Bidspirit auction | ABOAB, ISAAC. Menorath Hama’or. With:

ABOAB, ISAAC. Menorath Hama’or. With: Pirush Nefesh Yehudah. MANUSCRIPT finely written in Hebrew in a Yemenite hand. Scattered marginalia and scribal edits. ff. 201. Some worming. Modern calf. Folio. Yemen, 19th century. The commissioning of such an opulent manuscript by a Yemenite scribe presents a historical puzzle. The preparation of such a luxurious work in Yemen is highly uncommon, given both the Yemenite Jewish community’s oppression-induced poverty, as well as its preference for Biblical and Halachic texts over Rabbinic philosophy. At the same time, it is even less likely that the work was commissioned by a European patron, as there was hardly a need for a manuscript edition of this widely printed text.