A nice purchase I was able to make this week was a rare jewel from Mantua: Mekor Chaim on the Torah, first edition, Mantua 1559 – a lost voice from Medieval Spain.
There are sefarim that carry weight not only for what’s written on their pages, but for who wrote them, where they were printed, and how they managed to survive at all. The present volume – Mekor Chaim on the Torah, Mantua 1559 – is one such sefer.
Penned by the elusive Rabbi Shmuel ibn Seneh Zarza (also spelled Tzartzah), a 14th-century Spanish thinker who walked the tightrope between fidelity to tradition and bold philosophical independence, this first edition preserves a voice otherwise drowned out by the tides of history.
The title page itself announces the work’s ambitions: a “composition… measured and delved to uncover allegory and parable in the words of Chazal,” standing on the shoulders of giants like the Ibn Ezra and the Rambam. But Rabbi Shmuel does not stop there. The commentary unfolds as a highly original, often esoteric meditation on the Chumash, rich with poetic language and metaphysical speculation – all filtered through the keen intellect of a Spanish mekubal-turned-philosopher.
In one particularly fiery passage (p. 123), Zarza comes out swinging against belief in gilgul – reincarnation – a doctrine beloved by many Spanish mystics of the era. His objection isn’t casual; it’s pointed, even confrontational, and reflects a thinker unafraid to challenge the prevailing winds of his time.
But Zarza’s mind ranged far beyond philosophy. He was also deeply immersed in the world of astrology – then a respected scholarly pursuit – and brings those ideas into his Torah commentary. He reads cosmic meaning into Biblical episodes: the Mabul is triggered by a Saturn-Jupiter conjunction in Virgo’s tail; Bilam’s uncertainty stems from his struggle to choose between invoking Mars or Saturn. It’s a fusion of Torah and stars that today feels almost medieval in its beauty – because it is.
Little is known about the author’s personal life, except that he lived in Palencia and was held in high regard by his contemporaries. The astronomer R. Isaac ibn al-Chadib and the poet Solomon Reubeni composed tributes in his honor. Later legends – now dismissed – claim he was executed by the Inquisition. More reliably, we know that his world was one of upheaval; in his later work Miklol Yofi, Zarza mourns the slaughter of 10,000 Jews in Toledo during the Castilian civil war.
Aside from Mekor Chaim and Miklol Yofi, Zarza references four other works now lost to time – Taharat HaKodesh, Etzem HaDat, Tzeror HaMor, and Magen Avraham.
This Mantua 1559 first edition is not just a rare sefer – it is a resurrection. A portal to the forgotten spiritual world of 14th-century Castile, and to the mind of a man who dared to interpret the Torah through the lenses of poetry, science, and soul. Copies of this edition are scarcely obtainable, especially complete and in good condition.
