View Auction Listing - Derushim Na’im; Marpeh le-Nefesh; Divrei Yedidyah;

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Bidding Information
Lot #		24217
Auction End Date		7/7/2009 12:48:30 PM (mm/dd/yyyy)

Title Information

Title (English)

Derushim Na’im; Marpeh le-Nefesh; Divrei Yedidyah;

Title (Hebrew)

דרושים נאים; דברי ידידיה; מרפא לנפש; מי ששון

Author

Maharal, R. Elimelekh Borenstein; R. Aryeh Leib Li

City

Warsaw; Vilna

Publisher

Isaac Goldman; Meir Jehiel; Romm

Publication Date

1879; 1886

Collection Information

Independent Item

This listing is an independent item not part of any collection

Description Information

Physical
Description

79; 80, 90; 14 pp. octavo 225:135 mm., light age staining, bound in later boards, rubbed and split.

Detailed
Description

Four independent titles bound together. The first work is Derushim Na’im, discourses by R. Judah Loew ben Bezalel (Maharal, c. 1525–1609). The discourses are on Shabbat Teshuvah and Shabbat ha-Gadol. Maharal was an important Talmudic scholar, Jewish mystic, and philosopher who served as a leading rabbi in Prague for most of his life. Within the world of Torah and Talmudic scholarship, he is known for his works on Jewish philosophy and Jewish mysticism and his supercommentary on Rashi's Torah commentary known as Gur Aryeh al HaTorah. His works inspired the Polish branch of Hasidism, as well as a more recent wave of Torah scholars originating from Lithuania and Latvia, most markedly Rabbi Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler (1892-1953) as well as Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook (1864-1935). A recent authority who had roots in both traditions was Rabbi Isaac Hutner (1906-1980). Rabbi Hutner succinctly defined the ethos of the Maharal's teachings as being Nistar BeLashon Nigleh, meaning (in Hebrew): "The Hidden in the language of the Revealed". As a mark of his devotion to the ways of the Maharal, Rabbi Hutner bestowed the name of the Maharal's key work the Gur Aryeh upon a branch of the yeshiva he headed when he established its kollel (a yeshiva for post-graduate Talmud scholars) which then became a division of the Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin in New York during the 1950s, known as Kollel Gur Aryeh. Both of these institutions, and the graduates they produce, continue to emphasize the serious teachings of the Maharal. Rabbi Hutner in turn also maintained that Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808-1888) (Germany, 19th century) must also have been influenced by the Maharal's ideas basing his seemingly rationalistic Weltanschauung on the more abstract and abstruse teachings of the hard-to-understand Jewish Kabbalah.

The second title is Marpeh le-Nefesh, the only edition of this work, by R. Elimelekh Borenstein. It is comprised of a hassidic commentary on the weekly Torah readings followed by novellae on tractate Kiddushin. The third work is Divrei Yedidyah, a commentary on Shir ha-Shirim by R. Aryeh Leib ben Yedidyah Lipman (1840-1902). The fourth work, also a first edition, is Mei Sasson by R. R. Jacob Meir of Minsk. It is a kuntress on hilkhot Treifus and explanation of other subjects.

Reference
Description

BE mem 3659, mem 1606

Associated Images

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