Rare Manuscript
Ma’ase Rav of the Vilna Gaon. A special edition, before being printed.
Customs, rites, practices, and prayer texts of the Vilna Gaon. This sefer was compiled by Rabbi Yissachar Ber ben Rabbi Tanchum of Vilna (1779-1856), one of Vilna’s outstanding dayanim and spiritual leaders of “The Gr”a’s Kloiz”. He compiled Ma’ase Rav based on personal observations of the Vilna Gaon in his Beis Midrash that he witnessed in his youth, as well as the writings of the Vilna Gaon’s disciples.
Rabbi Yissachar Ber completed his manuscript in 1817, yet it was only brought to print a decade and a half later in 1832. During this period, many of the Vilna Gaon’s talmidim yearned to learn more about his practices and customs, and therefore, many copied this manuscript by hand for their own personal use.
There are variances in text and style between the present manuscript and the printed edition. Unlike the first printed edition, in which the entire sefer is divided by letters in sequential order, the present manuscript divides each chapter into subchapters.
Disseminated throughout the Jewish world, Ma’ase Rav is regarded as the most legitimate source for the customs of the Vilna Gaon. Torah sages throughout ensuing generations studied this sefer in depth in order to clarify the Vilna Gaon’s customs, and the Chafetz Chaim cites it extensively in sections of the Mishnah Berurah that relate to Orach Chaim.
Lithuania, before 1832.
Page Count: 20 handwritten leaves (40 pages).
Page Size: 10×16 cm.
Condition: Minor water stains. Attractive new leather binding.
The present manuscript is described in Rabbi David Kamenetsky’s essay on sefer Ma’ase Rav, Yeshurun Vol. 21 p. 826, note 176.
(Attached to it is the leaflet "Aggadas Arba Kosos" of Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim, Konigsberg Print, c. 1860.)
