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83-491: He authored many responsa , but his chief work was liturgical . He was the first to arrange a complete liturgy for the synagogue . His siddur ( Siddur Rav Amram or Seder Rav Amram ), which took the form of a long responsum to the Jews of al-Andalus , is still extant and was an important influence on most of the current rites in use among Rabbinic Jews . Amram ben Sheshna was a pupil of Natronai ben Hilai , Gaon of Sura, and

166-470: A Jew may abjure his religion and accept Islam when threatened with death, considering the question in detail, and determines the cases in which a Jew may thus save his life and the contingencies in which he should rather choose death. The only important Italian respondent of the sixteenth century was Menahem Azariah da Fano , whose responsa were edited at Dyhernfurth in 1788. In the seventeenth century rabbis of various countries prepared responsa, but

249-481: A collection entitled Sha'arei Tzedek , touching almost every aspect of Jewish jurisprudence. They afford insight into Amram's personality as well as religious practice among Jews of that period. For example, the ruling that interest may not be exacted even from non-Jews, nor even such minor profits as the Talmud designates as "the dust of interest", these being allowed only when customary in non-Jewish business circles. It

332-580: A community with distinct cultural, juridical and philosophical traditions. Sephardim are, primarily, the descendants of Jews from the Iberian Peninsula . They may be divided into the families that left Spain during the Expulsion of 1492 and those families that remained in Spain as crypto-Jews , fleeing in the following few centuries. In religious parlance as well as in modern Israel , the term

415-709: A distinction was established between the Babylonian ritual and that used in Palestine , as these were the two main centres of religious authority: there is no complete text of the Palestinian rite, though some fragments have been found in the Cairo Genizah . Most scholars maintain that Sephardic Jews are inheritors of the religious traditions of the great Babylonian Jewish academies , and that Ashkenazi Jews are descendants of those who originally followed

498-643: A function of the travels of the Jewish people and of the development of other halakhic literature, particularly the codes. Formulation of responsa, or she'elot ve-t'shuvot, which literally translates to questions and answers, generally involve an individual or group asking either teachers, rabbis, or heads of yeshivot about halakhah (Jewish law) and the party responding via an exchange of letters. Responsa literature spans 1700 years and there are even responsa being developed based on questions posed today. The development of responsa literature can be divided into six periods:

581-523: A messenger with an answer to a question; for if he desired to keep his decision secret, he would probably have sent a letter had such replies been customary at that time. In the Tannaitic period (100 BCE to 200 CE) statements, publications, contributions concerning the calendar, and notifications were the only documents regularly committed to writing. On the other hand, it can not positively be asserted that no ruling at all had been given in writing before

664-645: A period of 1,700 years. Rabbinic responsa constitute a special class of rabbinic literature , differing in form , but not necessarily in content, from Rabbinic commentaries devoted to the exegesis of the Bible , the Mishnah , the Talmud , and halakha (the codes of Jewish religious law ). The codes themselves contain the rules for ordinary incidents of life. The responsa literature covers all these topics and more. The mode, style and subject matter have changed as

747-511: A process lasting from the 16th through the 19th century, the native Jewish communities of most Arab and Ottoman countries adapted their pre-existing liturgies, many of which already had a family resemblance with the Sephardic, to follow the Spanish rite in as many respects as possible. Some reasons for this are: The most important theological, as opposed to practical, motive for harmonization

830-690: A proper way for rabbis to interpret and apply Jewish law to our conditions today. Like Orthodoxy, there is no one legal body that speaks for all Jews in their religious community. When defined narrowly as the Conservative movement , Conservative Judaism has two law committees: In the USA there is the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of the Rabbinical Assembly . The CJLS is the body that sets halakhic policy. There are 25 voting members on

913-508: A responsum from this period can span from less than a sentence to a large book. Many of the responsa are still being studied today in the Cairo Genizah. In the yeshiva during this time period, students and scholars would discuss these halakhic questions during kallah and then the head of the yeshiva would announce his decision and the leaders in the yeshiva would sign it. Another type of responsa were those that were more time-sensitive, so

