Or 17052

One of Hakham Ezra Dangoor's transcriptons of the work of his teacher, Hakham Abdallah Somekh, on the Kosher laws.

At least the first two folios are lacking; and the final folios are lacking.

This work was first published in two volumes, in Baghdad, in 5659 Anno Mundi = 1898/9 CE, a decade after the passing of its author, Hakham Abdallah Somekh. That edition covered Hakham Somekh’s legal rulings, enactments, guidance, and best practices relevant to the kosher laws contained in the Code of Jewish Law, Yoreh De‘ah, chapters 1 – 122. Hakham Ezra Reuben Dangoor (HED), the youngest disciple of Hakham Somekh, carried out the following two tasks in preparing that first edition for publication: 1) ma‘atiḳ / מעתיק = copyist, typesetter, etc.; and 2) magiah / מגיה = proofreader, collator (viz. the one who compares textual versions and chooses a final text). A second, expanded and reedited edition was published in three volumes, in Jerusalem, in 5763 Anno Mundi = 2002/3 CE.

In his introduction to the first edition, HED describes how the work came to be. Hakham Somekh fielded queries in Jewish law from the local (i.e. Baghdadi, and more generally Mesopotamian) Jewish population as well as from the Jewish communities in Persia and India. This book grew out of his responsa to these queries as well as from his lessons to his rabbinical students, with whom he reviewed the above-mentioned chapters of the Code of Jewish Law ‘two or three times’. During this process, Hakham Somekh committed his decisions to writing, constantly adding to the text, with the ultimate goal of completing those writings and turning the final product into a published work. It was HED who ‘copied the work three or four times’, i.e. in multiple, ever-evolving versions.

The version preserved in the present manuscript, written in HED’s hand, seems to be earlier than the first printed edition. Thus, for example, Chapter 1, item 40 in this manuscript equals Chapter 1, item 48 in that edition – since additional items had been added by the time of publication.

As noted, the first and last pages are missing from this manuscript. Two stubs remain from the first pages; and crumbling fragments remain from the last pages. The first in-tact section preserved herein is item no. 40, on Chapter 1, subsection 4, of the relevant section of the Code of Jewish law; and the last intact section is on Chapter 119, subsection 15.

The second, 2002/3 edition lists and shows sample images of several manuscript consulted in preparing that edition. Manuscript B / ב therein, from the library of Hakham Rabbi Yosef Ḥayyim son of Elijah, designated there by his acrostic ‘RYḤ tov’ (= pleasing fragrance), author of Ben ’Ish Ḥay, looks like it may have been scribed by HED.