A rare survival of the Yemenite recension of this foundational text.

Rabbi Solomon ben Isaac, universally known by the acronym Rashi (1040-1105), was a native of Northern France who studied in Germany before returning to his home country. There he wrote history’s most popular Torah commentary, as well as transformative glosses on most of the rest of the Hebrew Bible and much of the Babylonian Talmud. The very earliest dat✅ed Hebrew book printed with movable type to have come down to us is an edition of Rashi’s commentary on the Pentateuch (Reggio di Calabria, 1475), a title which was issued another eight times in the incunable period alone. To this day the work continues to serve as one of the first rabbinic texts to which schoolchildren are introduced throughout the Jewish world, starting from a tender age.

Despite the distance from Norther🌼n Europe, Rashi’s commentary made its way to Yemen already by the fifteenth century, apparently before the appearance of the first editions. There it attracted a wide following and would, with time, become a regular part of Sabbath afternoon study sessions in the synagogue. While the vast majority of surviving Yemenite exemplars largely reproduce the printed editions of the text, a handful of manuscripts, like the first part (pp. 1-110) of the present lot, preserve an older version of the commentary. These are of great value to scholars interested in reconstructing as much of the original work as possible, before copyists and printers changed its form and content to suit their editorial needs and interests.

Like many other of his Yemenite manuscripts, David Solomon Sassoon purchased this volume from Elias Abraha🥀m Saadia Solomon Halfon of Aden (between mid-March 1928 and mid-July 1929), who went by the name Elias Abraham Morris when he later immigrated to New York City.

Physical Description

322 of about 334 pages (8 1/4 x 5 3/4 in.; 209 x 145 mm) (collation starting with p. 111: i-xiii⁸, xiv² [xiv_3-4 lacking]) on Yemenite (unmarked) paper; premodern foliation in pen in Hebrew characters in upper-outer corners of rectos (ff. 5-7, 7-12 only); modern pagination in pencil in Arabic numerals in lower margins at center; midpoints of quires (of pp. 111-322) generally marked in the upper-right and/or lower-left corners of the middle opening; written in two different Yemenite hands, the first (pp. 1-110) of the 15th century and the second (pp. 111-322) of the 17th century, in black ink; single- (pp. 1-52, 111-322) and double-column (pp. 53-110) text of a variable number of lines per page; ruled with a mastara (ruling board); justification of lines via dilation or contraction of final letters, insertion of space fillers, use of anticipatory letters, and abbreviation; headers; horizontal catchwords added inconsistently on versos of pp. 1-110 and consistently on rectos and versos of pp. 111-322; periodic Tiberian and/or Babylonian vocalization of text; Tetragrammaton abbreviated to two or three yodin in a row with a dot above and below the midpoint (pp. 1-110) or to the letter he followed by a short stroke (pp. 111-322); episodic later marginal references; corrections, strikethroughs, and/or marginalia in primary and secondary hands. Decorated initial wood panel on p. 78; simple rosettes at the close of some parashiyyot (pp. 65, 103, 109); enlarged incipits (pp. 111-322). Probably lacking about six folios: three at the beginning, one in between pp. 46-47, and two at the end; scattered staining and dampstaining; corners rounded and sometimes dog-eared; episodic creasiꦫng; pages cropped, at times affecting headers or marginalia; paper sometimes slightly damaged by ink, resulting in small cracks or holes; periodic short tears in edges (e.g., pp. 45-46, 55-62, 87-90); damage in edges of pp. 1-4, 213-214, 321-322, affecting several words; worming in center of pp. 1-6, 73-88, affecting several words; pp. 27-28 loose; damage in upper portion of pp. 175-176 and in outer portion of pp. 221-222, affecting several words; small puncture in ꦐtext of pp. 217-218. Modern green buckram; shelf mark lettered in gilt at base of spine; modern paper flyleaves and pastedowns.

Literature

Pinhas Korah, “Ha-limmud be-peirushei rashi u-ma‘al♌ato,” available at🦩: .

Eric Lawee, Rashi’s Commentary on the Torah: Canonization and Resistance in the Reception of a Jewish Classic Book (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019).

Manfred R. Lehmann (ed.), Peirush rashi al ha-torah le-rabbi shelomoh yitshaki (New York: Manfred and Anꦇne Lehmann Foundation, 198𒁏1).

Sassoon 1188 (not catalogued in Ohel Dawid)