under the rule of the king of France in 1306. During the years 1307–17 he lived in Arles (he was in Avignon in 1314), and in 1318 he stayed again for a time in Salonica. He later entered the service of Robert d'Anjou "the Wise" (1277–1343), king of Naples and count of Provence, for whom he is said to have made translations from Arabic and Hebrew into Latin. Probably in about 1319–21, Kalonymus traveled to Rome. Whether, as some surmise, he was the representative sent by the Jews of Rome to the papal court at Avignon in 1321 remains uncertain. When Kalonymus was recalled to Arles, the Rome community addressed to the Jews of Arles a letter composed by the poet Immanuel explaining why it was desirable for Kalonymus to remain in Rome (Mahberot Immanuel, no. 23). However, Kalonymus subsequently made his way home and from there went to Catalonia, but returned to Provence after 1322. In 1324 he was again in Naples and in 1328 he was still busy in Arles working on the Latin translation of Averroes for the King.
The works of Kalonymus comprise a polemic epistle against Joseph Kaspi (1318; ed. Perles, Munich 1879) written in Provence; Massekhet Purim, a parody for the festival of Purim, composed in Rome; this work, in the guise of a talmudic tractate in four chapters, has gone through many editions (Pesaro 1513, c. 1520; Venice 1552, etc.); a fragment on mathematics (Munich MS 290); Iggeret Musar, an ethical work written for his son, published by I. Sonne in Kovez al Yad, 1 (1936), 93–110; Iggeret ha-Hitnazzelut ha-Katan, published by J. Schatzmiller in Sefunot, 10 (1966), 9–52. One of his best-known works is Even Bohan, a satire in rhymed prose, composed c. 1322 in Barcelona, on the moral and religious abuses prevailing among the author's contemporaries (Naples 1489; Venice 1546; Tel Aviv, ed. A.M. Habermann, 1956). He dedicated it to 10 notable Catalan Jews who had helped him during his stay in Catalonia. The author describes with humor many aspects of the life of the Jewish communities of his time, the celebration of Jewish festivals, and many kinds of social types (rich people, physicians, astronomers, grammarians, experts in masorah, poets, talmudists, etc.), criticizing their habits in a way that is sometimes picturesque, sometimes even grotesque.
He also translated works on philosophy, natural sciences, medicine, mathematics, and astronomy by other writers (more than 30), including 10 works by Averroes, the Centiloquium attributed to Ptolemy, with the commentary of Abu Jaffar Ahmed ben Yussuf; the Sphere and Cylinder of Archimedes (two translations, one of which has been lost); Galen's De clysteriis et colica and De Phebotomia, the Compendium of Arithmetic by Nicomachus of Gerasa; the Principles of Medicine by Ibn Ridwan (second translation; the first was lost in 1306); the treatise Cylinder and Cone of Ibn Samkh; the Figura sector of Thabit b. Kurras, the Hypotheses of Ptolemy and "Iggeret Ba'alei Hayyim," from the 21st treatise of the Encyclopedia of the Sincere Brethren (Mantua 1557, etc.). Only one of Kalonymus' translations into Latin is known, namely the Destructio destructionis of Averroes (part printed, Venice 1497; Venice 1508). Other works and translations have been incorrectly attributed to Kalonymus.
Haggadah Shel Pessah - Zevah Pessah, Don Isaac Abravanel, Venice, Marco Antonio Giustiniani, 1545. Second edition.
Haggadah with the commentary of Don Isaac b. Judah Abravanel (1437-1508). He received a careful education and was a pupil of R. Joseph Hayyim, rabbi of Lisbon. Well versed in Talmudic literature and in the learning of his time, endowed with a clear and keen mind, and full of enthusiasm for Judaism, he devoted his early years to the study of Jewish religious philosophy,and when scarcely twenty years old wrote on the original form of the natural elements, on the most vital religious questions, on prophecy, etc. His political abilities also attracted attention while he was still young. He entered the service of King Alfonso V. of Portugal as treasurer, and soon won the confidence of his master. Notwithstanding his high position and the great wealth he had inherited from his father, his love for his afflicted brethren was unabated. When Arzilla, in Morocco, was taken by the Moors, and the Jewish captives were sold as slaves, he contributed largely to the funds needed to manumit them, and personally arranged for collections throughout Portugal. He also wrote to his learned and wealthy friend Jehiel, of Pisa, in behalf of the captives. After the death of Alfonso he was obliged to relinquish his office, having been accused by King John II. of connivance with the duke of Bragança, who had been executed on the charge of conspiracy. Don Isaac, warned in time, saved himself by a hasty flight to Castile (1483). His large fortune was confiscated by royal decree. At Toledo, his new home, he occupied himself at first with Biblical studies, and in the course of six months produced an extensive commentary on the books of Joshua, Judges, and Samuel. But shortly afterward he entered the service of the house of Castile. Together with his friend, the influential Don Abraham Senior, of Segovia, he undertook to farm the revenues and to supply provisions for the royal army, contracts that he carried out to the entire satisfaction of Queen Isabella. During the Moorish war Abravanel advanced considerable sums of money to the government. When the banishment of the Jews from Spain was decreed, he left nothing undone to induce the king to revoke the edict. In vain did he offer him 30,000 ducats ($68,400, nominal value). With his brethren in faith he left Spain and went to Naples, where, soon after, he entered the service of the king. For a short time he lived in peace undisturbed; but when the city was taken by the French, bereft of all his possessions, he followed the young king, Ferdinand, in 1495, to Messina; then went to Corfu; and in 1496 settled in Monopoli, and lastly (1503) in Venice, where his services were employed in negotiating a commercial treaty between Portugal and the Venetian republic (Zurita, "Historia del Rey Don Fernando el Católico," v. 342a).
Marco Antonio Giustiniani was a Christian printer of Hebrew books in Venice in the 16th century. His master printer Cornelius Adelkind printed a fine edition of the Babylonian Talmud (1546–51). Soon, this very active press faced a formidable competitor in the house of Bragadini which issued Maimonides' Mishneh Torah, with the notes of R. Meir Katzenellenbogen. Giustiniani then printed the full text of that code without R. Meir's notes. The mutual recriminations that the rivals engaged in at the Papal Court ultimately resulted in the confiscation and burning of all Hebrew books (1553). |