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996-468: A thousand known collections. No responsa are known to exist from before the Mishnah (200 CE); it is doubtful whether any were written before this period. A tradition held that no halakha (law) should be written down (see Oral Torah ). Even when reluctance to write down rulings became obsolete, letters of a legal nature might be written only in cases where laws might likewise be reduced to writing. While

1079-619: Is Saadia. This indicates that the additions to the text of the prayers must have originated in Amram's time. Certainty on this point, however, can only be obtained by a comparison of the printed text with the manuscripts; that of Almanzi, according to the specimens given by Luzzatto, varies considerably from the printed text. Israel ben Todros (1305) mentions some azharot as having been composed by Amram; but no trace of these can now be found. No early manuscripts of this prayer book survive, and later manuscripts appear to be heavily edited to conform with

1162-624: Is basically similar to that of the Sephardim. There are of course customs peculiar to particular countries or communities within the Sephardic world, such as Syria and Morocco . An important body of customs grew up in the Kabbalistic circle of Isaac Luria and his followers in Safed , and many of these have spread to communities throughout the Sephardi world: this is discussed further in

1245-450: Is broadly used in reference to all Jews who have Ottoman or other Asian or North African backgrounds, whether or not they have any historic link to Spain, but some prefer to distinguish Sephardim proper from Mizraḥi Jews. For the purposes of this article, there is no need to distinguish Iberian Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews , as their religious practices are basically similar: whether or not they are "Spaniard Jews" they are all "Jews of

1328-402: Is certainly not the work of Amram, but appears to belong to a much later period. Even the first portion, which contains the prayers proper, is full of interpolations, some of which, such as the kedushah for private prayer, are evidently later additions in the manuscripts. But not much weight can be attached even to portions of the book which are specifically given under the name of Amram; many of

1411-400: Is characteristic of Amram's method to avoid extreme stringency; thus he decides that a slave who has embraced Judaism but desires to postpone circumcision until he feels strong enough for it, is not to be hurried. He combats superstition and places himself almost in opposition to the Talmud when he protests that there is no sense in fasting on account of bad dreams since the true nature of dreams

1494-641: Is likely to have belonged to a Palestinian-influenced European family, together with the Italian and Provençal , and more remotely the Old French and Ashkenazi rites, but as no liturgical materials from the Visigothic era survive we cannot know for certain. From references in later treatises such as the Sefer ha-Manhig by Rabbi Abraham ben Nathan ha-Yarḥi (c. 1204), it appears that even at that later time

1577-479: Is not known. Amram's rules concerning the methodology of the Talmud are of considerable value. The most important work of Amram, marking him as one of the most prominent of the geonim before Saadiah , is his prayer book, the so-called Siddur Rav Amram . Amram was the first to arrange a complete liturgy for use in synagogue and home. His book forms the foundation both of the Spanish-Portuguese and of

1660-536: Is what is currently known as Minhag Edot ha-Mizraḥ (the custom of the Oriental congregations). Other authorities, especially older rabbis from North Africa, reject these in favour of a more conservative Oriental-Sephardic text as found in the 19th century Livorno editions; and the Shami Yemenite and Syrian rites belong to this group. Others again, following R. Ovadia Yosef , prefer a form shorn of some of

1743-635: The Halachot Gedolot by Simeon Kayyara . The learning of the Gaonim was transmitted through the scholars of Kairouan , notably Chananel Ben Chushiel and Nissim Gaon , to Spain , where it was used by Isaac Alfasi in his Sefer ha-Halachot (code of Jewish law), which took the form of an edited and abridged Talmud. This in turn formed the basis for the Mishneh Torah of Maimonides . A feature of these early Tunisian and Spanish schools

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1826-740: The Bet El yeshivah . These rulings and observations form the basis of the Baghdadi rite: both the text of the prayers and the accompanying usages differ in some respects from those of the Livorno editions. The rulings of the Ben Ish Ḥai have been accepted in several other Sephardic and Oriental communities, such as that of Jerba . In the Sephardic world today, particularly in Israel, there are many popular prayer-books containing this Baghdadi rite, and this

1909-488: The German-Polish liturgies, and has exerted great influence upon Jewish religious practice for more than a thousand years, an influence which to some extent is still felt at the present day. For Amram did not content himself with giving the mere text of the prayers, but in a species of running commentary added many Talmudic and gaonic regulations relating to the prayers and their associated ceremonies. His siddur, which

