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The
Sefer ha-Pardes is a widely-read book, and it has been
used, sometimes under other titles, by the greater number of
legal compilations made in France and Germany. It passed through
various redactions, and the one now extant is not the most
complete.
The
Sefer ha-Orah, the redaction of which is sometimes
attributed, though wrongly so, to Nathan haMachiri, is a
compilation of several works, which seem to have been written in
Spain at the beginning of the fourteenth century. It consists of
two principal elements; the first, German in origin, is similar
to the Pardes now extant; the second is the work of the Spaniard,
Judah ben Barzillai, of Barcelona (twelfth century). It is, of
course, in the first that one finds fragments of works which date
back to the disciples of Rashi.
The Mahzor Vitry is a more or less homogeneous work. It
contains rules of jurisprudence and of religious practice,
Responsa by Rashi, by his predecessors, and by his
contemporaries, prayers and liturgic poems, "Minor" Talmudic
treatises, the whole divided into chapters following the yearly
cycle, and bearing upon the various circumstances of life. The
work contains many additions due to Isaac ben Durbal, or Durbalo,
who visited the countries of Eastern Europe and was the disciple
of Rabbenu Tam (about 1150). He is wrongly considered to be the
redactor of the Mahzor Vitry.
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