Sacred Splendor: Judaica from the Arthur and Gitel Marx Collection
Sacred Splendor: Judaica from the Arthur and Gitel Marx Collection
SHA‘AR HA-SHAMAYIM (PRAYER BOOK WITH KABBALISTIC COMMENTARY), RABBI ISAIAH HA-LEVI HOROWITZ, AMSTERDAM: AARON DE SOLOMON ANTONES, 1717
Auction Closed
November 20, 08:47 PM GMT
Estimate
40,000 - 50,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
SHA‘AR HA-SHAMAYIM (PRAYER BOOK WITH KABBALISTIC COMMENTARY), RABBI ISAIAH HA-LEVI HOROWITZ, AMSTERDAM: AARON DE SOLOMON ANTONES, 1717
4 parts in 2 volumes (approx. 8 1/4 x 6 5/8 in.; approx. 209 x 165 mm):
Vol. 1: Part 1 (Siddur): 337 folios; Part 2 (Parashiyyot, Selihot, and Yotserot): 139 folios on paper. Elaborately engraved title page featuring vignettes of the three Patriarchs and images representing Rosh Hashanah and the three pilgrimage festivals; decorative elements on 1:[5v], 29v, [128r]; initial word within ornamental frame on 2:1r; enlarged incipit on 2:30v; occasional marginalia in pen. Slight scattered staining; browning and foxing; intermittent (heavy) thumbing, episodically obscuring text and/or resulting in short tears (e.g., 1:48-49, 51); repairs in gutters of 1:[1]-22, mostly not affecting text (though see ff. 11v-18v); small repairs in lower edges of 1:[1]-7; wormtrack on 1:[1-3] repaired, affecting several words; 1:[2] remargined; repairs in outer edges of 1:13-16; 1:14-16 extensively repaired in lower quadrants, with only minor losses of text; small hole in lower margin of 1:38; last lines of 1:46v-47r cropped; small wormhole near lower-outer corner of 1:107-110; bound out of order: …204, 208, 206, 207, 205, 209…; wormtrack near gutter at center of 1:204-2:132, usually affecting individual letters (more extensive on 1:252-267, 2:30-35); small hole near outer margin of 1:236, affecting a few letters; lower-outer corners of 1:319, 2:61 lacking, without loss of text; small hole on 2:22, affecting a couple letters; 2:137-139 reinforced along gutters and repaired in lower-outer corners.
Vol. 2: Part 3 (Sefer tehillim): 130 folios; Part 4 (Seder ma‘amadot): 53 folios on paper. Titles of both parts within ornamental borders; decorative elements on 3:[2r], 4v; initial words within ornamental frames on 3:5r, 4:1r; occasional marginalia in pen. Slight scattered staining; light browning; headline periodically cropped; gutters frequently reinforced with tape; tears on 3:5, 10; 3:9-10 reinforced along outer edge; 3:24-25 supplied, remargined, and repaired, with minor losses near gutter; repairs in lower-outer corners of 4:51-52 and in gutter of 4:52, the latter affecting a few words; small holes near outer margin of 4:52.
Both volumes bound in modern blind-tooled tan calf, slightly scuffed; spines in six compartments with raised bands; title, volume number, place, and date lettered in blind on spines; turn-ins tooled in blind; modern marbled paper flyleaves and pastedowns.
The first edition of the Siddur ha-shelah.
Rabbi Isaiah ha-Levi Horowitz (ca. 1565-1630), author of the Shelah (see lots 79, 85), began work on a kabbalistic commentary on the prayer book after immigrating to the Holy Land in 1621 as an expression of thanksgiving to God for having brought him “to the awesome place, site of the sha‘ar ha-shamayim [Gate of Heaven]” (see Gen. 28:17). In the Shelah (Amsterdam, 1648-1649 ed., f. 259v), he explains the name of the work as follows: “…for if one knows the secrets of prayer, [the prayer] ascends on High via the sha‘ar ha-shamayim. Furthermore, the word ha-shamayim refers to my name [Isaiah] – the two are numerically equivalent” (see also the author’s introduction to the siddur itself). Though Horowitz, who finished the commentary in 1625, explicitly instructed his heirs to print the book after his death, numerous obstacles delayed its publication for nearly a century. It was finally brought to press in 1717 by Rabbi Abraham ben Isaiah Horowitz (1671-1744), the author’s great-grandson, who had immigrated to Amsterdam from Poland.
The volume opens with a beautiful engraved title page depicting Jacob dreaming at the site of the biblical sha‘ar ha-shamayim, flanked by images of Abraham and Isaac at prayer and scenes representing the three pilgrimage festivals and Rosh Hashanah. The liturgy includes the daily, Sabbath, and festival prayers, as well as a Passover Haggadah, Pirkei avot, weekday Torah readings, piyyutim (liturgical poems), the book of Psalms, and numerous other texts. The younger Horowitz added devotional, commentarial, and halakhic material from various sources, including the Shelah and Rabbi Nathan Note Hannover’s Sefer sha‘arei tsiyyon (Prague, 1622), as well as the insights of his grandfather Rabbi Shabbetai Sheftel, his father, and himself.
Such was the esteem in which the author and his book were held that Rabbi Joel Sirkes (1561-1640), a leading halakhist and commentator on Rabbi Jacob ben Asher’s Sefer arba‘ah turim (see lot 166), attests in his approbation: “We have no doubt that […] whoever prays from this [volume] – his prayers will not return unanswered.”
Provenance
Abraham ben Israel of Tiktin, [54]94 [1734] (1:[1v, 128r])
Literature
David Jonah Rosenbaum, Introduction to Isaiah ha-Levi Horowitz, Siddur ha-shelah, vol. 1 (Jerusalem: Oz ve-Hadar, 2017), 13-30.
Chaim and Betzalel Stefansky, Sifrei yesod: sifrei ha-yesod shel ha-sifriyyah ha-yehudit ha-toranit (n.p.: Chaim and Betzalel Stefansky, 2019), 114 (no. 413).
Vinograd, Amsterdam 1114
Isaac Isaiah Weiss, “Le-mahadurot ‘siddur ha-shelah’ ve-ha-peirushim she-bo,” Tsefunot 17 (1993): 28-31.