Bidspirit auction | The First Sefer Printed at

The First Sefer Printed at the Slavita Press of Rabbi Moshe Shapira. Chumash Bamidbar with the Commentary of the Or Ha-Chaim. Slavita 1791. An Exceptionally Rare Segulah Edition! - Chumash Bamidbar, the fourth volume of the Pentateuch, with the commentaries of Rashi, the Aramaic Targumim, and the celebrated Or Ha-Chaim by Rabbeinu Chaim ben Attar. Slavita, [printed by Rabbi Moshe Shapira, 1791]. Although the printer's name does not appear on the title page, the volume was produced at the press established by Rabbi Moshe Shapira and appears to have been the first sefer issued from his famed Slavita printing house . The Slavita Or Ha-Chaim as a Protective Segulah: Chasidic tradition relates that Rebbi Pinchas of Koretz instructed his sons—Rabbi Moshe Shapira, Av Beth Din of Slavita, and his brother Rabbi Yechezkel Shapira, who was instrumental in establishing the Slavita press—to print an edition of the Or Ha-Chaim every year as a segulah (spiritual protection). As recorded in Migdal Oz (p. 268): ”The holy Rebbi Pinchas of Koretz... commanded his sons to print the Or Ha-Chaim every year, and thereby they would be spared every affliction and evil. They faithfully fulfilled his command. However, once so many copies had accumulated that there were no longer buyers for them, they ceased printing the work, and in that very year the well-known denunciation and calamity befell them.” Modern bibliography records only seven Slavita editions of the Or Ha-Chaim Chumash printed between 1791 and 1832, underscoring the rarity and significance of these editions. This edition is of extraordinary rarity! The Hebrew Bibliography Project records volume Shmot solely from a photograph of the title page of a copy that once appeared at auction. The National Library of Israel lists only the Vayikra volume (defective, lacking numerous leaves) and the Vayikr volume. The present volume (Bamidbar) has never appeared at public auction. 192 leaves. Lacking the final leaf of the Book of Ruth. 19.8 cm.