SEFER ABUDARHAM (COMMENTARY ON JEWISH PRAYER), RABBI DAVID ABUDARHAM, LISBON: ELIEZER [BEN JUDAH TOLEDANO], 1489

A rare pre-Expulsion imprint from Lisbon.

Peirush ha-berakhot ve-ha-tefillot (or, as it has come to be known more popularly, Sefer abudarham) was completed in Seville in 1340 by Rabbi David Abudarham, scion of a prominent Sephardic family. In the preface, the author states that it is his desire to afford his readers with the means of understanding both the text and ritual procedure of Jewish prayer. To this end, and in order to trace the variations in custom between different Jewish communities (Spanish, Provencal, French, and German), Abudarham had recourse to a wide range of materials, including the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds, the literature of the ge’onim, and several earlier custom collections. Modern scholarship has suggested that Abudarham based his text in large part on the work of Rabbis Judah ben Yakar (d. ca. 1201-1218) and Jacob ben Asher (ca. 1270-1340), from whose compositions he quotes liberally and often without attribution. Nevertheless, it was Abudarham who succeeded, as no one else had before him, in compiling what was to become a virtually indispensable exposition of Jewish prayer.

Three introductory chapters, on the reading of the Shema, the Amidah (Silent Devotion), and the various benedictions recited prior to the performance of certain mitsvot, precede the commentary, which begins with the daily prayers and goes on to treat the liturgy for Sabbaths, New Moons, Hanukkah, Purim, Passover (including the Haggadah), Shavuot, fast days, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Sukkot. Abudarham also appended special discourses on the weekly readings from the Pentateuch and Prophets, the Hebrew calendar, and rules governing blessings (e.g., those recited over food, perfumes, etc.).

The beautiful metalcut border used on the opening leaf, featuring depictions of numerous real and legendary beasts situated among densely-intertwined flora, has a fascinating history unto itself. It made its first appearance in a Christian liturgical work, the Manuale Caesaraugustanum, probably produced by silversmith and type-cutter Alfonso Fernandez de Cordoba in Valencia, Murcia, or Híjar. Through de Cordoba’s prior association with Solomon ben Maimon Zalmati, it then became the property of Eliezer ben Abraham Alantansi, who employed it in his Pentateuch-cum-haftarot and Five Scrolls (Híjar, ca. 1486-1489). The border next passed to Eliezer ben Judah Toledano, who used it to great effect in some of his Lisbon imprints, including the present lot, and finally came into the possession of the Ibn Nahmias brothers, who incorporated it in several Hebrew books they printed in Constantinople in the first decade of the sixteenth century (see lots 205, 206).

Provenance

Samuel (f. [170v])

Massoud Racatz (f. [170v])

Literature

Eliezer Brodt, “Sefer ha-abudarham ve-shimmusho be-sefer ha-tur u-peirush ha-tefillot ve-ha-berakhot le-r[abbi] y[ehudah] bar yakar,” Yeshurun 38 (2018): 860-876.

Frederick R. Goff, Incunabula in American Libraries: A Third Census of Fifteenth-Century Books Recorded in North American Collections (Millwood, NY: Kraus International Publications, 1973), 319 (Heb-36).

A.M. Habermann, “The Jewish Art of the Printed Book,” in Cecil Roth (ed.), Jewish Art: An Illustrated History, revis. Bezalel Narkiss (London: Vallentine, Mitchell, 1971), 163-174, at p. 165.

Shimon Iakerson, Katalog ha-inkunabulim ha-ivriyyim me-osef sifriyyat beit ha-midrash le-rabbanim ba-amerikah, vol. 2 (New York and Jerusalem: The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 2005), 479-484 (no. 101).

Adri K. Offenberg with C. Moed-Van Walraven, Hebrew Incunabula in Public Collections: A First International Census (Nieuwkoop: De Graaf Publishers, 1990), 1 (no. 1).

Walter Orenstein, “The Influence of Judah Ben Jakar’s Liturgy on Abudraham,” Jewish Quarterly Review 62,2 (October 1971): 120-128.

Vinograd, Lisbon 4