Auction 22

Zmirot Yisrael by Mendelssohn on Psalms, Part 1, with exegesis of Sforno—Berlin 1785. First edition. Extremely rare.

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Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786), also known as “Moshe ben Menachem” and “Moshe of Dessau,” was a philosopher and thinker, a father of the Haskala Jewish-German movement. The figure of Mendelssohnaroused strong opposition among the religious communities. Already during the printing of his Chumash, many of Israel’s great leaders began to oppose them. Among the opponents of Mendelssohn and his compositions are Rabbi Raphael Hacohen of Hamburg, the author of the Hafla’ah, his disciplethe Chatam Sofer (known for saying “don’t touch Rav Moshe of Dessau’s books”), and his disciple Rabbi Akiva Yosef Schlesinger, author of Lev Ha’Ivri, as well as sages of chassidut, led by the Bnei Issachar in his book “Ma’ayan Ganim.” In the famous sermon he delivered in his city of Frankfurt, the “Hafla’ah” attacked his “exegesis” and wrote in sharp terms: “… a scoundrel was made in Israel in public and there is no protest against it, And they renewed their interpretation of our ancient Torah, which made nonsense and nonsense about them … I saw this sight, I was frightened and I was trembling and assembling, so that I could hear such a loud noise that one man would be burned with the impurity of a house The hidden concealment, according to impurity, rises and rises, to say: Accept my opinion and interpretation of the Torah in the most eloquent language, and you will cast away all the words of the sages, midrashim and commentators of the Torah that are nice to gold and gold … and in Vilna they were burned to the eyes of all. … “. However, there were also more moderate voices in relation to Mendelssohn. It is known that the Pentateuch with the “Ba’or” were common in the homes of Orthodox Jews, especially among the Jews of Lithuania and Germany, and even great Torah scholars who liked the Chumashim and brought them from the “commentary” in their books. Thus, for example, Rabbi Yosef Zundel of Salant had his Chumash with the exegesis, and in one place he noted and deleted lines that he opposed (Peretz Sandlar, exegesis of the Torah by Moses Mendelssohn, p. 216 has the note). Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch, Av Beit Din of Berlin, and his son Rabbi Shaul, whose enthusiastic approbations are published at the beginning of Chumash Shemot of the Ba’ur, are also mentioned, and Rabbi Elazar Pleklas, one of the great student of the Noda Be’Yehuda, quotes from his chumash dozens of times, and nicknames Mendelssohn “the chacham famous to many.” In his book “The Scriptures and the Kabbala,” Mendelssohn’s commentary is usually quoted, as is the case with Rabbi Shmuel Strashon (the Rashash) in his glosses on the Talmud and the Midrash Rabba and on Rabbi Yosef Zechariah Stern in his responsa, Zeker Yoseph. Many of the Orthodox rabbis of Germany would use these verses and cite them, even if not explicitly mentioning the source. Also appearing is the approbation of Rabbi Moshe Meislish, an important student of the Ba’al Tanya (printed in Kovetz Yeshurun, 9, page 779), he writes about Mendelssohn and his Pentateuch: “… the Torah which Moses made in his translation, a great man in giants, greater than his name, to be every man who speaks and speaks in the language of his people …” Rabbi Avraham Eliyahu Kaplan relates that his forefather would sit and read during Sabbath eve the week’s parsha from Mendelssohn’s Chumash, and when a man wondered about it, he explained that the main problem of the Chumashim with his exegesis is the introduction to the book, In the book “Toldat Adam” (Dyhernfurth 1801), the history of the Ga’on Rabbi Zalmaleh of Vilna, by the Maggid Rabbi Yechezkel Feivel of Vilna, complete passages from the introduction appear before us. The passages were copied verbatim, without specifying their origin.