1992-501: The Land of Israel .) Following the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, Jewish law was codified by Joseph Caro in his Bet Yosef , which took the form of a commentary on the Arba'ah Turim, and Shulḥan Aruch , which presented the same results in the form of a practical abridgement. He consulted most of the authorities available to him, but generally arrived at a practical decision by following

2075-530: The Liturgy section below. In some cases they are accepted by Greek and Turkish Sephardim and Mizrahi Jews but not by Western communities such as the Spanish and Portuguese Jews . These are customs in the true sense: in the list of usages below they are distinguished by an L sign. For the outline and early history of the Jewish liturgy, see the articles on Siddur and Jewish services . At an early stage,

2158-409: The gaonate in the first half of the eleventh century, it ceased to be seen as the central spiritual authority for Jews worldwide. From then on, questions were sent to the rabbinical authorities of one's own or a neighboring country. Thus, inquiries sent during this period to Babylonia were rare and exceptional. The Second Rabbinic Epoch consists of responsa from Spanish and Frenco-German schools in

2241-593: The public domain :  Ginzberg, Louis (1901). "Amram ben Sheshna or Shushna (known as Amram Gaon or Mar-Amram)" . In Singer, Isidore ; et al. (eds.). The Jewish Encyclopedia . Vol. 1. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. pp. 535–536. History of responsa in Judaism The history of responsa in Judaism ( Hebrew : שאלות ותשובות, Sephardic : She'elot Utshuvot , Ashkenazic : Sheilos Utshuvos , usually shortened to שו"ת Shu"t ), spans

2324-485: The 13th and 14th centuries. Nahmanides and R. Solomen ben Adret were two of the big scholars during this period. These responsa were written about a wide range of topics including Talmudic passages, ethics, religious philosophy, and more. In this period the difference between the Spanish and the Franco- German forms of responsa vanished. On the one hand, the scientific spirit of the Spanish school partially entered

2407-516: The 18th century Ḥemdat Yamim (anonymous, but sometimes attributed to Nathan of Gaza ). The most elaborate version of these is contained in the Siddur published by the 18th century Yemenite Kabbalist Shalom Sharabi for the use of the Bet El yeshivah in Jerusalem: this contains only a few lines of text on each page, the rest being filled with intricate meditations on the letter combinations in

2490-473: The Ashkenazi rite was based on the Babylonian while the Sephardic rite was essentially Palestinian. [REDACTED]   This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain :  Chisholm, Hugh , ed. (1911). " Amram ". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. [REDACTED]  This article incorporates text from a publication now in

2573-700: The Ashkenazic world, which adopted the Lurianic-Sephardic ritual, on the theory of the thirteenth gate mentioned above. This accounts for the " Nusach Sefard " and " Nusach Ari " in use among the Hasidim , which is based on the Lurianic-Sephardic text with some Ashkenazi variations. From the 1840s on a series of prayer-books was published in Livorno , including Tefillat ha-Ḥodesh , Bet Obed and Zechor le-Abraham . These included notes on practice and

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2656-597: The Earth, the Space Shuttle experienced a day/night cycle approximately every ninety minutes. Thus, Ramon asked whether he should keep the Sabbath according to Earth time, or mark it once every seven day/night cycles (ten and a half hours). And if according to Earth time, then what location on Earth should this be based upon? The rabbis concluded that he was to celebrate the Sabbath in accordance with Earth time, based on

2739-733: The Islamic period. Their presidents, known as Geonim , together with the Exilarch , were recognised by the Abbasid Caliphs as the supreme authority over the Jews of the Arab world. The Gaonim provided written answers to questions on Jewish law from around the world, which were published in collections of responsa and enjoyed high authority. The Gaonim also produced handbooks such as the Halachot Pesuqot by Yehudai Gaon and

2822-415: The Jews were experiencing throughout this time period, the majority of these responsa were written in response to questions concerning legal matters. This section covers responsa written during fifteenth to the eighteenth century, and includes responsa of Italian , Turkish , German , and Polish rabbis. This period is the richest in the responsa literature. It would therefore be impossible to enumerate all

