Baʿal ha-ṭurim. Shaʿare orah / asher ḥiber … Yosef n. Giḳaṭilyah. בעל הטורים. שערי אורה / אשר חבר ... יוסף ן' גיקאטילייה. [Commentary on Pentateuch by Jacob Asheri. Gates of light (kabbalistic discourse on the ten sefirot) by Joseph Giquatilla].

Description

Hebrew title supplied from completion formula in folio 17v and heading in folio 68v. English title partly derived from Roth, “Catalogue”, in Alexander Marx: Jubilee Volume, vol. 1 (New York, 1950), no. 413 and 516a.


Variant title:

Ḳovets temani be-parshanut ha-Torah uve-ḳabalah. קובץ תימני בפרשנות התורה ובקבלה.


Contents:

1. folios 1r–68r: בעל הטורים [על חמשה חומשי תורה].

2. folios 68v–169r: שערי אורה.

3. folio 169v: Hymn in Judaeo-Arabic; added most likely by a later hand.


MS Roth 413et516a is a manuscript codex comprising two works of different subject matter, Bible commentary and kabbalah, each written most likely by another hand (each hand uses a different substitution for the Tetragrammaton); yet––apart from folios 19–22 which were bound in from another manuscript––the codex can be seen as a unit as the Bible commentary ends on the same leaf (folio 68r) on which the kabbalistic work starts (folio 68v) and the quires on which the works are written are made most likely from the the same brand of paper (the collation cannot be established anymore because of the complete disintegration of the binding); moreover the layout used by both hands is very similar, and the differences between both hands are very subtle.

Roth, however, conceived the item as a ‘bound-with’ codex. He assigned different class marks to the two works , MS Roth 413 and MS Roth 516a and mentions in the catalogue description of each work that it is “bound-with” the other.


State of text: Incomplete with beginning and some leaves (2 after folio 90 and 1 after folio 97) within text block missing; folios 19–22 are written by a different hand on different paper; they were most likely bound in at a later time to make up for loss; extreme fragile and brittle; detached from binding with all sewing gone; inner margins and sometimes whole leaves are damaged by pests with loss of text; folio 41 is torn in several pieces; right corner of folio 42 is torn off (corner still with item); 54 has hole with loss of text.


Date of production:

Date in colophon (folio 169r): 19 Marḥeshṿan 1912 [1601] according to the calendar of the Seleucid era (מנין שטרות) (used by Yemenite Jews especially for legal documents until modernity): נשלם ... תשעה עשרי יומין לירח מרחשון שלשנת אתתקי׳׳ב שנין לשטרות.

Roth, “Catalogue”, no. 416 and 516a dates both items to the 16th century.


See see the depending records for further description of MS Roth 413 and MS Roth 516a.


Bibliographical note:

Roth, “Catalogue”, in Alexander Marx: Jubilee Volume, vol. 1 (New York, 1950), no. 413 and 516a.

National Library of Israel (NLI), Online Catalogue, system-no. 990001859490205171 (MS Roth 516a) and 990001859230205171 (MS Roth 413). The NLI’s description is based on the microfilms of MS Roth 516a and 413 made on behalf of the Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts of the NLI during the 1960s; following Roth’s classification and description the works were filmed separately and therefore described as independent manuscripts by the NLI-catalogue. The microfilm of MS Roth 516a can be downloaded in a digitised form from the NLI-webpage.

Davis, Handlist 164 (Leeds, 2005), no. 413 and 516a.

Physical characteristics

Script: Yemenite Hebrew script.; Yemenite Hebrew script.

Ms. codex: width 112mm height 180mm

Binding

20th-century quarter brown leather bound, with brown cloth over boards; spine is gilt-lettered with מדרש חח''ת and שערי אורה; boards are detached from text block and kept with item which is held in a custom-made box covered with brown cloth.

Scribal information

Written by 3 hands.

Former owners and annotations

Folio 169v: Hymn in Judaeo-Arabic added most likely by a later hand


Some marginal notes; some cancellations in the text.


Some pencil notes, likely in Roth’s hand on the content of the codex and number of leaves (the latter differing by 7 leaves from the cataloguer’s count).


Roth’s descriptions of MS Roth 413 and 516a, cut out from a copy of his printed catalogue, are attached to front paste-down of upper board (detached; kept with the item).

Access and usage

Access

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