Midrash Hemdat Yamim on Genesis and Exodus, Autograph of Rabbi Shalem ben Joseph Shabazi, [Yemen, ca. 1650]

One of the earliest surviving copies of an important work by the preeminent poet of Yemenite Jewry.

Rabbi Shalem ben Joseph Shabazi was born into the Mashta family in southern Yemen in 1619. He wandered northward to central Yemen and over time gained a reputation as a righteous man and great sage; his tomb near the Jewish quarter of Taiz became a site of pilgrimage for those seeking assistance with their physical and spiritual needs. He is probably best known for his voluminous poetic output, in which he gave elegant (but readily accessible) expression to the messianic yearnings of a people in exile and sang sweetly about such themes as Torah, Jewish ritual, wisdom, ethics, and the life of the World to Come. 

In his twenties, Shabazi began work on a wide-ranging Hebrew midrash-cum-commentary on the Pentateuch entitled Midrash hemdat yamim, completing his first draft around 1646. (The words Hemdat yamim have the same gematria value as “Shalem ben Joseph” when the number 26, standing for the Tetragrammaton, is added to them.) Shabazi’s methodology can be described as more or less consistent with that of pardes, which discerns multiple layers of meaning within the biblical text. The book is suffused with Talmudic, halakhic, exegetical, homiletical, philosophical, and especially kabbalistic teaching, its author having anthologized numerous sources—some of them otherwise unattested—and also added his own insights.

Shabazi continued revising his midrash over the course of the next decade and a half, through 1661, producing multiple editions as he added more and more material. The work survives today in at least sixty (complete or partial) manuscripts dating from the seventeenth through the twentieth centuries, testifying to its wide popularity and diffusion throughout Yemenite Jewry. The present lot, written by Shabazi in his own hand, may be the earliest copy extant. According to Shabazi researcher and editor Zion Bar Maoz, it represents the “second edition” of Midrash hemdat yamim. Like many other of his Yemenite manuscripts, David Solomon Sassoon purchased this volume from Elias Abraham 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. 

Sotheby’s is grateful to Yosef Yuval Tobi for providing information that aided in the cataloguing of this manuscript.

Physical Description

618 of about 642 pages (8 1/4 x 6 in.; 210 x 153 mm) (likely original collation: i⁶, ii⁷ [ii₁ canceled?], iii⁸, iv⁶ [iv_3-4 canceled, with stubs present], v-vii⁸, viii⁷ [viii₁ lacking, with stub present], ix-xii⁸, xiii⁶ [xiii_3-4 canceled, with stubs present], xiv-xxxviii⁸, xxxix⁶ [xxxix_1,8 lacking, with stub of xxxix₁ present], lx⁵ [lx_4,6,8 lacking], lxi² [lxi_1,4-8 lacking]) on Yemenite (unmarked) paper (pp. 390-391 blank); modern pagination in pencil in Arabic numerals in lower margins at center (pp. 1-6) and in upper-outer corners (pp. 7-618); midpoints of quires generally marked in the upper-left corner of the middle opening with a figure-six; written in Yemenite square (titles and incipits) and semi-cursive (text body) scripts in black ink; single-column text, with frequent glosses, of mostly twenty-five or twenty-six lines per page; justification of lines via dilation or contraction of final letters, insertion of space fillers, and abbreviation; catchwords in lower margins of versos; periodic Tiberian vocalization of text; Tetragrammaton abbreviated to three yodin in a row surmounting a zayin shape; diagrams on pp. 33, 585; corrections, strikethroughs, and/or marginalia (sometimes cropped) in primary and secondary hands. Probably lacking about 12 folios (see collation); half of pp. 599-600 lacking; staining and dampstaining throughout; corners rounded; some dog-earing and creasing toward front and rear; gutters periodically strengthened; occasional short tears in edges; episodic ink transfer; damage in edges of pp. 1-4, 147-148, 613-614 slightly affecting text and in edges of pp. 5-16, 519-612, 615-618 not affecting text; some marginal worming on pp. 99-208, 287-312, 345-378, 437-480, 497-532, 537-590, mostly not affecting text; old marginal repairs on pp. 185-186, 191-192, 360-361 and old repair in text on pp. 463-464; punctures on pp. 207-208, 361-362; hole affecting some text on pp. 359-360. Modern brown buckram, slightly worn and stained; paper ticket with title affixed to top of spine; shelf mark lettered in gilt at base of spine; modern paper flyleaves and pastedowns.

Literature

Zion Bar Maoz, “Midrash ‘hemdat yamim’ ha-teimani—le-mi?” Tehudah 26 (2010): 40-46.

Saul Lieberman, Midreshei teiman, 2nd ed. (Jerusalem: Wahrmann Books, 1970), 32-38.

David Solomon Sassoon, Ohel Dawid: Descriptive Catalogue of the Hebrew and Samaritan Manuscripts in the Sassoon Library, London, vol. 2 ([Oxford]: Oxford University Press; London: Humphrey Milford, 1932), 1017 (no. 1139).

Shalem ben Joseph Shabazi, Midrash hemdat yamim al ha-torah, ed. Zion Bar Maoz, 5 vols. (Jerusalem: Keren Shabazi, 2014), 5:598 (Appendix 11). Introduction available at: https://bkiovnhroh1.com/page1268.asp.

Hen Yanai, “Ha-lashon ha-ivrit ha-mishtakkefet ba-tiklal (siddur tefillah) she-nikhtav al yedei r. shalem shabazi,” Ha-safranim (August 5, 2018), available at: https://blog.nli.org.il/shabazi/.