Rabbi
Nissim ben Reuven (1320 - 1380, Hebrew:
נסים בן ראובן) of
GironaGirona is a city in the northeast of Catalonia, Spain at the confluence of the rivers Ter, Onyar, Galligants and Güell with an estimated population of 95,000...
,
CataloniaCatalonia is an Autonomous Community in northeast Spain. The capital city is Barcelona.Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an official population of 7,364,078. It borders France and Andorra to the north, Aragon to the west, the Valencian Community to the south, and the...
was an influential
talmudThe Talmud is a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, customs, and history. It is a central text of mainstream Judaism....
ist and authority on
Jewish lawHalakha — 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....
. He was one of the last of the great Spanish medieval talmudic scholars. He is also known as the
RaN (
ר"ן, the
HebrewHebrew is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family. Culturally, it is considered a Jewish language. Hebrew in its modern form is spoken by more than seven million people in Israel while Classical Hebrew has been used for prayer or study in Jewish communities around the world for over...
acronym of his name).
The
Ran was born in
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,...
,
CataloniaCatalonia is an Autonomous Community in northeast Spain. The capital city is Barcelona.Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an official population of 7,364,078. It borders France and Andorra to the north, Aragon to the west, the Valencian Community to the south, and the...
. He was a
PhysicianA physician — also known as medical practitioner, doctor of medicine, medical doctor, or simply doctor — practices the ancient profession of medicine, which is concerned with maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease or injury...
and had knowledge of
astronomyAstronomy is the scientific study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the Earth's atmosphere...
. The RaN's teacher is not known; his works refer to a R.
Rabbi
Nissim ben Reuven (1320 - 1380, Hebrew:
נסים בן ראובן) of
GironaGirona is a city in the northeast of Catalonia, Spain at the confluence of the rivers Ter, Onyar, Galligants and Güell with an estimated population of 95,000...
,
CataloniaCatalonia is an Autonomous Community in northeast Spain. The capital city is Barcelona.Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an official population of 7,364,078. It borders France and Andorra to the north, Aragon to the west, the Valencian Community to the south, and the...
was an influential
talmudThe Talmud is a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, customs, and history. It is a central text of mainstream Judaism....
ist and authority on
Jewish lawHalakha — 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....
. He was one of the last of the great Spanish medieval talmudic scholars. He is also known as the
RaN (
ר"ן, the
HebrewHebrew is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family. Culturally, it is considered a Jewish language. Hebrew in its modern form is spoken by more than seven million people in Israel while Classical Hebrew has been used for prayer or study in Jewish communities around the world for over...
acronym of his name).
Biography
The
Ran was born in
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,...
,
CataloniaCatalonia is an Autonomous Community in northeast Spain. The capital city is Barcelona.Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an official population of 7,364,078. It borders France and Andorra to the north, Aragon to the west, the Valencian Community to the south, and the...
. He was a
PhysicianA physician — also known as medical practitioner, doctor of medicine, medical doctor, or simply doctor — practices the ancient profession of medicine, which is concerned with maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease or injury...
and had knowledge of
astronomyAstronomy is the scientific study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the Earth's atmosphere...
. The RaN's teacher is not known; his works refer to a R. Perez as "morenu" ("our teacher"), but it is thought that his father, Reuben b. Nissim, was his primary teacher. RaN was considered the greatest
Halachic authorityPosek is the term in Jewish law for "decider"—a legal scholar who decides the Halakha in cases of law where previous authorities are inconclusive....
of his generation, and queries were sent to him from throughout the Jewish diaspora. His closest disciples were the
Rivash (Isaac ben Sheshet) and
Hasdai CrescasHasdai ben Judah Crescas was a Jewish philosopher and a renowned halakhist...
.
In his analyses, Nissim frequently refutes other
rishonim"Rishon" redirects here. For the preon model in particle physics, see Harari Rishon Model. For the Israeli town, see Rishon LeZion.Rishonim were the leading Rabbis and Poskim who lived approximately during the 11th to 15th centuries, in the era before the writing of the Shulkhan Arukh and...
; in his
legal rulingsPosek is the term in Jewish law for "decider"—a legal scholar who decides the Halakha in cases of law where previous authorities are inconclusive....
however, he generally adopts their opinions in practice. He was "no friend of
mysticismMysticism is the pursuit of communion with, identity with, or conscious awareness of an ultimate reality, divinity, spiritual truth, or God through direct experience, intuition, instinct or insight. Mysticism usually centers on a practice or practices intended to nurture those experiences or...
", and even reproved
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:...
for devoting too much time to the
KabbalahKabbalah is a discipline and school of thought concerned with the mystical aspect of Judaism. It is a set of esoteric teachings that is meant to explain the relationship between an infinite, eternal and essentially unknowable Creator with the finite and mortal universe of His creation...
.
Works
His best known work is his
commentaryIn literary criticism, close reading describes the careful, sustained interpretation of a brief passage of text. Such a reading places great emphasis on the particular over the general, paying close attention to individual words, syntax, and the order in which sentences and ideas unfold as they...
and explanation of
AlfasiIsaac ben Jacob Alfasi ha-Cohen - also known as the Alfasi or by his Hebrew acronym Rif , was a Talmudist and posek . He is best known for his work of halakha, the legal code Sefer Ha-halachot, considered the first fundamental work in halakhic literature...
's "Hilkhot", which had, at that time, been adopted for practical decisions. He is very detailed and explicit where the subject is important from a practical point of view, but extremely brief when dealing with theory.
Ran did not write the commentary on all of Alfasi, although the whole commentary is often ascribed to him.
Ran is now printed with
Alfasi in all standard editions of 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....
.
Ran also wrote a commentary on 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....
. The commentary is oriented toward
practical decisionsPosek is the term in Jewish law for "decider"—a legal scholar who decides the Halakha in cases of law where previous authorities are inconclusive....
as opposed to theory. The commentary has been printed only on some tractates, the rest exists in
manuscriptA manuscript is a recording of information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...
or has been lost.
Other works include,
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:...
, a recently published commentary on the Bible, a work of philosophy, and a collection of sermons.