The Lost Halachic Work Discovered in the Rebbe’s Library

00:21 In the time of the Turim of Rabbi Yaakov, the son of the Rosh, Ba'al HaTurim, about seven hundred years ago, lived another gaon, Rabbi Aharon HaKohen of Lunel. Lunel was a city in South France, and there was a large Jewish kehillah, community, and he was there the Rov. And he wrote a large sefer of halachas and minhagim called Orchos Chaim. In the year of hel of samach vav, the year of twelve, thirteen hundred and six, the king of that part of France expelled all the Jews from that part of France and took away from them all the holdings and forced them to leave as they are, just with their clothes on. Rabbi Aharon HaKohen of Lunel went there to Galus to look where he should settle in several places. Finally, he settled in the island of Majorca. The island of Majorca is an island in the Mediterranean, not too far from France. He settled there, and there he found a large gaon called Rabbi Shem Tov Palachov. So he learned from him everything that he knew from his teachers, halachas and minhagim. And then he added all these additions in his chibur of Orchos Chaim, and he would write, "Vechein kosav Rabbi Shem Tov," or "I heard from Rabbi Shem Tov." So this Orchos Chaim with all these additions, whatever he is quoting from Rav Shem Tov, is considered the ma'adurah basra, the final edition of the Orchos Chaim. The Orchos Chaim wasn't printed till the year of Tov Kuv Yud, 1750, in the city

03:35 of Firenze in Italy. He printed only one volume on the dinim that are related to Orchos Chaim, day-to-day laws for every Yid. Regular days, Shabbos, and Yom Tov, which is called Orchos Chaim. He also added another part in the Orchos Chaim which is related to other halachas, Yereh Deyah, Even HaEzer, Reshim Mishpat. That was not published then. That was published about 150 years later in Berlin in Tov Kuv Samach Beis in the year of 1802. It's interesting that when he published the second volume in Berlin in Tov Kuv Samach Beis, he had the final version of Orchos Chaim with the additions of all the halachas and minhagim that he learned from Rav Shem Tov in the island of Majorca. But when they have published the first volume of halachas Orchos Chaim in Firenze Tov Kuv Yud in 1650, he didn't have the final version. While the Rav Aharon HaKohen would live in Lunel and finish this version, the first ma'adura, people copied it. One of the copies got to the printer in Firenze in Tov Kuv Yud and he published it. He didn't have those additions that he added later while he was in Majorca and while he learned from Rav Shem Tov. We have here in the library a manuscript of the Or HaChaim. We found in one of the bindings about twenty pages manuscript of the Or HaChaim and Orah Chaim, the Madhuravasa, that is still not published. Only Am Yeredeh was published in Berlin many years later, the Madhuravasa, with the notes

06:39 that he learned from Rav Shem Tov, Matnat and Orah Chaim. Yes, the Beis Yosef, when he wrote his commentary on the Turim, he had a copy of Orah Chaim, the final version, with all the additions that he added, what he learned from Rav Shem Tov in the island of Majorca. But there is not a copy that is left from that edition and printed in the full text of the final edition, the final version. So those twenty pages that we have are very unique because they are from a manuscript of the final version of Orah Chaim with the additions that he learned from Rav Shem Tov. It's very obvious that the one, the Rav, the Rabbi, that had this manuscript in his house for many years and learned from it. When it came to the period that Orah Chaim was published in Pirinci, in Tov Kuv Yud, he felt he doesn't need this manuscript anymore because now he has a printed copy. So he put the manuscript in the Shemos and the binders took it from the Shemos and pasted it together to make of it a cardboard, a cover for one of the Sforim they have bound. But these pages are very, very unique since they are the final version of the Orach Chaim and Orah Chaim with the additions that he learned from Rav Shem Tov that there is not a copy of it printed yet. According to the watermarks, it looks like it was written about the year of Reish, 1440. And they

09:20 learned in it for the next several hundred years. Till in Tov Kuv Yud when it was published and he didn't need it anymore and he stored it in the Shemos and from there to the binding.