Abraham ben Isaac of Narbonne (c. 1110 – 1179) was a Provençal rabbi, also known as
Raavad II, and author of the
halachicHalakha — also transliterated Halocho and Halacha — is the collective body of Jewish religious law, including biblical law and later talmudic and rabbinic law, as well as customs and traditions....
work
Ha-Eshkol (
The Cluster).
Abraham ben Isaac was probably born at
MontpellierMontpellier is a city in southern France. It is the capital of the Languedoc-Roussillon region, as well as the Hérault department.-Population:...
. His teacher was
Moses ben Joseph ben Merwan ha-LeviMoses ben Joseph ben Merwan ha-Levi was a prominent Provençal rabbi and Talmudist.He was a nephew and pupil of Isaac ben Merwan ha-Levi...
, and during the latter's lifetime Abraham was appointed president (Av
Beth DinA beth din, beit din or beis din is a rabbinical court of Judaism. In ancient times, it was the building block of the legal system in the Land of Israel...
) of the rabbinical board of
NarbonneNarbonne is a commune in southern France in the Languedoc-Roussillon région. It lies from Paris in the Aude département, of which it is a sous-préfecture. Once a prosperous port, it is now located about from the shores of the Mediterranean Sea...
– composed of nine members – and was made principal of the rabbinical academy.
Abraham ben Isaac of Narbonne (c. 1110 – 1179) was a Provençal rabbi, also known as
Raavad II, and author of the
halachicHalakha — also transliterated Halocho and Halacha — is the collective body of Jewish religious law, including biblical law and later talmudic and rabbinic law, as well as customs and traditions....
work
Ha-Eshkol (
The Cluster).
Abraham ben Isaac was probably born at
MontpellierMontpellier is a city in southern France. It is the capital of the Languedoc-Roussillon region, as well as the Hérault department.-Population:...
. His teacher was
Moses ben Joseph ben Merwan ha-LeviMoses ben Joseph ben Merwan ha-Levi was a prominent Provençal rabbi and Talmudist.He was a nephew and pupil of Isaac ben Merwan ha-Levi...
, and during the latter's lifetime Abraham was appointed president (Av
Beth DinA beth din, beit din or beis din is a rabbinical court of Judaism. In ancient times, it was the building block of the legal system in the Land of Israel...
) of the rabbinical board of
NarbonneNarbonne is a commune in southern France in the Languedoc-Roussillon région. It lies from Paris in the Aude département, of which it is a sous-préfecture. Once a prosperous port, it is now located about from the shores of the Mediterranean Sea...
– composed of nine members – and was made principal of the rabbinical academy. In the latter capacity he taught two of the greatest Talmudists of
ProvenceProvence is a region of southeastern France on the Mediterranean adjacent to Italy. It is part of the administrative région of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur...
– namely,
Abraham ben DavidRabbeinu Abraham ben David was a Provençal rabbi, a great commentator on the Talmud, Sefer Halachot of rabbi Yitzhak Alfasi and Mishne Torah of Maimonides, and is regarded as a father of Kabbalah and one of the key and important links in the chain of Jewish mystics...
III, who afterward became his son-in-law, and Zerahiah ha-Levi. Abraham ben Isaac died at Narbonne in 1179.
Ha-Eshkol
Like most of the
ProvençalProvence is a region of southeastern France on the Mediterranean adjacent to Italy. It is part of the administrative région of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur...
scholars, Raavad II was a diligent author, composing numerous commentaries upon the
TalmudThe Talmud is a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, customs, and history. It is a central text of mainstream Judaism....
, all of which, however, have been lost with the exception of that upon the treatise
Baba Batra, of which a manuscript has been preserved in
MunichMunich is the capital city of Bavaria, Germany. It is located on the River Isar north of the Bavarian Alps. Munich is the third largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Hamburg...
. Numerous quotations from these commentaries are to be found in the writings of Zerahiah Gerondi,
NahmanidesNahmanides, also known as Rabbi Moses ben Nachman Girondi, Bonastruc ça Porta and by his acronym Ramban, , was a Catalan rabbi, philosopher, physician, kabbalist, and biblical commentator.-Name:...
, Nissim Gerondi, and others. Many of his explanations of Talmudical passages are also repeated in his
responsaResponsa comprise a body of written decisions and rulings given by legal scholars in response to questions addressed to them.-In the Roman Catholic Church:...
which give his method of treatment. In Abraham's comments on the Talmud he seems to have taken
RashiShlomo Yitzhaki, better known by the acronym Rashi , , was a medieval French rabbi famed as the author of the first comprehensive commentary on the Talmud, as well as a comprehensive commentary on the Tanakh .Acclaimed for his ability to present the basic meaning of the text in a...
as his model; for they are marked by the same precision and clearness of exposition. An idea of this writer's Talmudical knowledge may be gathered from his book
Ha-Eshkol (three parts of which were published by M. Auerbach, Halberstadt, 1867-68).
