Chut HaShani, Early Edition of the First Printing! Rare Copy from the Library of Rabbi David Oppenheim, Av Beit Din ...

Chut HaShani, Early Edition of the First Printing! Rare Copy from the Library of Rabbi David Oppenheim, Av Beit Din of Prague

Sefer Chut HaShani, responsa by Rabbi Moshe Shimshon Bachrach and Rabbi Avraham Shmuel Bachrach. Published by their son/grandson Rabbi Yair Bachrach (author of Chavat Yair) with responsa from him as well. [Frankfurt, 1679]. Rare special edition. Early edition of the first printing. Complete copy of the sefer without the skipping found in most copies.

This is the first sefer by the Chavat Yair, in which he published responsa by his father and grandfather, and added some of his own. The sefer opens with an important introduction by the Chavat Yair, in which he writes that sefarim by his father and grandfather should rightly be brought to print before his own. Indeed, this is the first sefer he printed, a long time before his own renowned sefer, Chavat Yair was printed. Siman 10 contains a teshuvah by Rabbi Yeshayah HaLevi Horowitz, author of the Shl"ah. The final responsum (siman 97) is a kuntress by Rabbi Yair Bachrach about Chaza"l's measures and weights.

During the printing process, Rabbi Yair Chaim Bachrach omitted the end of the responsum 18 and responsa 19-20 (leaves 23-24 in the book) and instead, he inserted an unnumbered responsum. As a result of this omission, there is a skipping in the numbering of the responsa in most known copies of the first edition.

The Bar Ilan library has an unrevised copy with all the omissions and the complete responsa numbering. This copy is called the mahadura kamma of the first edition. For more about this, refer to Professor Y. Sh. Speigel's expanded discussion in HaMa'ayan 47 issue 3, Nissan 2007, pp. 69-76, where there is a copy of the omitted leaves. Here is a rare copy of the mahadura kamma of the first printing, identical to the copy in the Bar Ilan University library.

This rare copy belonged to the renowned rabbi of Frankfurt, the gaon Rabbi David Oppenheim - the Rad"a, who was known as manhig hador. The Rad"a's owner's stamps from his youth and his father's stamps appear on the title page: "Hashem has also granted this to His servant, Avraham ben ... Shimon Wolf, ztzllh"h Oppenheim" and "David, the small one, Oppenheim, 15 Kislev, 1683...".

Likewise, across the top of the first leaves of the sefer there is one letter noted on each page, which together form Rabbi David's elongated signature: "אני דוד הקטן בן לאאמ"ו כהר"ר אברהם אופנהיים שלי"ט אמן סלה." Handwritten notation on page 108b.

The Rad"a was known for his famous library. Its reputation spread far and wide - it contained thousands of books and hundreds of manuscripts. (The library was eventually transferred to the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford). Bibliographers speculate that much of the printed matter in his library, one-of-a-kind copies, survived due to the fact that he used to supply the major European printing houses with finer paper than was customary at the time so that they would use it to print special copies of the books for him. Indeed, it is fitting that Rabbi David Oppenheim had a perfect and rare copy of Sefer Chut HaShani in his famous library. It is also known that in his youth, the Rad"a befriended the author of Chavat Yair and maintained correspondence with him.

Refer to the Hebrew catalog text for brief biographies of Rabbi Avraham Oppenheim, son of Rabbi Shimon Wolf, and his son, Rabbi David Oppenheim.

92, 95-115 leaf. 18 cm.

Very fine condition, as befits a copy from the Rad"a's library. Light aging stains. Two individual worming holes. Small tears and sticker for reinforcement in the margins of the title page, without damage to the text.

Elegant new binding.