Obj. ID: 1497
Hebrew Illuminated Manuscripts  Vienna SeMaK and Shut MaHaRaM, Germany, 14th c.

The manuscript originally contained only the SeMaK (fols. 1v-79v), but in the course of time it was combined with the text of the Responses by R. Meir of Rothenburg and his student (fols. 80-85).

The SeMaK (Sefer Mitzvot Katan which means a "Small Book of Precepts") by Isaac of Corbeil (d. 1280) is a compendium of contemporary halakhah interspersed with ethical homilies, parables and aggadot. It is divided into seven "pillars" corresponding to seven days of the week. In his enumeration of the precepts and their details Isaac was guided by the Sefer Mitzvot Gadol of Moses of Coucy, but he omitted the extensive halakhic discussion in that work.

The SeMaK was very popular in Germany and France and was even included in some prayer books (for example, see: Vienna, Cod. hebr. 75). In the course of time many annotations were added. Most popular were those of Perez ben Elijah of Corbeil which were sometimes merged with the original text, as is the case in our manuscript.

The second part of the manuscript containing 15 responses by R. Meir of Rothenburg (ca. 1215-1293) is preceded by a Table of Contents of 200 items. The text of the responses which are first 15 items of the table deals with halakhot concerning women's purity, marriage and divorce (for parallel printed editions of Responses by R. Meir of Rothenburg see: Schwarz, p. 64). The last part of this text (fol. 84v, inner column, line 27- fol. 85) is the text on the same subject of Tshuvot Maimoniot (Maimonides' Responses), Nezikin 7, written by a student of R. Meir of Rothenburg, R. Meir bar Yakkutiel Ha-Cohen of Rothenburg.

Two different parts of the manuscript, SeMaK and Responses were put together at a later period, probably because of the similar halakhic character of both. R. Meir of Rothenburg himself respected the SeMaK very much and promoted this work in Germany and France (Judaica, vol. 9, pp. 21-22).

The SeMaK and Responses were copied by two scribes each. The first scribe of the SeMaK not only copied the text, but also executed decorative initial words, panels, and rubrication, as well as decorative descenders of the letters in the last lines, distinguishing clearly this scribe from his colleague (the second scribe of SeMaK). In addition to this difference and to the differences in the script of both scribes, the features characterizing the second scribe of SeMaK are also: the absence of initial letters (there are only initial words) and the absence of the ascender of the lamed (ל) in many initial words.   

The text of SeMaK is accompanied by corrections and complementary notes on the margins and between the columns. They appear mostly in the first part of the SeMaK. Some of them were executed by the scribe himself (e.g. fol. 20), while others by a later hand (e.g. fol. 15v, where the later hand completed one paragraph (84) missed by the original scribe). The paragraphs are numerated in the margins in Hebrew letters. In the beginning the numeration appears twice in semi-cursive script. The first series of letters-numbers with a few dots above them appearing only in the beginning are written by the original scribe, while the second series (smaller letters-numbers) exists till the end of the part copied by the first scribe. The second series was executed by the same hand that made the corrections, as is seen on fol. 15v. The text copied by the second scribe is not numerated.

The number of Precepts is greater in our manuscript than in the printed edition and their division is different (Isaac of Corbeil, Sefer Mitzvot Katan, Jerusalem, 2005).

The Responses and their Table of Contents written by two other scribes are also numerated in Hebrew semi-cursive letters.