KOL SASON (ETHICS), RABBI SASON [SHINDOOKH], SCRIBE: ABRAHAM SHALOM JOSEPH ABDUL RAZZAQ, BAGHDAD: 1843

KOL SASON (ETHICS), RABBI SASON [SHINDOOKH], SCRIBE: ABRAHAM SHALOM JOSEPH ABDUL RAZZAQ, BAGHDAD: 1843

76 folios (7 1/2 x 5 3/4 in.; 191 x 145 mm) (collation indeterminate) on paper (f. 69v blank); contemporary foliation in pen in Hebrew characters in upper-outer corner of rectos (ff. 1-69 only); written in Iraqi square (titles and incipits) and semi-cursive (text body) scripts in black ink; single-column text of a variable number of lines per page, with numerous double-column poems interspersed throughout; unruled; justification of lines via dilation or contraction of final letters; headers (excepting ff. [71-75]); catchwords (excepting f. [72v]); intermittent corrections in scribe’s hand (e.g., ff. 3r, 4v, 51r-v); pen trial on f. 8r; Arabic script on ff. 69r, [75r]. Title within ornamental frame adorned with floral imagery in bright colors; table of contents on f. 2r; decorative geometric design following text on ff. 69r, [75r]. Slight scattered staining and dampstaining; ink biting or smudging at times; some headers and folio numbers partially cropped; short tear in gutter of title at foot; ownership slip on title verso slightly loose; lower-inner corner of f. [72] repaired, with loss of some text. Gilt-tooled blue leather, slightly worn along edges; spine in six compartments with raised bands; title lettered in gilt on spine; paper ticket with shelf mark on spine; marbled edges; contemporary marbled paper flyleaves and pastedowns.

One of three known prepublication manuscript copies of this classic of Iraqi musar literature.

Rabbi Sason Shindookh (1747-1830), scion of a distinguished Baghdadi family, served numerous communal functions in his native city: mohel (circumciser), shohet (ritual slaughterer), sofer (scribe of ritual texts), overseer of marriages, and cantor, Torah reader, and preacher in the Great Synagogue. A polymath, he also authored or created numerous kabbalistic, halakhic, artistic, and poetic works, including a number of piyyutim (liturgical poems) still current among Iraqi Jewry. He had a particular interest in musar, to which the present text is dedicated. In forty-three chapters, Kol sason treats the main components of religious ethics, including themes like love and fear of God, repentance, proper etiquette, and various positive and negative character traits. These discussions are generally interspersed with stories, parables, and especially poems that help convey the chapter’s lesson.

Though Kol sason was completed in 1796, it was not printed until 1859, when it appeared in Livorno (it would subsequently be reprinted in Baghdad and several cities in Israel). In the intervening years, three known manuscript copies of the book were created, including the present lot and two volumes in the Meir Benayahu Collection in Jerusalem (B 210, dated 1834, and B 13, dated 1854). Their scribes appear to have relied on the same master copy, as evidenced by the formula used for their colophons and the names of chapters 25 and 26 given in their tables of contents. Moreover, some of the back matter found in the Sassoon copy—comprising legends selected from Joseph Sambari’s (ca. 1640-1703) Divrei yosef chronicle or one of its popular adaptations—is also present in the 1834 Benayahu exemplar.

The present volume’s scribe, Abraham Shalom Joseph Abdul Razzaq, was active in Baghdad in the mid-nineteenth century, signing a religious court ruling in ca. 1847 and several ketubbot in 1838, 1844, and 1864. In addition to the present work, he also wrote a charmingly decorated Baghdadi liturgy in 1860 (now part of the Gross Family Collection in Tel Aviv). His neat copy of Kol sason, in its elegant binding, constitutes a lovely representative of the Iraqi book art tradition.

Provenance

1. Abraham Shalom Joseph Abdul Razzaq (title page recto and verso)

2. J. A. S[olomon] (stamped in gilt on upper board)

3. Gifted by him to Moise Abraham Sassoon (annexed paper slip)

4. Gifted by Rachel, wife of M. A. Sassoon, to Solomon David Sassoon, July 1958 (annexed documentation of lot 36), and assigned shelf mark 1278

Literature

Meir Benayahu, Sefarim she-nithabberu be-bavel u-sefarim she-ne‘etku bah (Jerusalem: Yad Harav Nissim and the Babylonian Jewry Heritage Center, 1993), 171-172 (no. 167), 177 (no. 175), 207-208 (no. 229).

Abraham Ben-Yaacob, Ha-rav sason be-r. mordechai shindookh: toledotav, hibburav, shirav, u-piyyutav (Jerusalem: Haktav Institute, 1994).

Lev Hakak, Ha-ma‘ateh matok ve-ha-terufah marah: sefer “kol sason” le-r. sason mordekhai mosheh (Or Yehuda: Merkav Moreshet Yahadut Bavel, 2012).