2 parts in 1 volume: 118, 160 = 278 folios (8 3/4 x 6 3/8 in.; 223 x 167 mm) (collation: i-xxix4, xxx2 and i-xl4) on paper (final folio of part 1 blank); headers and catchwords throughout. Interspersed decorative devices; tapering text on ff. 12v, 19r, 112r, 117v of part 1 and on f. 160v of part 2; marginal manuscript comment on f. 46r of part 1; diagram of the Temple and Temple Mount following Tractate Middot on f. 112v of part 1, with each section labeled 1-68 and an explanatory key on f. 113r, as well as manuscript Hebrew notations indicating the directions West, North, and East on the diagram; explanatory diagrams on ff. 6r, 17r-v, 44r, 55v of part 2; poems on f. 117v of part 1 and f. 160v of part 2; colophon on f. 160v of part 2. Browned throughout; edges worn; corners rounded, sometimes dogeared; some natural paper imperfections; slight scattered staining (see esp. f. 18r of part 1 and ff. 27r-v, 109r-v of part 2) and intermittent creasing; dampstaining in outer edges (though see also ff. 149-154 of part 2); small holes in ff. 1, 2, 101 of part 1 and in ff. 44, 86 of part 2, usually affecting only a few words; minor worm tracks in ff. 1-12 of part 1 and in ff. 158-160 of part 2; tape repairs on f. 62v of part 1 and on ff. 98r, 123r, 160r of part 2; small tears in lower edges of ff. 102, 112-114, 156 of part 2 and in upper edge of f. 143 of part 2. Modern half leather over marbled boards; spine in four compartments with raised bands; title, place, and date lettered in gilt on spine; modern paper flyleaves and pastedowns.

Rare first edition of the first published commentary of an Ashkenazic scholar on the entire Mishnah. Yom Tov Lipmann Heller (1578-1654), born in Wallerstein, Upper Swabia, studied with luminaries like Rabbis Jacob Ulma Günzburg (d. 1616) in Friedberg and Judah Loew ben Bezalel (Maharal; ca. 1525-1609) and Ephraim of Luntshits (1550-1619) in Prague. For over half a century, he served as rabbi and/or rabbinic judge in the Jewish communities of Prague, Nikolsburg, Vienna, Niemirów, Włodzimierz, and Kraków. Among Heller’s many scholarly writings, the best-known is his Tosefet yom tov (later styled Tosefot yom tov). In this pioneering work, written while he participated in a Mishnah study group founded by Maharal in Prague, Heller undertook to provide Tosafist-like commentary to the entire Mishnah and to one of its greatest expositors, Rabbi Obadiah of Bertinoro (ca. 1450-ca. 1516). Tosefet yom tov aims to arrive at the peshat (plain sense meaning) of the Mishnah by establishing the correct text thereof, explaining difficult words therein (sometimes via Greek etymologies), and resolving various internal contradictions. In the process, it also helpfully summarizes earlier commentaries and clarifies points of practical law. “One of the literary monuments of Renaissance culture among the Jews of Prague” (Davis [2004]), the work quickly achieved wide popularity, even going through a second edition during its author’s lifetime (Kraków, 1642-1645), and has remained a staple of traditional study to the present day. The present lot comprises the last two (of six) orders of the Mishnah, printed together with the Bertinoro and Heller commentaries.

Provenance

Part 1:

A.N.(?) (f. [1r])

Literature

Joseph M. Davis, Yom-Tov Lipmann Heller: Portrait of a Seventeenth-Century Rabbi (Oxford; Portland: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2004), 66-82, at p. 66.

A.M. Habermann, “Piyyutav ve-shirav shel rabbi yom tov lipmann heller,” in Judah Leib Maimon (ed.), Li-kevod yom tov: ma’amarim u-mehkarim (Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1956), 125-145, at p. 125 n. 1.

Vinograd, Prague 246

Leopold Zunz, “Annalen der hebräischen Typographie von Prag, von Jahre 1513 bis zum Jahre 1657,” in Zur Gechichte und Literatur, vol. 1 (Berlin: Veit und Comp., 1845), 268-303, at p. 292 (no. 176).