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Tokhahat Megullah, R. Joseph b. Emanuel Ergas, London 1715

תוכחת מגולה והצד נחש - Only Edition - Conversos - anti-Shabbatean

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Details
  • Lot Number 52413
  • Title (English) Tokhahat Megullah
  • Title (Hebrew) תוכחת מגולה והצד נחש
  • Note Only Edition - Conversos - anti-Shabbatean
  • Author R. Joseph b. Emanuel Ergas
  • City London
  • Publisher [Thomas Illive]
  • Publication Date 1715
  • Estimated Price - Low 2,000
  • Estimated Price - High 5,000

  • Item # 2176518
  • End Date
  • Start Date
Description

Physical Description

Only edition, [2], 62 ff., octavo, 186:115 mm., light age staining, wide margins. A very good copy bound in contemporary marbled paper over boards, rubbed.

 

Detail Description

 

Polemic against the Shabbatean Nehemiah Hayon by R. Joseph b. Emanuel Ergas (1685–1730), rabbi, kabbalist, and author of books on halakhic and kabbalistic matters. R. Ergas, who was of Marrano descent, was born in Leghorn. The headdress of a knight engraved on his tomb in Leghorn perhaps indicates descent from a noble Spanish family. R. Samuel of Fez was his teacher of halakhah and R. Benjamin ha-Kohen Vitale of Reggio taught him Kabbalah. As a young man, he traveled throughout Italy and preached public sermons, urging repentance. For a while he stayed in Pisa where he founded a yeshivah, Neveh Shalom. Later, he was appointed rabbi in Leghorn, and remained there until his death. R. Ergas became famous for his pamphlet Tokhahat Megullah, the polemic against the Shabbatean Nehemiah Hayon, and an addition to it called Ha-Zad Nahash (London, 1715). A selection of his responsa was published by his disciple R. Malachi Ha-Kohen as Divrei Yosef (Leghorn, 1742). The publisher's introduction mentions several piyyutim written by R. Ergas. R. Ergas was an enthusiastic believer in the importance and sanctity of the Kabbalah in general and of the Zohar in particular, despite his view that marginal annotations had been introduced into the proper text of the Zohar. He opposed philosophy, which he considered alien to Judaism and an invention of heretics. He opposed Maimonides' explanations of the stories of the Creation and the visions of Ezekiel in the spirit of Aristotle's natural philosophy. Ergas' style is distinguished by its clarity.

 

Hebrew Description

... אשר אזן וחקר ותקן ... ר' יוסף אירגאס נר"ו בכמו"החר עמנואל זצ"ל ... [נגד] המסית הצייד הרמאי אשר בקש להדיח את ישראל בדעותיו הנכזבות ... נחמיא חייא חיון ...בשנת ע'ת'"ה' אל תשלו כי בכם בחר ה'

עם הקדמת המגיה, המניח [ר' משה ב"ר יעקב חגיז].
החיבור "תוכחת מגולה" נדפס ראשונה בשנת תע"ד, והוצאה זו לא הגיעה לידינו. עיין: מ' פרידמן, אגרות בפרשת פולמוס חיון, ספונות, י, תשכ"ו, עמ' תריח, מס' 20.
חייון השיג על הספר בספרו "שלהבת יה", אמשטרדם תע"ד, ואירגאס השיב לו בקונטרס "הצד נחש".
 

References

Vinograd, London 29; Roth, London 8; Bibliography of the Hebrew Book 1470-1960 #000109770; EJ; Joseph ben Emanuel Ergas, Shomer Emunim, ed. by S. A. Horodezky (repr. 1927), introd.; M. Friedman, Letters Relating to the Nehemia Hiya Hayon Controversy, Sefunot, X, 1966, p. 618, no. 20