2905-524: The Judaean or Galilaean Jewish religious traditions. Others, such as Moses Gaster , maintain precisely the opposite. To put the matter into perspective it must be emphasized that all Jewish liturgies in use in the world today are in substance Babylonian, with a small number of Palestinian usages surviving the process of standardization: in a list of differences preserved from the time of the Geonim , most of

2988-633: The Judaeo-Spanish communities of the Balkans, Greece and Turkey, and therefore had rubrics in Ladino , but also had a wider distribution. An important influence on Sephardic prayer and custom was the late 19th century Baghdadi rabbi known as the Ben Ish Ḥai , whose work of that name contained both halachic rulings and observations on Kabbalistic custom based on his correspondence with Eliyahu Mani of

3071-604: The Kabbalistic additions and nearer to what would have been known to R. Joseph Caro, and seek to establish this as the standard "Israeli Sephardi" rite for use by all communities. The liturgy of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews differs from all these (more than the Eastern groups differ from each other), as it represents an older form of the text, has far fewer Kabbalistic additions and reflects some Italian influence. The differences between all these groups, however, exist at

3154-477: The Kabbalistic additions to the prayers, but not the meditations of Shalom Sharabi , as the books were designed for public congregational use. They quickly became standard in almost all Sephardic and Oriental communities, with any local variations being preserved only by oral tradition. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many more Sephardic prayer books were published in Vienna . These were primarily aimed at

3237-480: The Polish scholars were in the great majority. In the eighteenth century the rabbis of various countries contributed to responsa literature, but the most important were still the Polish scholars. In this period, many responsa deal with problems taken from modern experience. Responsa have been inspired or necessitated by economic growth, social movements, and advances in technology , which wrought sweeping changes in

3320-650: The Rabbinical Assembly. In contemporary Orthodox Judaism , responsa remain a primary channel whereby halakhic decisions and policies are formulated and communicated. Notable collections of Responsa published in the 20th Century include those by Moshe Feinstein , Ovadia Yosef , Eliezer Waldenberg , Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg and Meir Arik . Contemporary responsa deal with both traditional questions and phenomena associated with modern social, religious, medical and technological developments. For example, Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon noted that, while orbiting

3403-519: The Sephardic practice set out in the Shulḥan Aruch represents standard Jewish law while the Ashkenazi practice is essentially a local custom. So far, then, it is meaningless to speak of "Sephardic custom": all that is meant is Jewish law without the particular customs of the Ashkenazim. For this reason, the law accepted by other non-Ashkenazi communities, such as the Italian and Yemenite Jews ,

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3486-575: The Sephardic rite in use today and nearer to other old European rites such as the Provençal , Italian and Old French rites, which reflect varying degrees of Palestinian influence. The later Sephardic rite has been revised to bring it into closer conformity with the rulings of the halachic codes, which themselves often reflect the opinions of the Geonim, and is therefore of a more purely Babylonian character: thus, paradoxically, it has moved away from

3569-545: The Sephardim took their liturgy with them to countries throughout the Arab and Ottoman world, where they soon assumed positions of rabbinic and communal leadership. They formed their own communities, often maintaining differences based on their places of origin in the Iberian peninsula. In Salonica , for instance, there were more than twenty synagogues, each using the rite of a different locality in Spain or Portugal (as well as one Romaniot and one Ashkenazi synagogue). In

3652-458: The Spanish rite preserved certain European peculiarities that have since been eliminated in order to conform to the rulings of the Geonim and the official texts based on them. (Conversely the surviving versions of those texts, in particular that of Amram Gaon, appear to have been edited to reflect some Spanish and other local usages.) The present Sephardic liturgy should therefore be regarded as

3735-563: The Spanish rite". There are three reasons for this convergence, which are explored in more detail below: Jewish law is based on the Torah , as interpreted and supplemented by the Talmud . The Babylonian Talmud in its final form dates from the Sassanian period and was the product of a number of colleges in Babylonia. The two principal colleges, Sura and Pumbedita , survived well into

