Kabbalistic Works Handwritten by Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Shklow – Beurei HaZohar, Beur Al Sefer HaPeliah and ...

Kabbalistic Works Handwritten by Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Shklow – Beurei HaZohar, Beur Al Sefer HaPeliah and Selections – Lithuania and Eretz Israel, Ca. 1790s-1810s

A volume of various works handwritten by the Kabbalist R. Menachem Mendel of Shklow, disciple of the Gaon of Vilna: Beurei HaZohar, Beur Al Sefer HaPeliah and various selections from his teacher, the Gaon of Vilna. [Lithuania and Eretz Israel, ca. 1790s-1810s].
Author's autograph, with deletions and additions. On p. 47a there is a drawing of circles, and on p. 47b he writes: "If you make a large circle that surrounds seven circles… like the drawing on the other side of the leaf".
The manuscript comprises: R. Menachem Mendel's comments on the Zohar; a commentary on Sefer HaPeliah (leaves 42-85); various selections, including selections from the Gaon of Vilna. These leaves and works were written over the course of various periods, and were bound together into the present item. The work on Sefer HaPeliah was apparently written while his great teacher, the Gaon of Vilna, was still alive (passed away in 1797), as he mentions him as such (p. 60b; he mentions the Gaon of Vilna again on p. 74a: "as I heard from our master and teacher, and I wrote this in my commentary on the Megillah…").

The selections later in the volume, and perhaps also the leaves at the beginning, were written in the period after his teacher's passing, as he mentions him as having died (see p. 100a: "from the manuscript of my master and teacher, the Gaon of blessed memory"), apparently while he was living in Safed (between ca. 1808-1815, before he settled in Jerusalem). During those years, R. Menachem Mendel would seclude himself in the mountains of the Galilee to study Kabbalistic secrets, and he merited to have amazing revelations. In the present manuscript, p. 72b, R. Menachem Mendel writes: "I do not understand this… and I worked but did not find an answer, but in a dream I was told…". In his biography of R. Menachem Mendel of Shklow (Toldot Chachmei Yerushalayim, III, p. 160), R. Aryeh Leib Frumkin tells of the troubles R. Menachem Mendel suffered while establishing the Ashkenazi settlement in Eretz Israel, imprisonment and extortion by the Muslim rulers: "But despite all this, his heart did not turn away from the holy Torah for a moment, and he yearned to arrange his novellae and the culmination of his thought in his holy works on the revealed and hidden Torah. And he composed ten books on Kabbalah, as mentioned in the book Pe'at HaShulchan, but due to our many sins they were not published, and most of them were lost over time and disappeared, and what little is left is very deep and hard to understand, as it was his way to write briefly like his teacher, the Gaon". R. Aryeh Leib Frumkin goes on to recount that he had the merit of purchasing some of R. Menachem Mendel's works in manuscript, and at the top of the list he describes a manuscript commentary on the Zohar (which may be referring to the present manuscript): "The works I merited to purchase, which are in his holy handwriting, are: 1) Commentary on the Zohar and on the appearances of the letters, which he wrote in Safed…".

The manuscripts mentioned by Frumkin were later purchased by the Kabbalist R. Naftali Hertz HaLevi, Av Beit Din of Jaffa, whose stamp appears on the endpaper of the present volume. On that endpaper a handwritten inscription reads: "Manuscript of R. Mendel, disciple of the Gaon of Vilna" (presumably, the inscription is in R. Shmuel Luria's handwriting, to whom the manuscript was sent by R. Naftali Hertz HaLevi; the editorial inscriptions of the selections also appear to have been made by R. Shmuel Luria, see p. 97b of the present manuscript, and see below). The manuscript is paginated, apparently by one of the three – R. Frumkin, R. Naftali Hertz HaLevi, or R. Shmuel Luria – but now there are many leaves lacking, removed over the years. Apparently, the manuscript with the commentary on the appearances of letters – the previous item – was originally bound with the present manuscript, since in R. Frumkin's list he mentions them together (see above).

[93] leaves (3-19, 22-25, 30-33, 35-36, 38-98, 100-104 leaves; lacking leaves: 1-2, 20-21, 26-29, 34, 37, 99). 21.5 cm. Fair condition. Stains. Open tears and extensive worming, affecting text. Repaired with paper and sellotape. New binding.

The content of the present manuscript has been printed in its entirety (most of it in recent years). The commentary on Sefer HaPeliah has been partially printed in the anthology Yeshurun (R. Binyamin Ze'ev Schwartz, "R. Menachem Mendel of Shklow's Commentary on Sefer Peliah – Manuscript", Yeshurun, VI, Av 1999, pp. 221-237), including leaves 42-49 of the present manuscript; it was later printed in its entirety in the book "R. Menachem Mendel of Shklow's Comments on Sefer HaPeliah" (Beurei HaRamam, Part II, Machon HaGra, Jerusalem-New York, 2013, with a facsimile of leaves 42-85 of the present manuscript); the commentaries on the Zohar were printed in Kitvei HaGramam (Part II, Jerusalem, 2001); the selections from the Gaon of Vilna and R. Menachem Mendel of Shklow were mostly printed (in a different order) in the books of R. Shmuel Luria: Mayim Adirim (Warsaw, 1886), Beurei Agadot (end of first chapter of Megillah, Warsaw, 1886), and more; additional selections from R. Menachem Mendel of Shklow were printed (from the present manuscript) in the anthology Yeshurun (V, Adar 1999, pp. 171-178) under the title "Selections from R. Menachem Mendel of Shklow – Manuscript".

