Artzot HaShalom, nine homilies on various topics, by R. Meir Leibush - the Malbim. Krotoszyn, [1839]. First edition of the Malbim's homilies.
The last page bears the author's stamp (faded and slightly damaged).
R. Meir Leibush Malbim (=Meir Leibush ben Yechiel Michel; 1809-1879), a Biblical commentator and leading rabbi of his generation, erudite in both revealed and hidden realms of the Torah (his teacher for Kabbalah was R. Tzvi Hirsh of Zidichov). In his youth, he authored the book Artzot HaChaim on Shulchan Aruch, which earned the effusive approbation of the Chatam Sofer and gained him renown as an exceptional Torah scholar.
Wherever he served as rabbi or visited (he served as rabbi of Wreschen, Kempen, Bucharest, Kherson, Łęczyca, Mogilev and Königsberg), he was renowned for the uncompromising battle he waged against modernism, Haskalah and Reform, which elicited much harassment. During his tenure in Bucharest, he fought the Maskilim, who retaliated by contriving a blood libel. This resulted in him being imprisoned and sentenced to death, and only thanks to the intervention of Sir Moses Montefiore was his punishment reduced to expulsion from Romania.
The spread of Haskalah drove him to devote his time and skills to composing a systematic commentary to the Bible, with the goal of clarifying the depth of wisdom which lies in the words of the sages, and proving the veracity of Oral law. Thus came to be his famous commentary to the Bible, which was well-received throughout the Jewish world and reprinted in hundreds of editions.
[4], 44 leaves. 22 cm. Fair-good condition. Stains and wear. Dampstains. Minor worming. Loose leaves and gatherings. Many handwritten inscriptions in the endpapers (signatures and ownership inscriptions of R. Shlomo son of Mordechai of Aniksht, and of other writers). Without binding.