3818-1059: The Tannaitic Period, the Geonic Period, the First Rabbinic Epoch, the Second Rabbinic Epoch, the Third Rabbinic Epoch, and the Fourth Rabbinic Epoch. The responsa of the first five centuries are not contained in special works; they are scattered through the writings of both Talmuds (the Babylonian Talmud and the Jerusalem Talmud ). Works devoted especially to responsa first appear in the post-Talmudic period. Many responsa have been lost, but those extant number hundreds of thousands, in almost

3901-678: The Tosafists, but not the literature on Ashkenazic customs as such, was imported into Spain by Asher ben Yeḥiel , a German-born scholar who became chief rabbi of Toledo and the author of the Hilchot ha-Rosh - an elaborate Talmudic commentary, which became the third of the great Spanish authorities after Alfasi and Maimonides. A more popular résumé, known as the Arba'ah Turim , was written by his son, Jacob ben Asher , though he did not agree with his father on all points. The Tosafot were also used by

3984-508: The Venice edition of the Spanish and Portuguese prayer book. The theory then grew up that this composite Sephardic rite was of special spiritual potency and reached a "thirteenth gate" in Heaven for those who did not know their tribe: prayer in this form could therefore be offered in complete confidence by everyone. Further Kabbalistic embellishments were recorded in later rabbinic works such as

4067-546: The academies of southern France, and, on the other hand, the dialecticism of the French rabbis steadily increased in influence in Spain. The principal representatives of the fourteenth century were Asher ben Jehiel (RoSH) and Isaac ben Sheshet Barfat . The period of the Achronim, or the Third Rabbinic Epoch includes response of Italian, Turkish, German, and Polish rabbis. Given the political climate and various persecutions

4150-401: The collections; this section presents a survey of the chief representatives of each century and country. These rulings are different from those of the previous periods in the nature of the problems presented, in the method of treatment, and in the arrangement of subject-matter. The chief Polish representatives of the sixteenth century were Moses Isserles , Solomon Luria , and Meir Lublin ;

4233-407: The committee who determine whether or not to enact a specific responsa. The responsa are written after a member of the Rabbinic Assembly or the Conservative movement in general poses a question about Halakha. A responsa is deemed approved when at least 6 member of the committee vote to approve it. Despite the fact that CJLS makes decisions about the rulings of responsa, which stands as the decisions for

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4316-498: The completion of the Mishnah: certain exceptions were doubtless made. Immediately after the completion of the Mishnah, when the prohibition or reluctance against writing halakhot had in great part disappeared, the responsa literature began to appear, traces being preserved in the Talmud. Often questions were settled by a single letter, as was later the case with the Geonim , who exchanged a series of responsa. The replies were signed by pupils and colleagues, so that, strictly speaking,

4399-410: The contrary, they appear to have edited it to suit their own requirements, so that the wording of the manuscripts and the printed version often contains variants likely to be derived from early versions of the Spanish rite . None of these early versions survives, but secondary evidence such as the Sefer ha-Manhig and the Siddur Rav Amram itself indicates that in certain respects these were different from

4482-446: The current wording of the Siddur Rav Amram and towards what was presumably its original wording. Conversely, the Siddur Rav Amram was a major source used in the standardization of the nusach Ashkenaz , which was already akin to the old European family. For this reason, to a modern reader the wording of the Siddur Rav Amram appears far closer to an Ashkenazi than a Sephardi text, a fact which misled Moses Gaster into believing that

4565-446: The descendants of the historic Jewish community of the Iberian Peninsula, what is now Spain and Portugal . Many definitions of "Sephardic" also include Mizrahi Jews , most of whom follow the same traditions of worship as those which are followed by Sephardic Jews. The Sephardi Rite is not a denomination nor is it a movement like Orthodox Judaism , Reform Judaism , and other Ashkenazi Rite worship traditions. Thus, Sephardim comprise

4648-456: The entirety of the Conservative Movement, individual rabbis can still make their own decision about how to rule on specific circumstances within their communities. In the State of Israel there is the Vaad Halakhah of the local branch, the Masorti movement. Sephardic law and customs#Origins Sephardic law and customs are the law and customs of Judaism which are practiced by Sephardim or Sephardic Jews ( lit. "Jews of Spain");

