Physical Description

 Only edition, 39 pp., octavo, 220:140 mm., sharp margins, light age staining. A very good copy bound in modern cloth over boards.

Detail Description

A history of R. Samuel Eliezer ben Judah ha-Levi Edels' (Maharsha, 1555-1631) by Samual Abba Horodezky (1871–1957), scholar and historian of Jewish mysticism and Hasidism. He was born in Malin (Kiev region) and studied in the courts of zaddikim in Malin and Chernobyl. He was attracted to the Haskalah and at the age of 20 settled in Berdichev where he changed from a rabbinic author to a Hebrew writer and began to correspond with contemporary authors. The pogroms of 1905–06 made him leave the Ukraine. He took advantage of his election as a delegate to the Eighth Zionist Congress (The Hague, 1907) and remained in the West. From 1908 to 1938 he lived for several periods in Switzerland and Germany. Horodezky was a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Judaica (1927–34), and founder of the hasidic archives of the Schocken Press (1935). In 1938 he emigrated to Palestine and settled in Tel Aviv.

His major literary enterprises were: the editing of Ha-Goren, an annual on Jewish scholarship (ten issues, 1–8 in Berdichev, 9–10 in Berlin); Ha-Hasidut ve-ha-Hasidim ("Hasidism and Hasidim"), monographs on the great hasidim and their doctrines (4 vols., several editions); Ha-Mistorin be-Yisrael ("Jewish Mysticism"), monographs on sources and teachers of mysticism, beginning with Ha-Mistorin ha-Kadum ("Ancient Mysticism") in the Bible, Apocrypha, and the Talmud, up to the early and later kabbalists (four pts., publ. 1931–58). Among his other writings are:
(1) a collection of articles on personalities and values outside the world of mysticism and confronting it: Le-Korot ha-Rabbanut (1911), Yahadut ha-Sekhel ve-Yahadut ha-Regesh (1947), and Kivshono shel Olam (1950);
(2) compilations of the writings of kabbalists and Hasidim: Moses Cordovero (1941), Isaac Luria and Hayyim Vital (1947), Nahman of Bratslav (1923), and Dov Baer the Maggid of Mezhirech (1927);
(3) the publication of sources: Shivhei ha-Besht, Sippurei R. Nahman, etc.;
(4) Memoirs, his last book, an autobiography and the most literary of his works (1957).

Horodezky was one of the last scholars to write in the manner of Wissenschaft der Judenthums before its development into modern Jewish scholarship. Like other contemporaries, he was a product of the intellectual climate of the East European Jewish town and educated himself to become a Hebrew writer. His quiet, informative, non-argumentative manner of speech helped break the boycott of the maskilim against Hasidism. He liked to cite representative sources but wrote little analysis and criticism. Zvi Voyeslavsky defined him well in the Habad term: Ha-Hozer "the returner." His library is preserved in Bet Fastlovitch in Tel Aviv. A Festschrift was published in honor of his 75th birthday, Eder ha-Yekar (1947), and when he reached his 80th year, a pamphlet, Livyat Hen (1951).

References