Auction 50
Lot 088:
Glosses handwritten by Rabbi Gershon Kitover, brother-in-law and student of the Baal Shem Tov, on a manuscript of the book Etz Chaim by Rabbi Chaim Vittel, mid-18th century. The manuscript is of kabbalistic excerpts from the book Etz Chaim by the Maharhav, organized according to the Slichot. There are major changes between the manuscript and the accepted printed version available today. The manuscript was written by one of the Mizrahi kabbalistic sages who lived in Jerusalem during the Rashash. In the margins of the manuscript is evidence that the work was used by the kabbalist Rabbi Avraham Gershon of Kitov, he writes a couple mystical kabbalistic notes by hand. Two pages, professionally repaired. Inside a handsome leather binding, very good condition.
The strength of Rav Gershon’s holiness (and that of his slichot prayers) is evinced in the praise given by the Baal Shem Tov (Mahadurat Ma’ayanotecha, MS p. 86), saying that the Rashash sent Rabbi Gershon to say Slichot for a drought in Israel: “Rav Gershon went down to the teiva…and said the opening of slichot and then left the teiva and didn’t want to say any more. His son Rav Leib asked when why he did that, and he answered: because at the beginning the prayer was fully in my mind, and I felt that if I said more slichot the rain would immediately fall, and I felt it was rude, so I didn’t pray, because I know that the rain will fall in two or three days. Thus it happened.”
The kabbalist Rabbi Gershon of Kitov was a sage of Cluj, famous together with Rabbi Yehezkel Landau, who called him “my beloved friend and rabbinical colleague, wondrously gifted in torah and chassidus”. He was close with Rabbi Yonatan Ivshitz who called him “the rav chassid, famous and learned in torah and kabbalah.” He was among the most famous students of the Baal Shem Tov (his brother-in-law), and he travelled to Mezhibozh for a number of years to study under Rabbi Zvi (the Baal Shem Tov’s son). He was sent by the Baal Shem Tov to spread chassidus in Israel and he regularly corresponded with him. A famous letter sent to him by the Baal Shem Tov appears at the end of Sefer Toldot Yaakov Yosef.
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