Bidspirit auction | Or HaChamah (Rabbi Avraham Azulai).

Or HaChamah (Rabbi Avraham Azulai). Thessaloniki 1842, First Rare Edition- Ilan Sefirot. - Sefer Or HaChamah, a commentary on the Zohar, on the Book of Leviticus, by the divine kabbalist Rabbi Avraham Azulai, author of Chesed LeAvraham, the great-great-grandfather of Maran the Chida. First Edition. Thessaloniki, 1842. Printed by Sa‘adi HaLevi Ashkenazi. On leaf 5/2 a special Ilan Sefirot (diagram of the Sefirotic Tree) is printed. Rare! A sefer whose printing was never completed and which survived the fire — many copies were destroyed in the great fire that broke out in Thessaloniki. Rabbi Raphael Pinchas di Sigura (known by the acronym HaPaRDeS), in his introduction, writes that the manuscript of the sefer had been in the possession of Rabbi Nissim Zerachya Azulai of Safed (a grandson of the Chida), who endeavored to have it printed; however, Rabbi Nissim passed away before the printing began. Rabbi HaPaRDeS and Rabbi Yaakov Amado then jointly undertook the printing. Due to lack of funds, the work was not completed in print. Gershom Scholem wrote of this book that it is “extremely rare.” This work is an abridgment of the commentaries of Rabbi Moshe Cordovero (from his work Or Yakar) and of the commentary of Rabbi Chaim Vital. In the present edition, only the commentary on Leviticus was printed, due to financial constraints. In later editions, additional sections were printed, and commentaries by other authors were included as well. [2], 76, 79–114 leaves. 30 cm. The composition Kiryat Arba, a commentary on the Zohar — which includes the works Or HaChamah and Or HaLevanah — was authored by the kabbalist Rabbi Avraham Azulai of Hebron (1570–1644), author of Chesed LeAvraham (an ancestor of the gaon the Chida). Portions of this work were printed in the sefer Zoharei Chamah (Venice, 1650). Another portion was printed in the present sefer in Thessaloniki 1842. However, most of the work remained hidden in manuscript form for many years, until the manuscript came into the possession of the holy gaon Rebbi Yechezkel Halberstam, Av Beit Din of Sieniawa (1815–1899). The Admor expended great effort to obtain the manuscript and bring it to print. For this purpose, he sent his close associate, the righteous Rabbi Yitzchak Bahem of Krole, to print it in the Holy City of Jerusalem, as part of the Or HaChamah series. Or HaChamah was printed a second time in Przemyśl at the initiative of the Admor of Sieniawa, while Or HaLevanah, together with glosses on the Zohar (written by Rabbi Avraham Azulai based on ancient manuscripts), was published only after his passing, in Tevet 1899. In the introduction to Or HaLevanah, his sons, the Admorim, write of their father’s great toil in printing the seforim and of his efforts in his final days to hasten the publication of Or HaLevanah.