The first printed commentary on the Passover Haggadah
. Zevah Pesah was printed by David and Samuel ibn Nahmias, on Thursday, 9 Kislev, in 
the year 5266 (November 6, 1505). One of the earliest published Haggadot, it features the commentary of Isaac ben Judah Abrabanel (1437-1508) a noted statesman, biblical exegete, and philosopher. Abrabanel was among the many thousands of Jews expelled from Spain in 1492 and forced to wander throughout the region before arriving in late 1495 at the age of 58, in Monopoli, in the kingdom of Naples on the Adriatic coast. There, Abrabanel set aside his other writings and began to compose his commentary on the Haggadah, Zevah Pesah.  In this work, Abrabanel used the paradigm of the redemption of the Jews from Egypt to address his concerns with the calamities that had befallen his own generation of Spanish exiles. The commentary is lengthy, deep and thorough, but eminently readable. In his introductory remarks, Abrabanel poses 100 questions which he proposes to answer at length in his commentary. While many of his replies address the text directly, in many cases he holds forth on a subject at great length, even in the absence of a direct textual connection. The commentary thus became an important discourse in its own right. It has proven to be of enduring popularity, and has often been reprinted. 

The delicate metalcut border ornamenting the title page was also subject to several migrations. Designed by the Christian silversmith, Alonso Fernandez de Cordoba, it was first used in Manuale Saragossanum a Christian liturgical book published in Hijar, Spain, 1486. Following its initial appearance, the Jewish printer Eliezer Alantansi, bought or borrowed the frame to decorate the magnificent Pentateuch that he published in Híjar, 1487; this was the earliest printed Hebrew book to feature a decorative border. Later still, the border became the property of Eliezer Toledano who established a press in Lisbon in 1488 and used this border in several books, among them Moses ben Nahman's (Ramban’s) Torah commentary and the Abudarham (1489). Finally the border was brought to Constantinople where the printers David and Samuel ibn Nahmias employed it to embellish several of the books they published from 1505 to 1509, including the present volume. It is the first edition of a Haggadah to be printed with a commentary. The title page is signed by Rabbi David Tebele Scheuer (1712–1782). Born in Frankfurt am Main, Rabbi Scheuer was an outstanding student of the Talmud and in 1759 he succeeded his father-in-law, Rabbi Nathan Otiz, as Rabbi of Bamberg. In 1767 he was appointed Av Bet Din (Chief Justice) of the rabbinic court of Mainz where he also headed a highly regarded Yeshiva.

View the haggadah