Obj. ID: 39089
Jewish printed books  Sha'ar ha-Yechudim by Rabbi Yitzhak ben Shlomo Luria, Korzec, 1783

This text was prepared by William Gross:

An exposition of Lurianic Kabbalah by R. Hayyim Ben Joseph Vital (1542–1620), one of the greatest kabbalists, and the leading disciple of R. Isaac Ben Solomon Luria Ashkenazi (1534–1572, ha-Ari). Vital was born in Safed and studied in yeshivot there, especially under R. Moses Alshekh, his teacher in exoteric subjects. In 1564 he began to study Kabbalah, at first according to the system R. Moses Cordovero, and, later after R. Isaac Luria’s (Ari) arrival in Safed, under the latter, becoming the Ari’s principal disciple. After the Ari’s deat, R. Vital began to arrange the Ari’s teachings in written form, elaborating on them according to his own understanding, becoming the primary transmitter of the Ari’s teachings. R. Vital later moved to Jerusalem, serving as rabbi and head of a yeshivah from late 1577 to late 1585, where he wrote the last version of his presentation of the Lurianic system. In 1586 he returned to Safed, remaining there until 1592. In 1590 R. Vital was “ordained” as rabbi by his teacher R. Moses Alshekh, and then returned to Jerusalem in 1593 remaining several years, occasionally returning to Safed. His last move was to Damascus where he died. R. Vital was a prolific writer, his works encompassing Talmud, response, homilies, and even astronomy. R. Vital assembled his major writings into two vast works Ez ha-Hayyim and Ez ha-Da’at. The former is the inclusive name for all those writings in which he elaborated on the teaching of R. Isaac Luria. These works went through several versions and adaptations, for Vital began to arrange what he had heard from Luria immediately after his death, remained absorbed in this task for more than 20 years.
First edition of this book, the second edition of which was published in Lviv in 1855 and contains an amulet type that later became the standard in Jerusalem. This first edition contains an amulet against plague, featuring an open hand facing the reader.
The community in Korzec, where this volume was printed, was one of the oldest in Poland. Jews were living there in the 13th century. During the Chmielnicki massacres in 1648/49 the community was almost annihilated, but recovered soon afterward to become the most influential in the council of four lands. A textile factory established by Joseph Czartoryski in Korzec at the end of the 18th century employed 120 Jewish workers.
Between 1766 and 1819 there were four Hebrew printing presses in Korzec, some of them associated with those in Shklov, Nowy Dwór, and Ostrog. They printed nearly 100 books, mostly works of kabbalah and chasidism, which contributed considerably to the spread of Hasidism in Poland and adjoining countries. Works by Jacob Joseph of Polonnoye and Dov Baer of Mezhirech were first printed there. Korzec was a center of Hasidism. Dov Baer the maggid of Mezhirech and Phinehas Shapiro were active there.
The present volume was issued by the Christian printer Johann Anton Krüger, who ran a Hebrew printing press in Nowy Dwór, Neuhof (near Warsaw), from 1781 until 1814. His books from these years record either Nowy Dwór or Korzec on their title pages, often with his printer's mark. In this instance, his mark is a smallish monogram comprised of the letters JAK, enclosed in a simple foliate frame (Ya'ari 155).