This book contains the original Hebrew text in facsimile of two small books by David the Preacher; an English translation with notes; and an Introduction in English in which David is seen against his background in 16th-century Poland. David, we learn, was an associate of the giants of that period, Moses Isserles and Solomon Luria and was himself no mean Tal mudist (one of his Responsa is mistakenly inclued in Isserles’ collection of Responsa). David was the first itinerant Jewish preacher whose sermons were published; an amulet writer; and an artist (the jacket illustration is a copy of his illustration to a Kabbalistic ms, depicting Rabbi Akiba's ascent to Heaven - the picture of Akiba gives us some idea of what a Polish rabbi of the time looked like).

There are several problems connected with the translation of these difficult texts and it cannot be said that all of them have been successfully overcome. For instance, it is clear that David uses the term Shir HaMa ‘alot, in his title, in the sense of ‘Song of Advantages’ in reference to the advantages to be gained by a perusal of his book. The translator is aware of the pun on HaMa'alot but in that case why translate it ‘Song of the Steps'? It is also astonishing that no indication is given that David wrote throughout in rhymed prose, which accounts for some otherwise cumbersome forms. The editor notes that David uses, for Responsa, teshuvot u ‘sheelot, instead of the conventional sheelot u ‘teshuvot, but this is because he is speaking, in his poem, of ‘unlocking the closed’ so that it is appropriate to state the solutions before the problems. The Hebrew baki b'kanturin does not mean here (p. 41) ‘good at disputation’ since David uses the expression pejoratively. It should be ‘disputatious’ or ‘cantankerous'.

Nor can David really be described as a ‘Renaissance man'. Like his contemporaries in Poland he had none of the breadth of the true Renaissance man, though the Polish Jews were certainly more profound and more Jewishly learned than their Italian counterparts. Judging by the samples of preaching given by David, his sermons consisted largely of pilpulistic homilies of the most far-fetched kind.