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Bidding Information
Lot #    9711
Auction End Date    3/22/2005 12:10:00 PM (mm/dd/yyyy)
          
Title Information
Title (English)    Mishle Asaf
Title (Hebrew)    משלי אסף
Author    [Haskalah - Inscribed Copy] Isaac ha-Levi Satanow
City    Berlin
Publication Date    1788-93
          
Collection Information
Independent Item    This listing is an independent item not part of any collection
          
Description Information
Physical
Description		    Only edition. 188:110 mm., wide margins, light age staining. A very good copy bound in modern cloth boards.
          
Paragraph 1    Inscribed on final of part II by author with a dedication.
          
Detailed
Description		    Only edition of this collections of proverbs in imitation of the Book of Proverbs by Isaac ha-Levi Satanow. Printed in four parts from 1788 through 1793, each part has a separate title page. Mishle Asaf has been described as a work in which the noblest thoughts are expressed in the choicest diction. Satanow did not disdain at the same time to write a treatise on how to drill holes through three hundred pearls in one day and how to mix successfully different kinds of liquors. Even in the most earnest and solemn of his writings there can always be detected an undercurrent of the most playful humor. In Mishle Asaf he Satanow so blended the quaintly antique style of the Bible with modern fine writing that the critics of his time were at a loss how to characterize the work. Some were inclined to revere it as a relic of antiquity, while others attacked the author as a literary charlatan who desired to palm off his own work as a production of the ancient writers. Rabbi Joseph of Frankfort gives a very clever criticism of his work. He says: “I do not really know to whom to ascribe these sayings [of the Mishle Asaf]; it may be the publisher himself has composed them; for I know him to be a plagiarist. He, however, differs from the rest of that class in this respect, that they plagiarize the works of others and pass them for their own, while he plagiarizes his own works and passes them for those of others.” Satanow adopted the pseudonym "Asaf" from the acrostic for "Itzik Satanow.") In Mishle Asaf, his best-known work, the peak of his imitative ability is displayed, and, at the same time, the finest expression of his own sentiments and thoughts. The work, attributed to the biblical Asaph son of Berechiah, is written in the style of Proverbs and Psalms. At the end of part II, is an inscription dated Wednesday, 1 Rosh Hodesh Adar 595 (June 28, 1835), in which the sender sends the recipient, on the day of his wedding this book, wishing that he see many children and length of days.

Isaac ha-Levi Satanow (1732–1804) was born in Satanov, Podolia. He settled in Berlin in 1771 or 1772, where he served as the director of the printing press of the Hevrat Hinnukh Ne'arim ("Society for the Education of the Youth"). Among the most prolific of the early Haskalah writers, he did not restrict himself to any particular literary field, but wrote in most of those genres used by the later Haskalah writers. Satanow demonstrated a wealth of knowledge of the Hebrew language, ranking as a model stylist throughout the Haskalah period. He ascribed several of his works to earlier writers, and consequently used fictitious names for the authors of the recommendations for his own books and of their forewords. His books include Sefer ha-Shorashim or Hebraeisch-Deutsches Lexicon, one of his major works, which was a Hebrew-German dictionary and thesaurus in two parts; a number of books of liturgy, Tefillah mi-Kol ha-Shanah al Pi Kelalei ha-Dikduk (1785), Haggadah shel Pesah (1785); and Selihot (1785); as well as Mishlei Asaf and Zemirot Asaf (4 vols., 1789–1802), collections of proverbs in imitation of the Book of Proverbs. Satanow grappled with the problem of the use of biblical and post-biblical Hebrew. In his book Iggeret Beit Tefillah (1773), a work on prayers and liturgy, he classified every word that he explained as either "Hebrew" or "talmudic," and proceeded to clarify this question at other opportunities as well. He may have been the first Hebrew writer who sought to break out of the strict framework of biblical style, although he himself was very adept in the biblical style called melizah. Hence he demanded that new words be coined; in Iggeret Beit Tefillah he complains that the vocabulary of biblical Hebrew had not preserved its great lexical range.
          
Paragraph 2    ללמד לאדם דעת מוסר השכל במשל ומליצה [מאת יצחק סאטאנוב]... (חלק [א]-ג).

בראשי העמודים: אסף. שלושת החלקים הם דברי מוסר בלשון מליצה, חקוי לספרי תהלים ומשלי, עם ביאור. סאטאנוב טוען שהוא חיבר רק את הביאור: בהקדמתו לחלק א כותב סאטאנוב "זה ספר אסף אשר עדן לא היה לעולמים ולא שזפתו עין אדם... הקרה ה' אותו לפני... וברצי הביאור רציתיו ונדבה רוחי אותי להוציא לאור". באמת כל הספר הוא מעשה ידיו, הפנים והביאור, ההסכמה, ההקדמות ודברי השבח. דומה לו ספרו מגלת חסידים, ברלין תקס"ב. יש הרואים את "מגלת חסידים" כהמשך ל"משלי אסף". הסכמה: ר' יוסף [תאומים], פפד"א [פראנקפורט דאודר], ר' צבי הירש [מירלש] מלונדן אב"ד שווערין, ר' יוסף ב"ר ברוך מארץ יון אב"ד מעזריטש, ר' שמואל שמעלקא ב"ר ליב אב"ד דעמביץ ור' שאול כהנא מדאברמיל אב"ד לנצהוט. ההסכמה כנראה מזויפת.

[א]: משלי אסף... herausgegeben von R. Isaak Satenof. חש"מ, שנת ו'עשית ה'ט'ו'ב' ו'ה'י'ש'ר' [תקמ"ט]. [6], צו דף. דף [4-2,א]: "הקדמה" מאת "יוסף לוצאטו איש איטליא מדי התמהמהי פה לונדן", עם שיר בשבח הספר. ההדפסה נשלמה ביום ג חשוון תקמ"ט. [ב]: משלי אסף, יורה דעה לאחוז במוסר השכל. דפוס חברת חנוך נערים, בשנת ת'ק'ן' משלים הרב'ה [תקנ"ב]. [1], פח דף. ברוב הטפסים שראינו אין שער לחלק ב. חלק ג: זמירות אסף... הכולל חמשה ספרים מודיעים להלל ה'. דפוס חברת חנוך נערים, בשנת מ'ז'מ'ו'ר' ל'א'ס'ף' א'ל'ה'י'ם' ב'א'ו גוים בנחלתך [תקנ"ג]. [8], [ב]-נו דף. בראש הספר "שירת דודים", שיר בשבח המחבר מאת "זרחי' נ' מסעוד איש איטליא, כעת מתהלך עם שרי הצבא אשר להקיסר... בערבות בראבאנד".

          
Reference
Description		    Fuenn, Keneset Yisrael, 1886, p. 643; Klausner, Sifrut, 1 (1952), 165–77; JE; Vin Berlin 383, 409, 419; Zedner p. 373; Zinberg, Sifrut, 5 (1959), 118–22; CD-EPI 0302833
        
Associated Images
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Listing Classification
Period
  
18th Century:    Checked
  
Location
Germany:    Checked
  
Subject
Other:    Haskalah
  
Characteristic
Autographed:    Checked
First Editions:    Checked
Language:    Hebrew
  
Manuscript Type
  
Kind of Judaica