Or ha-Chaim אוֹר הַחַיִּים
A commentary on the Pentateuch that gives several explanations of a single verse in succession, none cancelling the others. It is printed in the Mikra'ot Gedolot beside Rashi and Ramban.
A verse-by-verse commentary on the Pentateuch built on the four levels of PaRDeS—peshat, remez, derash, sod. Its distinguishing feature is the deliberate offering of several different explanations of a single verse in succession, often numbered, without collapsing them into one. Its method is to press the literal sense until it yields a difficulty, and to resolve the difficulty at a higher level.
The manuscript was finished on 15 Av 5501 and sent to Venice; it was printed at Venice in 1742, in the author's lifetime. The book entered the Mikra'ot Gedolot and is printed beside Rashi and Ramban; ArtScroll issued a ten-volume English edition in 2009.
One correction that changes the reading. Or ha-Chaim is not a kabbalistic commentary. There is sod in it, but it is a four-level commentary whose centre of gravity is a very demanding peshat. It is not a Zoharic commentary and not a work of theoretical Kabbalah. The later Hasidic reading—and the Hasidim read Or ha-Chaim as an almost mystical book—has retroactively coloured the description of the book itself. Open it anywhere and what one sees first is work on a difficulty in the text.
On the timeline
Related
Sources
Acharonim and later rabbinic literature
- Or ha-Chaim, Venice, 1742 — the first edition, in the author's lifetime
- Mikra'ot Gedolot with Or ha-Chaim — its entry into the standard apparatus of commentaries
Scholarship
- Studies of the reception of Or ha-Chaim in Hasidism — how the book came to be read mystically
Basis: documents and evidence.