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Lot : 140

Shulchan Aruch with
Ateres Tzvi
First Edition. Cracow, 1646-1650

Start price: $10,000

Est. Price: $15,000 - $25,000

Shulchan Aruch with

Ateres Tzvi

First Edition. Cracow, 1646-1650

Chiddushim, commentary and sources for Shulchan Aruch Orach Chaim by Rabbi Tzvi Katz, prime disciple of the Bach.

Nachalas Tzvi is the first (!) of the Nosei Keilim of Shulchan Aruch Orach Chaim.The great Achronim, authors of Eliyahu Rabba and Pri Megadim, both cite and discuss his opinions. Rabbi Tzvi Katz was likewise the first to include glosses referencing the source of Rabbi Yosef Caro’s halachic rulings in the Shulchan Aruch, preempting even the author of Beer Hagolah.

This is an extraordinarily rare sefer due to the sequence of historical events that transpired at the time. In 1648-1649, (gezeiros Tac”h veTa”t) European Jewry suffered the brutal Chmielnicki massacres, and thousands were slaughtered, communities razed, and shuls and batei medrash burned to the ground at the hands of the vicious peasants.

The printing of Nachalas Tzvi commenced in 1646, yet was interrupted in the wake of the massacres, and did not resume until four years later in 1650. Thus, the present sefer is a combination of pamphlets that were printed before the pogroms but miraculously survived and the remaining sections that were printed after the massacres.

The sefer opens with approbations by the venerable Gedolim of Cracow, among them the Tosfos Yom Tov, Maginei Shlomo and Rabbi Yechiel Michel of Nimirov Hy”d, who was murdered in the massacres. He is mentioned by the author in Ch. 311.

Rabbi Tzvi Katz (circa 1590-after 1661) was the son of Rabbi Yosef, Av Beis Din of Zaslav .Rabbi Tzvi studied under the Bach whom he quotes frequently in his works. During the horrors of the Chmielnicki massacres of 1648, Rabbi Tzvi was left tragically widowed and bereft of his entire family.

This sefer was the personal copy of the Chida!

The title page of this sefer bears the trademark elaborate handwritten autograph of Rabbi Chaim Yosef Dovid Azzoulay, the Chida, who inscribes that he purchased this sefer during a mission to Amsterdam in 1778. (The Chida notes in his sefer Maagal Tov pps. 127-153 that he sojourned in Amsterdam between 27 Teves and 21 Iyar, 5538 [1778]).

Cracow, 1646-1650. First Edition. Page Count: 60, [204].
Page Size: 29 cm.
Condition: Outer margins cropped, minor restorations, but otherwise in beautiful condition. Ornate new leather binding

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