Bidspirit auction | AVIEZER BEN YITZCHAK OF TITKIN.

AVIEZER BEN YITZCHAK OF TITKIN. Sha’arei Tzedek LeZera Yitzchak [Kabbalistic treatises]. First Edition. Fine copy printed on green tinted paper. ff. (6), 68. Modern boards. Sm. 4to. Halevi, Jerusalem 16; Ch. Liberman, Ohel RoCHeL Vol. I, p. 90 (no. 13). Jerusalem, Yisrael Bak, 1843. The author, R. Aviezer of Tiktin, was a renowned Lithuanian Kabbalist, who migrated to Eretz Israel in 1840 (see Otzar HaRabbanim, A-40). The book is divided into four She’arim: 1. Sha’arei Orah (which bemoans the tragedies that befell the three cities of Safed, Jerusalem, and Tiberias); 2. Sha’arei Teshuvah (on repentance); 3. Sha’arei Yosher (responses to sectarians); 4. Sha’arei Yeshu’ah (belief in imminent salvation). The author appended “Ne’ilath HaSha’ar” wherein he predicts redemption in the year 5620 [1860], the numerical value of “Zaphnath” (the Egyptian name of Joseph). The third part of the work, Sh’arei Yosher was in response to the following extraordinary incident: In 1843, exasperated by the failure of the Redemption to materialize in the year 5600 (1840) as predicted by the Zohar, two members of the elite Jerusalem community of Perushim converted to Christianity. In a dazzling discourse on the dimension of Time (foreshadowing Einstein’s theory of relativity), R. Aviezer demonstrates that Ein Sof (The Infinite) cannot be constricted to Man’s limited conception of Time. R. Aviezer consequently postulates that the Redemption did indeed commence in the year 1840 but will not become evident until the year 1846. See Aryeh Morgenstern, Ge’ulah BeDerech HaTeva (1979) pp. 12-16.