Auction 1 - Rare Hebrew Books, Manuscripts & Rabbinic Letters
Lot 6:
Description
Autograph manuscript leaf, written on both sides, by R. Eliyahu Gutmacher (1796–1874), the renowned rabbinic scholar, kabbalist, and miracle worker universally known as the “Tzaddik of Greiditz.” Rich with deletions, revisions, and interlinear additions, the manuscript is unmistakably a working draft rather than a fair copy, preserving the Rabbi’s thought in the midst of composition.
The upper portion of the first page concludes a Shabbat Ha-Gadol sermon delivered in 1864, while the remainder of the manuscript comprises a homiletic discourse on Parashat Aharei Mot. The transition from one derashah to the next vividly illustrates the practical use of the notebook, whose pages served as a living repository for successive sermons, revised and expanded as new occasions arose.
Autograph manuscripts of R. Gutmacher are seldom encountered. Leaves such as the present one are especially desirable, as they preserve not only his teachings but also his method of composition, revealing the careful refinement of his public addresses through successive corrections and editorial revisions. The manuscript thus affords a rare glimpse into the intellectual workshop of one of nineteenth-century Eastern Europe’s most revered rabbinic personalities, whose influence extended far beyond his own community and whose correspondence and teachings were sought by leading Torah scholars and early proponents of Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel.
One folio, written on both sides. Autograph manuscript with numerous contemporary authorial revisions and deletions. Published in Moriah (318) 45, Dersahot VeHiddushei Rabbi Eliyahu Gutmacher 3:128.
Opening price: $1200
Very good condition, in modern cloth binding.
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