SEFER RAZI’EL HA-MAL’AKH (COLLECTION OF KABBALISTIC, COSMOLOGICAL, AND MAGICAL WORKS), EDITED BY ISAAC BEN ABRAHAM, AMSTERDAM: MOSEH MENDES COUTINHO, 1701

The first edition of one of the most famous Jewish amuletic books, with distinguished Anglo-Jewish provenance.

Moses (Moseh) ben Abraham Mendes Coutinho (Coitinho), about whose personal life little is known, bought the printing tools and types of David de Castro Tartas (ca. 1627-after 1697) in 1697 and issued his first two Hebrew titles in 1699. He continued printing, mostly on order, until 1711, when he gave up the business.

Sefer razi’el ha-mal’akh takes its name from Raziel, an angel connected with “the mysteries of God.” According to an ancient tradition, Raziel appeared to Adam three days after his expulsion from Eden and gave him a magical textbook containing the secrets of the workings of Creation. This aggadah serves as the background for the present work, a collection of mystical, cosmological, astrological, angelological, and magical texts culled in large part from the writings of Rabbi Eleazar ben Judah of Worms (ca. 1165-ca. 1230), one of the best-known of the Hasidei Ashkenaz, as well as various other esoteric and kabbalistic sources (most prominently, the Talmudic-period Sefer ha-razim).

In addition to containing instructions for the preparation of amulets, the book declares on its title page that it “serves anyone who stores and hides away this holy, honored, and awesome book, together with his money and gold in his treasure house, as an esteemed charm for living to see wise and understanding grandchildren; for success and blessing; for extinguishing a fire […] so that it not overtake one’s house; and for ensuring that no demon or harmful force dwell in one’s home […] And in his time of distress, it will bring speedy salvation, and all upstanding citizens will testify to this.” No doubt due to its apotropaic properties, Sefer razi’el ha-mal’akh has been reprinted over forty times since its original publication in 1701. 

According to signatures at the front of the volume, the present copy was owned by Solomon Hirschel (1762-1842) and Moses Gaster (1856-1939), British Chief Rabbis of the Ashkenazic and Sephardic communities, respectively.

Provenance

Reverend Solomon Herschell, London 1818 (front flyleaf)

Simhah ben Solomon Zalman of Bargebuhr […] Norden, family of […] Rabbi Jonathan Hamburger [Eibeschuetz], 1 Elul [5]578 [September 2, 1818] (front and rear flyleaves)

M.A. Abecassis (?) (f. 1r)

M[oses] Gaster (f. 1r)

Moses ben Solomon Pińczów (?) (f. 1r)

Literature

Lajb Fuks and Renate G. Fuks-Mansfeld, Hebrew Typography in the Northern Netherlands[,] 1585-1815: Historical Evaluation and Descriptive Bibliography, vol. 2 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1987), 424-425, 430 (no. 573).

Mordecai Margalioth (ed.), Sefer ha-razim[,] hu sefer keshafim mi-tekufat ha-talmud (Jerusalem: American Academy of Jewish Studies, 1966), 31-35, 41-46.

Chaim and Betzalel Stefansky, Sifrei yesod: sifrei ha-yesod shel ha-sifriyyah ha-yehudit ha-toranit (n.p.: Chaim and Betzalel Stefansky, 2019), 96 (no. 332).

Vinograd, Amsterdam 731

Leopold Zunz, Ha-derashot be-yisra’el ve-hishtalshelutan ha-historit, trans. Moshe Eliyahu Zhernensky, ed. Chanoch Albeck (Jerusalem: Mossad Bialik, 1954), 74, 332-333.