Beschreibung:

A powerful prayer book owned and used by the legendary “defender of Israel.” Rabbi Levi Isaac of Berdychiv (ca. 1740-1809), one of the luminaries of Hasidic tradition and Jewish folklore, was born into a rabbinic family in Ochakov and educated in Jarosław, where he earned himself the moniker “the prodigy of Jarosław.” After his marriage, he was introduced by Rabbi Samuel Shmelke Horowitz to Rabbi Dov Ber, the Maggid of Mezhirichi, under whose influence he became a devotee of Hasidism. Levi Isaac served as rabbi of several communities, including those of Ryczywół, Żelechów, and Pinsk, before finally, in 1785, taking up the rabbinate of Berdychiv, where he was able to spread Hasidic teaching freely, without the interference of the Mitnaggedim (opponents of Hasidism). Although he apparently did not establish a Hasidic court, he earned great renown on account of his disciples, his highly-acclaimed Sefer kedushat levi (Slavuta, 1798; Zhovkva, 1806; Berdychiv, 1811), and his reputation as saneigoran shel yisra’el, one who always sought in his prayers before God to find points of merit in the Jewish people’s favor. The present lot is an early siddur printed with the kavvanot (mystical intentions) of Rabbi Isaac Luria Ashkenazi, known as “Siddur Rabbi Asher,” that was passed down in the family of the Berdychiver Rebbe, generation after generation, until it reached Rabbi Hayyim Phinehas Derbaremdiker (1905-1996). The latter was the son of Rabbi Samson Aaron of Buhuşi, son of Rabbi Mattithiah Ezekiel of Negrești-Oaș, son of Rabbi Phinehas of Negrești-Oaș, son of Rabbi Mattithiah Ezekiel of Berdychiv, son of Rabbi Israel of Pików, son of Rabbi Levi Isaac. The book’s pages bear the names of at least two of these rabbis: Rabbi Mattithiah Ezekiel of Berdychiv on the front flyleaf and Rabbi Phinehas of Negrești-Oaș on f. [30r]. According to family tradition, the Berdychiver Rebbe prayed from this siddur during his lifetime, and after his death the first portion (the weekday and Sabbath prayers) was given to his son Reb Dov Berish and the present portion (the holiday prayers) to his other surviving son Rabbi Israel, who also inherited his father’s rabbinate in Berdychiv. Numerous inscriptions within the volume record the requests of petitioners seeking intercession on their behalf, particularly for children, health, and sustenance (banei, hayyei, mezonei). Rabbi Derbaremdiker owned a number of other items passed down from his illustrious ancestor, including silver utensils, a gartl (belt) used by the Berdychiver on festivals, a piece of cloth taken from his yarmulke, a shofar (ram’s horn) from which he blew one fateful Rosh Hashanah, and a Torah scroll apparently given to him as a gift. Family lore has it that when Rabbi Levi Isaac would be approached about someone who had fallen deathly ill, they would break off a piece from the scroll’s atsei hayyim (wooden rollers), grind it into powder, and mix it into a potion for the patient. The scroll had come into the possession of Hayyim Phinehas before the Holocaust, when he was serving as rabbi of Vashkivtsi, and with the Nazis approaching he made sure to bury it in a secret hiding place. Subsequently, having survived the war years in Transnistria, arrived in the Land of Israel in 1948, and adopted the surname Rahamani (the Hebrew equivalent of Derbaremdiker=“the merciful one”), Rabbi Hayyim Phinehas was appointed head of the Synagogue Division of the Ministry of Religion, in which capacity he was responsible for, among other things, having Torah scrolls coming to Israel from Europe fixed and distributed to houses of worship across the country. In later life, he reflected: “Among one of the shipments from Romania, I identified, to my great delight, the holy Torah scroll that was so close to my heart. The identification was, obviously, made possible by the broken and missing atsei hayyim.” The present siddur, too, was saved from falling permanently into the wrong hands. After years working at the M