Va-Yakhel Mosheh, Moses ben Menahem Graf, [17th-18th century], and Sha'ar ha-Shamayim, Isaac ben Abraham ibn Latif, [Italy, 16th century]

Va-Yakhel Moshe, by Moses ben Menahem Graf (Prague 1650–ca. 1705), contains a commentary on Ma’amar Adam de-Azilut. Graf, also known as Moses Praeger, was born in Prague and moved to Nikolsburg after the devastating fire in the Prague ghetto in 1689. While there, he studied under the kabbalist Eliezer Mendel ben Mordecai and was given lodging and support by the renowned rabbi and patron of Jewish scholarship, David Oppenheim. Leaves are lacking at the beginning of the manuscript and so the text of this manuscript begins with the end of the second chapter. 

Sha’ar ha-Shamayim, by Isaac ben Abraham ibn Latif (Spain, ca. 1210-1280), deals with philosophical problems, mystical and allegorical interpretations of the Bible, kabbalah, and allegorical interpretations of the commandments. Only the table of contents and the beginning of the treatise were copied. On fol. 7r Isaac ben Samuel Hezekiah, possibly the son of the rabbi Samuel Hezekiah Romilli (Mantua, sixteenth century), added the preface to Jonah Gerondi’s Sha’arei Teshuvah and a piyyut (fol. 7v). Signed by the censor Giovanni Dominico Carretto, 1607 (fol. 7v).

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

Provenance

Vol. 1: Solomon Halberstam (shelf no. 251)

Vol. 2: Solomon Halberstam (shelf no. 377)

Physical Description

Vol. 1: 29 leaves on paper (one blank), 7 ½ x 6 inches; 190 x 147 mm, written in Ashkenazic semi-cursive script in brown ink, diagram of the 10 sefirot (fol. 15r), catchwords, modern foliation in pencil; fols. 27, 28 damaged with text missing, upper margin cropped with text partially lacking on several leaves. Paper-covered boards.

Vol. 2: 7 leaves on paper, 7 x 5 ½ inches; 178 x 140 mm, written in Italian semi-cursive script in brown ink; browned and dampstained throughout, inner margins reinforced, fol. 1r faded and soiled. Brown wrappers.

Literature

Vol. 1: Hirschfeld (ms. no. 329); first edition printed in Dessau, 1698; Guenzig, Die '"Wundermänner" im jüdischen Volke (Antwerpen, 1921), pp. 102-106

Vol. 2: Hirschfeld (ms. no. 302); the introduction, containing a historical sketch of Jewish science to the time of Maimonides, was published by A. Jellinek in Ha-Shahar, ii (1871), pp. 81–97, and again by O. H. Schorr in He-Halutz, xii (1877), pp. 114–24. Other parts of the work have been published by Jellinek in Ha-Shahar, ii (1871), pp. 97–104, 129–36