Mishnas Chassidim, by Rabbi Emanuel Chai Ricci. Amsterdam, [1740]. Second edition. Published in the author's ...

Mishnas Chassidim, by Rabbi Emanuel Chai Ricci. Amsterdam, [1740]. Second edition. Published in the author's lifetime.

Sefer Mishnas Chassidim, Sidrei Tefilos and Hanhagos with an elucidation per the Kabballah of the holy Ari, by the Kabbalist  Rabbi Emanuel Chai Ricci. Second edition with corrections.

Amsterdam, 1740. Title within typographical border. 

This Sefer is the most known of the author's Seforim and is known as a basic and methodological essay which greatly contributed to the distribution of the Ari's Kabbalah.

The sefer is prefaced by the text of the Semicha, or rabbinic ordination, granted to the author by Rabbi Hillel Aschkenazi of Hania, Crete. (Of recent interest, while in the process of reconstructing the destroyed synagogue of Hania and surrounding courtyard, Dr. Nikos Stavroulakis discovered the gravesite of R. Hillel Aschkenazi. See R. Alpert, Caught in the Crack: Encounters with the Jewish Muslims of Turkey (2002). And approbation by Rabbi Chaim Abulafia of Safed and approbations by the Sages of Safed from the first edition. 

[6], 132 Leaves. 16 Cm.

Overall Good condition, some stains and water stains, minor marginal worming on first two pages, sumptuous new purple leather binding with owners name.

Rabbi Immanuel Chai Ricchi (1688-1743) was one of the greatest Italian rabbis of the day.  Born in Italy and immigrated to Safed, where he studied Kabbalah. On his way abroad due to a plague in the Galilee, he was captured by pirates and after being rescued, returned to Italy. After four years as the Rav of Florence, he travelled to Livorno to publish his Seforim. After travelling to central cities to sell his Seforim, he returned to Jerusalem. He again travelled abroad to raise funds for a yeshiva in Jerusalem and to print his Seforim and on his way back to the Land of Israel, was murdered by highwaymen. Authored Seforim on the Bible and the Shas, commentary on the Mishnayos and Tehillim, poems and riddles, Kabbalistic Seforim and more.

Besides charting the Lurianic universe, Ricchi’s Mishnath Chasidim provides the kavannoth of the Ar”i for the prayers of the entire year. The work has remained of fundamental authority for generations of kabbalists - mystics of both the Mithnagdic and Chassidic schools viewed this neat summary of Lurianic kabbalah as the last word.

Of late, several researchers claimed to have found evidence of Sabbatian influence in Ricchi’s works. See Roland Goetschel, “Le problème de la kawwanah dans le ‘Yosher Lebab’ d’Emmanuel Hay Ricchi (1737)” in Prière, Mystique et Judaisme (Paris, 1987). Actually, such suspicions were expressed already by none other than the indefatigable foe of Sabbatians, R. Jacob Emden. See B. Naor, Post-Sabbatian Sabbatianism (1999), pp. 53-57, 177-184.