Rabi Isaac Alfasi (known by the acronym RIF) was born in 1013 in Kal’at Hamad near Constantine, Algeria. He studied in Kairouan and later settled in Fez, Morocco where he taught for several decades (hence his surname Alfasi — “the man from Fez”).
In 1088 , at the age of 75, he was forced to flee to Spain after being denounced by enemies to the government, and he resided for some time in Cordova. He then moved to Lucena, where in 1089, after the death of the local Rochi HaYeshiva, Rabi Isaac Ben Yehuda Ibn Ghayyat — who in addition to authoring Talmudic and Halakhic works, wrote commentaries on books of the Bible and Hebrew poetry, mostly Piyyutim — he was appointed to the position the latter had occupied.
Rabi Alfasi served there until his death at the age of 90, having designated his star pupil, Rabi Yosef Ibn Migash as his successor.
Alfasi’s magnum opus, Sefer Halakha, is regarded as the first significant Halakhic compendium prior to the appearance of RAMBAM, Yad HaHazakah (Michineh Torah).
HaRAMBAM (Maimonides) himself, in his Introduction to this Commentary on the Michinah, writes the following about Alfasi’s book after mentioning some of the codes of the Geonim:
“The Halakhot of the great rabbi, our teacher Isaac of blessed memory has superseded all these books because it includes all the decisions and laws which are incumbent upon us in our time, namely, in the Galut.”
No comments:
Post a Comment