This work, the fourth part of which exists in manuscript in the library of the Alliance Israélite of
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, was modeled after the well-known work of Alfasi, and was the first important attempt at a legal code made by the French Jews. It can not, however, be said to equal Alfasi's work either in originality or in depth, but it contained some noteworthy improvements upon its model, such as the arrangement of its contents according to subject-matter, which greatly facilitated its practical use. Raavad II also drew upon the
Jerusalem TalmudThe Jerusalem Talmud or Talmud Yerushalmi , often the Yerushalmi for short, is a collection of Rabbinic notes about the Jewish Oral tradition as detailed in the 2nd-century Mishnah...
and the
gaonGaon may refer to* Gaon , means "genius"; plural Geonim* Gaon , in Hindi or Marathi or Assamese means a village* A surname:** Yehoram Gaon, Israeli singer...
ic literature much more fully than Alfasi, and treated at much greater length many subjects which were only briefly considered by the latter. His depth and acumen, however, are shown to much better advantage in his
responsa, quoted in the collection
Temim De'im (part iv of
Tummat Yesharim, by Benjamin Motal, Venice, 1622), and in the
Sefer ha-Terumot of Samuel Sardi. Other
responsa sent to Joseph ben Ḥen (Graziano) of
BarcelonaBarcelona is the capital, most populous city of the Autonomous Community of Catalonia and the second largest city in Spain, with a population of 1,615,908 in 2008. It is the 11th-most populous municipality in the European Union and sixth-most populous urban area in the European Union after Paris,...
and
Meshullam ben JacobRabbeinu Meshullam son of Jacob also known as Rabbeinu Meshullam hagodol was a Franco-Jewish Talmudist of the twelfth century CE...
of
LunelLunel is a commune in the Hérault department in southern France.Lunel is located east of Montpellier and southwest of Nîmes .Lunel was the birthplace of Louis Feuillade , film director from the silent era. It is thought that the family of Rashi , the great Rabbi and commentator, originated in...
are found in a manuscript belonging to Baron de Günzburg in
Saint PetersburgSaint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city's other names were Petrograd and Leningrad...
. As an acknowledged rabbinical authority and president of the rabbinical board, he was frequently called upon to give his decision on difficult questions: and his answers show that he was not only a lucid exegete, but also a logical thinker.
Though he lacked originality Abraham's influence upon Talmudical study in Provence ought not to be underrated.
LanguedocLanguedoc is a former province of France, now continued in the modern-day régions of Languedoc-Roussillon and Midi-Pyrénées in the south of France, and whose capital city was Toulouse, now in Midi-Pyrénées. It had an area of approximately 42,700 km² Languedoc is a former...
formed politically a connecting link between
SpainSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain , is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.
[The Spanish constitution does not establish any official denomination of the country, even though España , Estado español and Nación española are used interchangeably...]
and northern
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
; in like manner Jewish scholars played the rôle of intermediaries between the Jews of these countries. Abraham ben Isaac represented this function; he was the intermediary between the dialectics employed by the
tosafistsTosafists were medieval rabbis known in Talmudical scholarship as Rishonim who created critical and explanatory glosses on the Talmud. These were collectively called Tosafot ....
of France and the systematic science of the Spanish rabbis. The French-Italian codifiers – Aaron ha-Kohen of Lunel, Zedekiah ben Abraham, and many others – took Abraham b. Isaac's
Ha-Eshkol for their model; and it was not until the appearance of the
Ṭur, written by
Jacob ben AsherRabbi Jacob ben Asher, in Hebrew Ya'akov ben Asher, was born in Cologne, Germany in about 1269 and died in Toledo, Spain in about 1343. He was an influential Medieval rabbinic authority...
, a German Jew resident in Spain, that
Ha-Eshkol lost its importance and sank into comparative oblivion. The school founded by Abraham ben Isaac, as exemplified in RABaD III and Zerahiah ha-Levi, was nevertheless the creator of a system of Talmudic criticism; and the method it employed was in fact no other than the tosafist dialectic modified and simplified by Spanish-Jewish logic.
Jewish Encyclopedia bibliography
- Henri Gross, in Monatsschrift, 1868, xvii.241-255, 281-294;
- idem, Gallia Judaica, pp. 414-415;
- Ernest Renan
Ernest Renan was a French philosopher and writer, devoted to his native province of Brittany...
, Les Rabbins Français, pp. 510, 518, 520, 543;
- Michael, Or ha-Ḥayyim, No. 133;
- Leopold Zunz
Leopold Zunz was a German Reform rabbi and writer, the founder of what has been termed the "Science of Judaism" , the critical investigation of Jewish literature, hymnology and ritual...
, in Geiger's Zeitschrift f. J. Theol. ii.307-309.