Parashat Nitzavim (ניצבים — standing), Deuteronomy 29:9-30:20. It is always read on the Shabat preceding Rosh Hashana.
Deuteronomy chapter 30 – דְּבָרִים פרק ל
ו’ ומל יי אלוסקיך את-לבבך, ואת-לבב זרעך: לאהבה את-יי אלוסקיך, בכל-לבבך ובכל-נפשך–למען חייך
6 you love the Eternal, your Gd, with all your heart and with all your soul, and ensure your existence.
Rashi: When you repent, Gd will help you overcome the obstacles that the evil inclination seeks to place in your path. בא להיטהר מסייעים אותו. God helps those who seek to purify themselves (Talmud Bavli, tractate Shabbat 104a:13).
The Talmud1 by Daniel Bomberg : Circa 1530, an edition of the Talmud printed by Daniel Bomberg2 reportedly commissioned by Henry VIII, fascinated by the wisdom of Jewish law in a land forbidden to Jews3. Following his politico-theological dispute4 with Pope Clement VII, he proclaimed himself in 1531: supreme head of the Church and clergy of England. In 1546, he founded the Regius chair of Hebrew at the University of Oxford and placed there the following year Richard Bruerne (~1519-1565) who would take possession of the famous Talmud which he bequeathed to his death to the Church of Oxford . A few years later, the Talmud became the property of Westminster Abbey (before 1629). In 1980, Jack Valmadonna Lunzer (1924-2016), a manufactured diamond industrialist and great collector of rare Hebrew books 5 acquired the copy of the Talmud from Westminster Abbey in exchange for a medieval copy of the charter of the said abbey. In 2015, the Talmud was put up for sale by Sotheby’s. Leon Black, American investor and art collector, buys it for 9.3 million dollars.
In January 2017, the remaining works from the Valmadonna Trust Library were handed over to the National Library of Israel.
1) Printed in 9 volumes (393 x 266 mm), it includes the treatises of the first (1519/20-1523 ) and the second (1525-1539) editions. see the detail of the book on the site of Sotheby’s (see the site). We only count, nowadays, only 14 copies of this edition.
2) Daniel van Bomberghen, Flemish publisher-printer of the Renaissance, born in Antwerp around 1483, settled in Venice in 1516, specialist in printing of texts of Hebrew religious literature. Died in this city in 1549.
3) Jews have been forbidden to live in England since their expulsion in 1290 by King Edward I. In 1656, Oliver Cromwell put a definitive end to this prohibition.
4) The sovereign wanted his marriage with Catherine of Aragon, widow of his brother Arthur Tudor, to be annulled by the papacy. Controversy based on Leviticus 18.16: prohibition against marrying his brother’s wife, Deuteronomy 25:5: Levirate and Deuteronomy 22:13-21: Repudiation.
5) Library of Valmadonna Trust: 13,000 books and manuscripts.