4731-555: The explanations are certainly not by him, but by the editors who appended his name to them, speaking of him in the third person. These explanations of the prayers make no reference to any authorities later than the following: Natronai II, Amram's teacher (17 times); Shalom, Natronai's predecessor in the gaonate (7 times); Judah, Paltoi, Zadok, and Moses, geonim before Amram (once each); Cohen Tzedek (twice); Nahshon and Tzemach , contemporaries of Amram (twice each); and Nathan of unknown date. The only authority mentioned of later date than Amram

4814-473: The gaon usually responded to them right away and with many different sections in order to answer multiple questions that were posed. Later Geonim also referred to the responsa and commentaries of earlier Geonim when writing responsa. Later in the geonic period (from the mid-tenth to mid-eleventh centuries), their supremacy suffered, as the study of the Talmud received care in other lands. The inhabitants of these regions gradually began to submit their questions to

4897-404: The heads of the schools of their own countries. Eventually they virtually ceased sending questions to Babylonian Geonim, so that during this period responsa of eminent rabbis of other lands appeared side by side with geonic rulings. The period of the rishonim, or the First Rabbinic Epoch, primarily consists of the writings from 11th and 12th century Spanish and French schools. With the decline of

4980-480: The highest authorities in Jewish law . Despite difficulties that hampered the irregular communications of the period, Jews who lived even in most distant countries sent their inquiries concerning religion and law to these officials in Babylonia. It was common for Jews outside of Babylon to ask to be sent a section of the Talmud along with “its explanation” or to ask the scholars in Babylon to settle Jewish arguments for which they could not find any precedent. The length of

5063-412: The liturgies of different parts of the Iberian peninsula: for example the Lisbon and Catalan rites were somewhat different from the Castilian rite, which formed the basis of the later Sephardic tradition. The Catalan rite was intermediate in character between the Castilian rite and that of Provence : Haham Gaster classified the rites of Oran and Tunis in this group. After the expulsion from Spain,

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5146-405: The lives and living conditions of the Jews in different countries, as well as within Judaic streams; e.g., those of Reform Judaism and Zionism . The movements for the reform of Judaism evoked many responsa in reply to questions concerning the location of the bimah , organ accompaniments, the covering of the head in the synagogue , the seating of men and women together , and prayers in

5229-455: The majority among the three great Spanish authorities, Alfasi, Maimonides and Asher ben Yeḥiel, unless most of the other authorities were against them. He did not consciously intend to exclude non-Sephardi authorities, but considered that the Ashkenazi school, so far as it had anything to contribute on general Jewish law as opposed to purely Ashkenazi custom, was adequately represented by Asher. However, since Alfasi and Maimonides generally agree,

5312-408: The merits of the Shulḥan Aruch, felt that it did not do justice to Ashkenazi scholarship and practice. He accordingly composed a series of glosses setting out all respects in which Ashkenazi practice differs, and the composite work is today accepted as the leading work on Ashkenazi halachah. Isserles felt free to differ from Caro on particular points of law, but in principle he accepted Caro's view that

5395-540: The nineteenth century include: the " Ḥesed le-Abraham " of Abraham Te'omim, the " Ketab Sofer " of Abraham Samuel Benjamin Sofer , and the " Be'er Yiẓḥaḳ " of Isaac Elhanan Spektor . While many of the responsa throughout history have been written down and can be found in various books or anthologies, a lot of responsa today can be found on online databases such as The Global Jewish Database (The Responsa Project) at Bar-Ilan University. The Schechter Institute's website also has six volumes of Conservative responsa written by

5478-504: The overall result was overwhelmingly Sephardi in flavour, though in a number of cases Caro set the result of this consensus aside and ruled in favour of the Catalan school ( Nahmanides and Solomon ben Adret ), some of whose opinions had Ashkenazi origins. The Bet Yosef is today accepted by Sephardim as the leading authority in Jewish law, subject to minor variants drawn from the rulings of later rabbis accepted in particular communities. The Polish rabbi Moses Isserles , while acknowledging

5561-429: The place of his departure, Cape Canaveral. Conservative Judaism holds that Orthodoxy has deviated from historical Judaism through excessive concern with recent codifications of Jewish law. Conservative rabbis make a conscious effort to use historical sources to determine what kind of changes occurred, how and why they occurred, and in what historical context. With this information they believe that can better understand

