A scarce early Hebrew publication I acquired recently was written and published despite extraordinary difficulties and hardships that the author, and came about as a result of his herculean efforts. Printed in 1546 in Venice, and titled Tseror Hamor, it was authored by R. Abraham Saba (1440-1508), who was born in Castile, Spain, and spent much of his life escaping from persecution.
Despite odds stacked against the work being written and published, it managed to survive and has become a classic in Torah commentary, being both brilliant and original in its content. R. Saba was born in Castile, a talmid of R. Yitzchak De Leon. In 1492 when the Jews were expelled from Spain, he took refuge in adjacent Portugal. The refuge though was only temporary, as shortly after he had settled in Oporto, Portugal, King Manuel I of Portugal decreed that all Jews must be expelled from Portugal and he was forced to flee again. His two sons were kidnapped by the Catholic church and forced to become Christians, he was forced to abandon his entire library and managed to escape with just his manuscript works.
He fled toward Lisbon, but as he reached Lisbon, a new decree met him, forbidding any Jew to have any Hebrew book or tefillin, under punishment of death. He hid his manuscripts and tefillin under an olive-tree and entered the city. Upon leaving Lisbon he attempted to recover his hidden treasure, but was then discovered by the king’s guards. He was thrown into prison, and after a six months’ confinement was sent across the frontier. From there he traveled to Fes, Morocco, where he lived for ten years.
After recovering from a lengthy illness, he began to rewrite his lost works from memory. He succeeded in completing only his commentaries on the Chumash, Ruth, and Esther. After remaining in Fes for ten years, he left again to Tlemcen, Algeria, and later attempted to travel toward Italy. The Chida, in the entry on R. Abraham Saba in his work of biographical sketches Shem Hagedolim, writes of a fascinating story he quotes from a manuscript work titled DivreiYosef:
“On a sea voyage to Verona, Saba became dangerously ill and, during a heavy storm, exacted a promise from his fellow travelers that, should he die, he would be given Jewish burial on dry land. As a result of his prayers the storm abated. He died on the eve of the Day of Atonement and the captain saw to it that the local Jews carried out his request.”
The influence of Saba’s Torah commentary was felt even in the Christian world, and a full Latin translation was done in the 16th century by Konrad Pellikan (1478-1556),a German Protestant theologian, humanist, Protestant reformer and Christian Hebraist.
