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Bachja ben-Asher

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a Jewish rabbi who flourished in the 13th century, was a judge at Saragossa. In 1291 he wrote his סֵפֶר בִחְיִי or פֵּרוּשׁ עִל הִתּוֹרָה, a commentary on the Pentateuch, "grammatical, philosophical, allegorical, and cabalistical," condensing much of former commentators (Pesaro, 1507; Lemberg, 1865, 5 vols.), He also wrote שׂבִע שְמָחוֹת, a commentary on Job (Amst. 1768):- סֵ כִד חִקֶמִח and סֵ הִדְרָשׁוֹת, a collection of sixty derashas, or sermons (Const. 1515; Warsaw, 1870):-also a curious book on food and meals, entitled Sefer Shulchan Arba (סֵ שֻׁלְחִן אִרְבִע, "the book of the square table") (1st ed. Mantua, s. a.; last ed. Wilna, 1818), in which he discusses the time of eating, the mystical signification of food, the moral import of fasting, the manners of the table, the feasts of the ancients, the festivals of the just in the world to come. See Furst, Bibl. Jud. i, 75 sq.; De' Rossi, Dizionario Storico (Germ. transl.), p. 54; Gratz, Gesch. d. Juden, 7:203 sq.; Finn, Sephardim, p. 304; Etheridge Introd. to Hebrew Literature, p. 262; Jost, Gesch. d. Judenth. u. s. Sekten, iii, 39; Ginsburg, Kabbalah, p. 98. (B. P.)