First edition. [1], 138 ff. quarto 194:158 mm., light age and damp staining, wide margins, few minor repairs, initial and final 2 ff with lower margins removed.  A  good copy bound in later boards, rubbed.

 

First edition of this ethical work based on the twenty-four principles on which the Torah is acquired by R. Moses ben Israel Jacob Hagiz. The title has two subheadings, Mishnat hakhamim and Nishmat Hasidim. On the verso of the title page is an approbation from R. Ezekiel ben Abraham Katzenelbogen and below it an apologia from the editor, R. Moses dAvid Tebele. There are two introductions from R. Hagiz and then the text, in two columns in rabbinic type. The values addressed in Mishnat hakhamim begin with the importance (value) of Talmud and conclude with the acceptance of affliction with love.

R. Moses ben Israel Jacob Hagiz (1672–c. 1751) was a scholar, kabbalist, and opponent of Shabbateanism; son of R. Jacob Hagiz, he was born in Jerusalem and studied with his grandfather, R. Moses Galante. He appears to have quarreled in his youth with the rabbis and lay leaders of Jerusalem, for when in 1694 he left Erez Israel to collect money to found a yeshivah in Jerusalem, damaging letters were sent after him to the communities to which he turned. R. Hagiz visited Egypt and then Italy, where in 1704 he published his father's Halakhot Ketannot. He traveled by way of Prague to Amsterdam where he made contact with R. Zevi Hirsch Ashkenazi, then rabbi of the Ashkenazi community, and collaborated with him in an energetic struggle against Shabbateanism and its secret adherents. When in 1713 R. Ashkenazi and R. Hagiz refused to retract the excommunication of the Shabbatean Nehemiah Hayon, a fierce quarrel broke out between them and the elders of the Portuguese community. In 1714 when Ashkenazi resigned his rabbinical office and left Amsterdam, Moses was compelled to leave with him. He went first to London with R. Ashkenazi, there continuing the fight against Hayon and his allies, and then to Altona, home of R. Jacob Emden, Ashkenazi's son, where he resumed the struggle against Shabbateanism. Among those he attacked were R. Michael Abraham Cardoso and even R. Jonathan Eybeschuetz, and he took the offensive against R. Moses Hayyim Luzzatto, inducing the rabbis of Venice to excommunicate him. In 1738 R. Hagiz returned to Erez Israel and settled in Safed. He died in Beirut and was taken to Sidon for burial.

A talmudic scholar of the first rank and a prolific writer, Moses was assisted by a good grounding in secular knowledge and by a command of several foreign languages. In Altona he was friendly with Johann Christopher *Wolf, who mentions him in his Bibliotheca Hebraica. His works include Leket ha-Kemah, novellae on the Shulhan Arukh, Orah Hayyim and Yoreh De'ah (Amsterdam, 1697), and Even ha-Ezer (Hamburg, 1711); responsa Shetei ha-Lehem (Wandsbeck, 1733); the ethical treatises Zerror ha-Hayyim and Mishnat hakhamim (ibid., 1728–31 and 1733 respectively); Elleh ha-Mitzvot (Amsterdam, 1713), on the numeration of precepts in Maimonides' Sefer ha-Mitzvot, on the Oral Law, and on Kabbalah; Sefat Emet (Amsterdam, 1697); and Parashat Elleh Masei (Altona, 1738), on the sanctity of the land of Israel. His literary activity also included the editing of many early books.

The printer, Israel ben Abraham, was a proselyte, one who reputedly had previously been a priest, and after his conversion eschewed the sobriquets common among converts such as Avinu or the Ger. Israel ben Abraham converted to Judaism in Amsterdam, where he wrote a Yiddish-Hebrew grammar Mafte=ach Loshen ha-Kodesh (Amsterdam, 1713). After leaving Amsterdam he printed in various locations in Germany, including Koethen, Jessnitz, and Wandsbeck. Israel ben Abraham was accompanied by his workers from Koethen, and joined by his family in his new domicile. In Jessnitz, Israel ben Abraham's printing-press was supported by several court Jews, including Moses Benjamin Wullf, Assur Marx, and Issachar ha-Levi Bermann (Behrend Lehmann) of Halberstadt. The latter sponsored the first title issued by the press in Jessnitz, Jehiel Michael Glogau's Hokhmat Nazir Kodesh, a relatively large work of approximately four hundred pages, completed on the 26th of Adar (March 17), 1719. In addition to mentioning Bermann's name on the title page, a pitcher on the bottom of each of the pillars on the sides of the page presumably represents Bermann, who was a Levi. This is also evident on the title page of Ateret Zevi.