Bidspirit auction | RABINOVICZ, RAPHAEL NATHAN NOTA. Talmud

RABINOVICZ, RAPHAEL NATHAN NOTA. Talmud Bavli… WITH AUTOGRAPH MARGINAL NOTES THROUGHOUT. Notes towards future (unpublished) volumes of Dikdukei Sofrim. With Rabinowitz’s ex-libris stamp. ff. 320. Light wear. Recent boards. Lg. 4to. Lemberg Avraham Yitzchak Menkes & Shlomo Sprecher, (1865). R. Rafael Nathan Neta Rabinowitz (“the Ilui of Kaidan, ” 1835-88) is best known for his Dikdukei Sofrim 15-volume study on the Talmud. Born in Nowy Zhagory, Kaunas, Rabinowitz took an early liking to studying textual variants, reprinting various corrected Rabbinic works. In the mid-1860’s, he traveled to Munich in order to study the 14th century manuscript of the Talmud held in the city’s library. Encouraged by R. Yoseph Shaul Nathanson, Rabinowitz set out to compose a momentous work dedicated to establishing the corrected text of the entire Talmud. Dikdukei Sofrim was painstakingly published over the final two decades of Rabinowitz’s life, covering all of the Orders of Zeraim, Mo’ed and Nezikin, as well as Tractates Zevachim, Menachoth and a portion of Chullin. The work earned wide praise and is widely appreciated to this day. The present volume is filled with the manuscript emendations of R. Rabinowitz on nearly every page of the four tractates that comprise the bulk of the end of Seder Kodshim: Erchin, Temurah, Kerithoth, Meilah. (Kinim, Tamid, and Middoth are unmarked). These edits are preparatory notes towards the publication of Dikdukei Sofrim for the latter half of Seder Kodshim, a project that halted upon R. Rabinowitz’s death. Despite efforts by students and admirers to contribute to the Dikdukei Sofrim project within other Talmudic Orders, the latter half of Kodshim has remained untouched. THE PRESENT VOLUME CONTAINS CRUCIAL EDITS, IN R. RABINOWITZ’S OWN HAND, TOWARD THIS GOAL.