Yad Haruzim, Hayyim Modai, [Italy, 18th century]

The present manuscript is a rhyme dictionary that lists Biblical and Rabbinic phrases, in Hebrew and in Aramaic. Its author, Hayyim Modai, was a scholar from Safed who journeyed throughout Europe as an emissary. From 1776-1793 Modai was the rabbi in Izmir, and in 1793 he returned to Safed. In an inscription on the verso of the front flyleaf, Modai is referred to as sheliha de-rahmana, an emissary from the Holy Land.

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

Provenance

Solomon Halberstam (shelf no. 397)

Physical Description

36 leaves (8 1/8 x 6 in.; 207 x 153 mm) on paper, written in dark brown ink in an eighteenth-century Italian cursive script, text in two columns, modern foliation in pencil; very faint dampstaining, a few tiny ink stains, library stamp on first and last leaves. Vellum spine, boards, “… Yisrael” (personal name?) on front cover.

Literature

Hirschfeld (ms. no. 383); on the life of Hayyim Modai, see A. Yaari, Sheluhei Eretz Yisrael, (1951), pp. 451-455