The following description was prepared by William Gross:
Kabbalah, the Jewish mystical tradition, was respected in Iraq and the greatest kabbalist of the late 18th and early 19th century was the Kabbalist Rabbi and scribe, Sassoon ben Mordechai Shantuch. This autograph manuscript is composed of three essays by him, two of which have never been published.
The most important essay in the book is one of the very few extant codex presentations of the Ilan Aroch, the Kabbalistic scroll written and used by the most serious Kabbalists. Another object in the collection is the personal Ilan Aroch of Sassoon ben Mordechai, Gross Family Collection 128.012.009, which is probably the subject of this particular essay. In the Gross Collection are another two Ilanot by Sasoon Mordechai, both on paper. One is perhaps the earliest that he penned. It is dated 1777 when he was only 25 years old. The other is surely the most beautiful of all his work, 028.011.008, with a colored title at the top.
The present codex treatise is filled with diagrams and illustrations regarding the Ilan. Sassoon states in the signed introduction that he has made several ilanots but that it is problematic to get to any particular point in the scroll, particularly considering that the three scroll Ilanot from his hand in the Gross Family Collection are all over ten meters in length. Therefore he has made this Ilan in codex form, facilitating arriving at any part of the Ilan text easily, probably for teaching his students.
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