Bidspirit auction | LEVI BEN GERSHOM (RALBA’G  /

LEVI BEN GERSHOM (RALBA’G  / Gersonides). Peirush Chamesh Megiloth [commentary to the Five Scrolls]. FIRST EDITION. Title letters within decorative woodcut vignettes. ff. 50. Ex-library stamp Ginzei Eliezer (Sirkis). Paper repairs to title and first and last few leaves, some stains. Modern calf-backed boards. Sm. 4to. Vinograd, Riva di Trento 23. Riva di Trento, Jacob Marcaria the Physician, 1560. In these commentaries to the Five Scrolls, the Ralba’g continues the particular methodology developed in his commentary to the Chumash. Thus, in the Book of Ruth, he provides sixteen “to’aliyoth” or morals to be learned from the story, and in Koheleth are “Bi’ur HaMiloth, ” painstaking linguistic analysis of the words in each verse.  Further in his commentary to Koheleth, seeking the main Aristotelian theories of practical ethics, Ralbag finds that the work deals with the application of the principles of conduct and the particular means for obtaining the aims involved in them. He explains the contradictions in the work, by the fact that the author includes views with which he does not agree in order to afford one a choice of action. He interprets the Song of Songs entirely as an allegory of the Soul. In the publisher’s note, Jacob Marcario apologizes for not issuing a commentary to the Book of Eichah, he speculates that perhaps Ralba’g never in fact composed this commentary at all.