Tosefot ha-Rosh on Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Niddah, Asher ben Jehiel (Rosh), Scribe: Nissim ben Abraham Molikha, [16th century]

This volume contains the only extant copy of Asher ben Jehiel’s tosafot on the Babylonian Talmud tractate Niddah. The Vilna editions of the Talmud are edited from this manuscript. The scribe, Nissim ben Abraham Molikha, copied several other manuscripts, among them Montefiore ms. 84 (Lot 77) and Cambridge University Library, Add. 501, completed in 1561. The first leaf of the original manuscript is missing and was supplied by a later hand with many omissions.

Asher ben Yehiel, also known as the Rosh (ca. 1250–1327), was a leader of German and then Spanish Jewry. He is credited with introducing the system of study of the tosafists into Spain and is regarded as one of the outstanding halakhic authorities. His tosafot covered virtually all the tractates of the Babylonian Talmud. They represent an abridgment of the Tosafot of Sens, combined with the novellae of Meir ben Baruch of Rothenburg and the opinions of Spanish scholars.

Sotheby’s is grateful to Menahem Schmelzer z”l and Benjamin Richler for cataloguing this manuscript.

Provenance

Solomon Halberstam (shelf no. 98)

Physical Description

82 leaves on paper, 11 x 8 ½ inches; 279 x 215 mm, written in black ink in Sephardic-Oriental semi-cursive script, catchwords; early paper repair to bottom margin of fol. 1, fols. 1 and 82 extended along gutter, repairs or guards to gutters of approximately 25 leaves, light staining or soiling.

Literature

Hirschfeld (ms. no. 68)