Rabbi Bahya ben Asher, a thirteenth-century Sephardic biblical exegete, preacher, and kabbalist, divides the present manual into four she‘arim (gates), whence the title Sefer shulhan shel arba (Table of Four). The first and third are devoted to the actions to be performed at the table, while the second and fourth examine the topics to be discussed there. The first gate treats of the blessings and handwashing rituals rabbinic tradition requires for meals. The third gate is concerned with derekh erets (rabbinic meal etiquette) and is essentially a brief anthology of traditions about host-guest relations culled from the minor Talmudic Tractates Derekh erets rabbah and Derekh erets zuta. Interposed between these two is the second gate, devoted to an exploration ostensibly of the “physiology of eating” but really an exposition of a mystical kabbalistic theory of eating. Fina🌠lly, the fourth gate describes the eschatological banquet reserved for the righteous in the messianic era. The present edition of the book, printed without a title page and mistakenly attributed in the colophon to Rabbi Moses Nahmanides (1194-1270), was published around the same time as a parallel version issued in Constantinople by Astruc de Toulon.

Literature

Marvin J. Heller, The Sixteenth Century Hebrew Book: An Abridged Thesaurus, vol. 1 (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2004), 64-65.

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Isaac Yudlov and G.J. Ormann, Sefer ginzei yisra’el: sefarim, hoverot, va-alonim me-osef dr. yisra’el mehlman, asher be-beit ha-sefarim ha-le’ummi ve-ha-universita’i (Jerusalem: JNUL, 1984), 159 (no. 961).