SEFER LEVUSHEI OR YEKAROT (COMMENTARIES ON RABBIS MENAHEM RECANATI AND MOSES MAIMONIDES), RABBI MORDECHAI JAFFE, LUBLIN: KALONYMUS BEN MORDECHAI JAFFE, 1594

This volume, given the general title Sefer levushei or yekarot (Zech. 14:6), contains the last three books of Rabbi Mordechai Jaffe’s ten-part Levush malkhut series (see lot 164). Each book includes a form of the word yakar in its name: Sefer levush pinnat yikrat (Isa. 28:16) is a commentary on Rabbi Moses Maimonides’ Moreh nevukhim (see lot 22); Sefer levush eder ha-yekar (Zech. 11:13) is a commentary on the laws of the Jewish calendar according to Maimonides’ Mishneh torah, Hilkhot kiddush ha-hodesh; and Sefer levush even ha-yekarah (Prov. 3:15) is a supercommentary on Rabbi Menahem Recanati’s Pentateuch commentary. Rabbi Judah ben Nathan ha-Levi Ashkenazi writes in his introduction to Sefer levush eder ha-yekar that because he, too, had written a commentary on Maimonides’ Hilkhot kiddush ha-hodesh, Jaffe had encouraged him to include it in his book. Also appearing here, with its own title page, is Ashkenazi’s commentary on Spanish philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer Abraham bar Hiyya ha-Nasi’s (d. ca. 1136) Sefer tsurat ha-arets (first, abridged edition: Basel, 1546), an astronomical-geographical work.

Interestingly, though Jaffe had intended that students would study these works of philosophy, astronomy, and Kabbalah, respectively, in the order he had assigned them, the printers decided to produce them backward, starting first with Kabbalah, corresponding to the Upper World; continuing with astronomy, corresponding to the Middle World; and finishing with philosophy, corresponding to the Lower World.