Bidspirit auction | Shu”t HaRivash  Riva di Trento,

Shu”t HaRivash  Riva di Trento, 1559.  * Responsa by the eminent Rabbeinu Yitzchak bar Sheshet, known as the Rivash. Shu”t HaRivash is one of the most important works of teshuvos from the Rishonim. Virtually every halachic teshuva in the sefer is cited by the Shulchan Aruch and the Rema! The Beis Yosef writes: “We are students of the Rivash, and drink from the wellsprings of his teachings. Who was greater than him among the great sages of Yisrael? If only we could truly understand his words and appreciate their full depth” (Shu”t Beis Yosef, Laws of Kesuba, siman 2). The work was first printed in Constantinople in 1546–1547. The present volume is the second edition. On leaf 23a there is a handwritten halachic annotation signed “יג”ר” – this is referring to the gaon Rabbi Yitzchak Gershon, one of the leading Italian rabbanim of the 16th century and the famous Venetian proofreader, who corrected no fewer than 53 printed sefarim! (Asufot 13, p. 9). Rabbi Yitzchak was a disciple of the Beis Yosef. He signed halachic rulings together with Rabbi Yechiel Trabot, Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh of Modena, Rabbi Yosef Samiga, Rabbi Simchah Luzzatto, and others. In the sefarim he proofread before publication, he sometimes incorporated his own annotations, some of which bear his initials, “יג”ר.” In the annotation found here, Rabbi Yitzchak refers to a note he had written in the margin of his own copy of the Beis Yosef. See more about Rabbi Yitzchak Gershon in “Rabbi Yitzchak Gershon: Father of the Proofreaders, ” in Asufot, vol. 13, pp. 9–89. Riva di Trento, 1559. Page Count: 318, [2], 97, [9] leaves. Condition: Good to fair. Paper repairs and restorations to the title page and final leaves. Stains. New binding. Within one of the decorated initials on the title page appears the signature: “HaMani’ach.” Provenance: Baranovitch Auction (2013).