Commentary on the Pentateuch, Jacob ben Asher, [France or Germany, 15th century]

Jacob ben Asher (1270?–1340), a halakhic authority from Germany, was the son of the Talmudist Asher ben Jehiel. His comprehensive commentary on the Pentateuch included the best expositions of the peshat [literal meaning] by earlier Bible commentators, such as Saadiah Gaon, Rashi, Abraham ibn Ezra, David Kimhi, and others. He also abstracted "the straightforward explanations" from the commentary of Nahmanides and disregard the kabbalistic ones, since "my soul has not entered its secret" (cf. Genesis 49:6). To the beginning of each section, he added "as a little appetizer, gematriot and explanations of the masorah, in order to attract the mind." Ironically, it was just these "appetizers" that were published (under the title Perush ha-Torah le-R. Ya'akov ben Asher (Constantinople, 1514)) some three centuries before the main part of the work, and it was this portion only which was widely known for many generations.

A colophon in the later, Italian script on fol. 293v reads: I, Isaac ben Joseph the scribe, from Evora, Portugal, started to write this in Jerusalem and completed it in Safed in the year 5149 [1389]. The colophon is a copy of manuscript 32 of the Jewish Community of Mantua. (see M. Beit-Arie, “Hebrew Manuscripts Copied in Jerusalem before the Ottoman Conquest” in B. Z. Kedar, Jerusalem in the Middle Ages, 1979, pp. 259-260 [in Hebrew]). 

Throughout the manuscript are glosses within the text by Rabbi Kalman (fols. 2r, 5r: gilayon, 19v, 20r, 28,etc.) On fol. 255v the Zohar is quoted in the gloss.

On fol. 294 (on parchment) is a fragment of Rashi’s commentary on Talmud Menahot 40v (bottom)-42r (bottom), with some variants. It is written in a fourteenth century(?) Ashkenazi hand with the recto and verso reversed in the binding. A parchment stub with the same script appears between fols. 289-290.

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

Description

[1], 294 = 295 leaves on paper, 11 5/8 x 8 ½ inches; 299 x 219 mm, 39 lines, pricked on inside and outside margin, ruled in hardpoint, written in brown ink in Ashkenazi script, fols. 1, 23-27, and 293 on different paper and in a later Italian hand (perhaps eighteenth century), names of the weekly portions are written on the lower left hand corner of the recto of every folio, modern foliation in pencil; fols. 6-7 loose, marginal tears to fol. 292 with some text loss.  Contemporary calf over wooden boards with three tawed leather hinges; very worn, traces of clasps.

Literature

Hirschfeld (ms. no. 12); Perush Baal ha-Turim, ed. J. J. Reinitz, 1971