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Issachar Berman ben Naphtali, ha-Kohen, active 16th century : [MISHNA RABBAH] SEFER RABOT:...HAMISHE CHUMSHE TORAH …VE-CHAMESH MEGILOT. COMPLETE IN TWO VOLUMES AS ISSUED. [RABAH]

Amsterdam: Be-mitsvat 'Imanu'el Benbenishti, 1641-1642

1st Edition Thus. Later Velum in Preservation Box, 4to (large), 302, 130 leaves, with both title pages. In Hebrew. Title translates roughly as, “The Book of Many Things: ... On the five Books of the Torah ... and the five scrolls …” Vol. 2 includes Midrash Hamesh Megilot Rabata. Title page printed within a decorated border. Printer's devices on title pages. With head- and tailpieces. Printed in double columns with marginal notes. Early and attractive copy of the Midrash Rabbah with the commentary Matnot Kehunah by Rabbi Yissachar Ber Katz. As the proofreader wrote, this is a magnificent edition. Large diagram of Noah's ark according to Rabbi Yehuda and according to Rabbi Nechemiah on page 33.The Midrash Rabba or Midrash Rabbah “can refer to part of or the collective whole of specific aggadic midrashim on the books of the Torah and the Five Megillot, generally having the term ‘Rabbah,’ meaning ‘great,’ as part of their name. … The designation "Rabbah" was first applied to the midrash to Genesis, and then applied to the midrashim to the other books of the Pentateuch (Vayikra Rabbah, Shemot Rabbah, etc.) which were copied, with Bereshit Rabbah, even in (later) manuscripts. This collection eventually came to be called "Midrash Rabbot" (i.e., ‘Midrash of the Rabbot’), to which the midrashim most in use in connection with prayers—to Shir HaShirim, Ruth, Esther, Lamentations, and Ecclesiastes—were subsequently added. Thus the Venice edition of 1545, in which the midrashim to the Pentateuch and to the Five Scrolls were for the first time printed together, has on the title-page of the first part the words 'Midrash Rabbot 'al Hamishah Humshei Torah' (Midrash Rabbah to the Five Books of the Torah), and on that of the second part 'Midrash Hamesh Megillot Rabbeta' (Midrash Rabbah of the Five Megillot). The editio princeps of the midrashim to the Pentateuch (Constantinople, 1512) begins with the words 'Be-shem El atchil Bereshit Rabba' (In the name of God I shall begin Bereshit Rabbah), and the title of the editio princeps of the midrashim to the megillot (Pesaro, 1519) reads 'Midrash Hamesh Megillot' (Midrash of the Five Megillot). Still more inexact and misleading is the term 'Midrash Rabbah to the Five Books of the Pentateuch and the Five Megillot,' as found on the title-page of the two parts in the much-used Vilna edition. After Zunz, it is not necessary to point out that the Midrash Rabbah consists of 10 entirely different midrashim” (Wikipedia). SUBJECT(S): Midrash rabbah. Aggadah. Commentaries. .OCLC: 28393931. OCLC lists 9 holdings worldwide, some lacking the first title page (JTSA, Spertus, Oxford, Harvard, Manchester, Brandeis, Yale, Bar Ilan, NLI). Margin repair to one leaf toward the end of vol II (no text affected). About Very Good Condition. (RAB-67-1)

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