Bidspirit auction | Mishnat Ḥasidim. Amsterdam, 1727. First

Mishnat Ḥasidim. Amsterdam, 1727. First edition - Mishnat Ḥasidim, an important kabbalistic work based on the teachings of the Ari (Rabbi Isaac Luria), by the kabbalist Rabbi Immanuel Ḥai Ricchi. Amsterdam, 1727 (5487). First edition. With approbations from the rabbis of Safed: Rabbi Ḥaim Abulafia, Rabbi Ḥaim Yaakov ben Porna, Rabbi Moshe Sasson, Rabbi Daniel Capsuto, Rabbi Ḥiyya Gabriel, and Rabbi Yaakov ben Shmuel Abohab, Chief Rabbi of Venice. This work is regarded as sacred by the great masters of Ḥasidism and is frequently quoted in Ḥasidic literature. On the page of errata and omissions appear handwritten additions and corrections. [6], 132, [3] leaves. 16 cm. Steinschneider – Seferi Yesod, no. 368. Condition: good. Slight worming. Original old leather binding, somewhat loose. The Kabbalist Rabbi Raphael Immanuel Ḥai Ricchi (1687–1743) is best known for his major work Mishnat Ḥasidim, considered a fundamental treatise for the study and understanding of the Ari’s system of Kabbalah. At the age of thirty he ascended to the Land of Israel and settled in Safed, where he devoted himself to the study of Kabbalah and the writings of the Ari. About two years later, following an outbreak of plague, he moved to Livorno, where he composed his principal work Mishnat Ḥasidim. From there he was invited to serve as rabbi in Florence. In his later years he returned to the Land of Israel and settled in Jerusalem. He maintained a close friendship and mutual admiration with his cousin Rabbi Yosef Ergas, author of Shomer Emunim, who granted an approbation to Ricchi’s work Hon Ashir; Ricchi, in turn, wrote an approbation for Ergas’s book. During one of his journeys abroad to print his works, he was attacked and murdered by bandits. A week later he was buried in Cento, near Bologna. According to tradition, in the courtyard of his Jerusalem home, the holy Or HaḤayyim later founded his famous yeshiva Kenesset Yisrael.