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Sefer Bikkurim, R. Mordecai Hezekiah Bassani, Venice 1704

ספר בקורים - Liturgy - First Edition

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Details
  • Lot Number 51342
  • Title (English) Sefer Bikkurim
  • Title (Hebrew) ספר בקורים
  • Note Liturgy - First Edition
  • Author R. Mordecai Hezekiah Bassani
  • City Venice
  • Publisher Alvise Bragadin
  • Publication Date 1704
  • Estimated Price - Low 300
  • Estimated Price - High 600

  • Item # 1922209
  • End Date
  • Start Date
Description

Physical Description:

First edition. 28 pp. octavo 170:118 mm., wide margins, light age and damp staining, A very good copy bound in contemporary marbled paper over boards, rubbed.

 

Detailed Description:   

First edition of the prayers to be recited on visiting the sick and deathbed prayers by R. Mordecai Hezekiah Bassani. The title page is dated Sunday 7 Tishrei, התס"ה without specifying whether it is the abbreviated or full era. This date is misread by Frieberg as 1710, for 7 Tishrei in the full era was a Wednesday. However, the correct reading is October 5, 1704. On the verso of the title page is a brief statement of the mitzvot of Bikkurim (visiting the ill) and the order of viduii to be recited at the time that the soul departs. The following page includes a quote from the Shelah ha-Kodesh on Pesahim concerning the mitzvoth of gemilut hasadim. The text of Sefer Bikkurim is comprised of the text to be recited at the above times in square vocalized letters and instructions and commentary by R. Bassani in rabbinic letters.

R. Mordecai Hezekiah Bassani, (Marco in Italian; the name Hezekiah was added on the occasion of his last illness, c. 1632–1703, Italian rabbi and polemicist. In 1666 he became preacher to the Ashkenazi community of Verona, and in 1680 he became its rabbi; in 1695 he was appointed rabbi of the entire Verona community. He was the author of Sefer Bikkurim (Venice, 1710) containing deathbed prayers and usages (adapted from Ma'avar Yabbok of Aaron Berechiah ben Moses of Modena, and Shenei Luhot Ha-Berit of Isaiah Horowitz) written for the Bikkur Holim fraternity of Verona, but later widely adopted. His treatise on divorce, entitled Mikhtav le-Hizkiyyah, and one on halizah, entitled Ma'amar Mordekhai, were included by his great-grandson Menahem Navarra in his Penei Yizhak (Verona, 1743). In his will he mentions a collection of "moral sermons" which he had compiled (Avnei Binyan, 1 (1938), 65). He was friendly with the Roman Catholic polemicist Fra Luigi Maria Benetelli. His criticisms of Benetelli's polemical work, Le saette di Gionata... (Venice, 1703) together with those of Samson Morpurgo and Abraham Joel Conegliano prompted Benetelli's rejoinder, I dardi rabbinici infranti... (Venice, 1705). In this work Benetelli speaks in the highest terms of the gentle manner, great charity, and admirable character of Bassani. Bassani is also the author of a lengthy responsum on the relationship between the Ashkenazi community of Verona and the smaller Sephardi community there.

 

Hebrew Description

אשר עשה ותיקן ... ריש מתא וריש מתיבתא ... ר' חזקיה מרדכי בר שמואל חיים בשאן זצוק"ל ... סדר למקרא העדה ולמסע ... מחנה שכינה להיות משכיל אל ד"ל ביום צרה להתעדן נפשו באור החיים. הובא אל הדפוס במצות ובהסכמת כל בני הק"ק הכללי כנראה מפארטי הושמה ביום א שבעה ימים לחדש תשרי התס"ה פה וירונה ...

מעבר לשער: "מצות בקורים: בקור חולים. חברים ... נועדו ... במסורת הברית לקיים ... בקור חולים ... ולעמוד אצל החולים בשעת אמירת הוידוי. וכן בשעת יציאת נשמה. וסדרים ינעם ... סדר הוידוי וסדר הפסוקים וידויים בעת יציאת נשמה קצתם נלקטו מהרב בעל מעבר יבק [ר' אהרן ברכיה ב"ר משה ממודינא]. ומהרב בעל שני לחות הברית [ר' ישעיה הלוי הורוויץ]. עם כמה פסוקים תפילות וידויים וסדרים אשר סדרתי פה ק"ק וירונה". דף ב,ב-ג: "אגרת שלוחה אל החברים". חובר עבור חברה קדישא של קהילת ווירונה.

 

References:   

BE bet 1346; EJ; Bibliography of the Hebrew Book 1470-1960 #0115326