Three (of 4?) booklets, quarto, 265:170 mm., wide uncut margins, light age and damp staining. A very good copy bound in paper wrappers.

Uncut copy as published each booklet bound in the printer's wrappers.

 

The Halakhot Gedolot has an introduction - it is the first rabbinic work to have one - and it is generally held that it was directed against the Karaites and others who rejected the Oral Law. It is in two parts, the one comprising aggadic statements in praise of the Torah and its students; the other enumerating, for the first time, the 613 commandments mentioned in the Talmud (Mak. 23b). They are classified according to the degree of punishment incurred in transgressing them and according to their common character. This list of 365 negative and 248 positive commandments, which provided the basis for similar elaborations in various azharot, was severely criticized by Maimonides in his Sefer ha-Mitzvot, and defended by Nahmanides.

R. Simeon Kayyara Babylonian halakist of the first half of the ninth century came from Bozrah in Babylonia, as is attested by R. Hai Gaon. The city of Bozrah is mentioned twice in Halakhot Gedolot (in Hilkhot Hallah and in Hilkhot Eruvin) and was under the spiritual authority of Sura. Indeed, many of the laws and customs mentioned in the work conform to those of Sura, and several of its legal decisions are cited in the name of geonim of Sura. The early identification of his surname with "Kahirah," the Arabic name of Cairo (founded 980), was shown by Rapoport ("Teshubot ha-Ge'onim," ed. Cassel, p. 12, Berlin, 1848) to be impossible. Neubauer's suggestion ("M. J. C." ii., p. viii.) of its identification with Kayyar in Mesopotamia is equally untenable. It is now generally and more correctly assumed that "Kayyara" is derived from a common noun, and, like the Syro-Arabic "Kayyar," originally denoted a dealer in pitch or wax.

Added t.p.: Halachoth Gedoloth, nach dem Texte der Handschrift der Vaticana. Herausgegeben und mit Kritischen Noten versehen von Dr. J. Hildesheimer ...