Provenance:
1. Collection of R. Aryeh Leib Frumkin; see his book: Toldot Chachmei Yerushalayim, III, p. 160.
2. Collection of R. Naftali Hertz HaLevi, Av Beit Din of Jaffa (his stamp appears at the beginning of the volume; see Toldot Chachmei Yerushalayim, ibid., note 3 by R. Yaakov Moshe Charlap: "the Kabbalist R. Naftali Hertz HaLevi, Av Beit Din of Jaffa, possessed a manuscript of R. Menachem Mendel’s commentary on the Zohar").
3. Victor Klagsbald Collection, Paris-Jerusalem (who gave permission to print it in Beurei HaRamam, Part II, Jerusalem-New York, 2013).
4. Prof. Azaria Rein, the son-in-law of Victor Klagsbald, who was presented with the manuscript by his father-in-law.
Enclosed: Beurei HaRamam, Part II, on Sefer HaPeliah, Jerusalem-New York, 2013.

R. Menachem Mendel of Shklow (ca. 1740-1827), prominent disciple of the Gaon of Vilna, leader of the first immigration of disciples of the Gaon of Vilna to Eretz Israel, and founder of the Ashkenazi Perushim community in Jerusalem. He attended the Gaon of Vilna in the final two years of his life, and received much Torah and Kabbalah from him. In describing this special period in his life, R. Menachem Mendel attests how he did not budge from the presence of the Gaon of Vilna, and how the latter opened up for him the gates of wisdom. He composed and edited several works of the Gaon of Vilna, such as the famous commentary on Mishlei, the commentary on the Passover Haggadah, and the glosses to Seder Olam. After the passing of his teacher, R. Menachem Mendel undertook the editing and publication of some of his manuscripts, including parts of the Gaon of Vilna's commentary to Shulchan Aruch. He served as rabbi in Khislavichi.
In 1808, he led the first group of disciples of the Gaon of Vilna that immigrated to Eretz Israel. He first settled in Tiberias, and later in Safed. In 1816, he relocated to Jerusalem, where he reestablished the Ashkenazi community. After much effort, he obtained building permits from the Turkish authorities to renovate the Hurva synagogue, and succeeded in raising funds to cover its old debts to the Arabs (only in Elul 1864 was the Hurva synagogue inaugurated, after many delays).
R. Menachem Mendel was especially famous for his deep, lofty understanding in Kabbalah, and during his time in Eretz Israel he composed several profound Kabbalistic works. His disciple, R. Yisrael of Shklow, writes in his introduction to Pe'at HaShulchan of these works and their author: "A close disciple of our holy master, my friend… the pious, great, famous Kabbalist R. Menachem Mendel of Jerusalem, author of ten holy books on the hidden Torah in manuscript" (Pe'at HaShulchan, Introduction, Safed 1837). Some of these works were published in 2001 under the title Kitvei HaGramam, and others were printed in the series Beurei HaRamam (Machon HaGra, Jerusalem-New York, 2012-2013) and in Mishnat Chassidim (Machon HaGra, Jerusalem-New York, 2006; new edition, Jerusalem-New York, 2021). These works of his on Kabbalah are also mentioned on his grave on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem: "The Kabbalist, famous Gaon in his generation, R. Menachem Mendel Ashkenazi, who established the foundations of Torah and service of G-d in the Holy Land, and authored the book Razei DiMeheimnuta…".
In Jerusalem, R. Menachem Mendel would sit throughout the day wrapped in his tallit and tefillin, studying Torah in holiness and purity. On Erev Shabbat, he would go outside the city to delve in Kabbalah in seclusion. In his writings, he describes heavenly visions and Torah secrets revealed to him, and how the soul of his teacher the Gaon of Vilna would appear to him to clarify Torah secrets, at the Western Wall, at Rachel's Tomb, and on the Mount of Olives. The elders of Jerusalem would relate that R. Menachem Mendel was capable of locating the ashes of Moshe's red heifer; that every year, on the 9th of Av, he would see two black pillars over the Temple Mount; and other such wondrous stories (R. Aryeh Leib Frumkin, Toldot Chachmei Yerushalayim, III, p. 161, in the name of R. Yaakov Moshe Charlap). He was a fierce opponent of Chassidut his entire life (though interestingly, one of his Kabbalistic works, Menachem Tzion, Przemyśl 1885, was published by prominent Galician Rebbes, who mistakenly took it as the teachings of R. Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk, who had also lived in Eretz Israel).