Bidspirit auction | (EGYPT). Chaim Vital. Chok LeYisrael

(EGYPT). Chaim Vital. Chok LeYisrael [portions of Zohar, Bible, etc. divided for daily study]. FIRST EDITION. Complete in two volumes. Title pages within typographical borders. Each page printed in two columns within ruled border. Scriptural texts pointed, Talmudic texts unpointed and Kabbalistic texts in rabbinic type. * Vol I: ff. (6), 116, 112. * Vol II: ff. (2), 102, 102, 116. Stained in places, lower corner of f. 27 (Devarim) torn with loss of few words. Later tan calf, rubbed. 4to. Vinograd, Cairo 3. Egypt (Cairo), the Orphan Abraham ben Moses, 1740. First edition of the Chok L’Yisroel - republished to this day in many hundreds of editions. R. Chaim Vital, the foremost disciple of Isaac Luria (the AR”I), advocated textual immersion as a means toward mystical contemplation. Thus he advocated for the daily study of these selected excerpts from the Tanach, Mishnah, Talmud and Kabbalah. The third of only four Hebrew printed books printed in Egypt. Indeed the Chok LeYisrael is among the very earliest books printed throughout all of the African Continent. Cairo Hebrew imprints follow a short-lived Hebrew printing press that operated in Fez, Morocco (1517-24) which produced just nine works. According to Yaari, (Hebrew Printing in the East, p. 54), following this Chok LeYisrael, the next Hebrew book to be printed in Cairo did not appear until 1905.