5644-452: The prayers. Other scholars commented on the liturgy from both a halachic and a kabbalistic perspective, including Ḥayim Azulai and Ḥayim Palaggi . The influence of the Lurianic- Sephardic rite extended even to countries outside the Ottoman sphere of influence such as Iran (Persia) . (The previous Iranian rite was based on the Siddur of Saadia Gaon . ) The main exceptions to this tendency were: There were also Kabbalistic groups in

5727-493: The product of gradual convergence between the original local rite and the North African branch of the Babylonian-Arabic family, as prevailing in Geonic times in Egypt and Morocco. Following the Reconquista , the specifically Spanish liturgy was commented on by David Abudirham (c. 1340), who was concerned to ensure conformity with the rulings of halachah , as understood by the authorities up to and including Asher ben Yehiel. Despite this convergence, there were distinctions between

5810-576: The responsa of these scholars throw a flood of light on the condition of the Jews of the period, who evidently took high rank in Poland and were not unfamiliar with military arts, since they offered their services to the duke or to the prince on the outbreak of a war (comp. responsum. No. 43 of Meir Lublin). The chief Turkish respondents of this period were Joseph Caro , Joseph ibn Leb, Samuel of Modena , and David abi Zimra ("Radbaz"). The responsa of Radbaz, in particular, are characterized by lucidity and strict logic. One noteworthy example discusses whether

5893-461: The responsa were issued by a board. With the beginning of the third century of the common era, responsa begin to frequently appear in letters from Babylonia to Israel . By the end of the third century the correspondence between Israel and Babylonia had become more active, and the responsa from the one to the other had become far more numerous. These rulings from rabbis in Israel seem to have been regarded as authoritative and demanding obedience; and

5976-420: The rites in use at the time: we therefore cannot be certain of the exact wording preferred by Amram Gaon himself. Evidence for this is: The Siddur Rav Amram was originally sent to the communities of Spain, in response to a request for guidance on the laws of prayer. However, it never seems to have been adopted by them as a package deal, though they respected the individual halachic rulings contained in it. On

6059-563: The rule prevailed that no laws should be written, no communications of legal content were made by means of letters. Questions were usually communicated orally, or proposed to the academy by a teacher, who transmitted the answer and decision by word of mouth. The rarity of letters on legal problems in the Tannaitic era (the period the Mishnah covers) may be seen from a passage in the Tosefta , which states that Rabbi Gamliel secretly dispatched

6142-760: The scholars of the Catalan school, such as Nahmanides and Solomon ben Adret , who were also noted for their interest in Kabbalah . For a while, Spain was divided between the schools: in Catalonia the rulings of Nahmanides and ben Adret were accepted, in Castile those of the Asher family and in Valencia those of Maimonides. (Maimonides' rulings were also accepted in most of the Arab world, especially Yemen , Egypt and

6225-632: The threat was made to Rabbi Judah ben Ezekiel , head of the Academy of Pumbedita , that a letter would be brought from "the West" (i.e., Israel) to annul his decision. The same experience befell and Mar Ukba and another, unnamed, judge. During the Geonic period (650–1250 CE), the Babylonian schools were the chief centers of Jewish learning; the Geonim, the heads of these schools, were recognized as

6308-587: The usages recorded as Palestinian are now obsolete. (In the list of usages below , Sephardic usages inherited from Palestine are marked P , and instances where the Sephardic usage conforms to the Babylonian while the Ashkenazic usage is Palestinian are marked B .) By the 12th century, as a result of the efforts of Babylonian leaders such as Yehudai Gaon and Pirqoi ben Baboi , the communities of Palestine, and Diaspora communities such as Kairouan which had historically followed Palestinian usages, had adopted Babylonian rulings in most respects, and Babylonian authority

6391-615: The vernacular. Jewish settlement in Palestine had occasioned many responsa on questions connected with agriculture and horticulture in the Holy Land , including the problems of the cessation of all labor in the fields during the Sabbatical year and the use of etrogs from Israel. Following are representative examples: In addition to the collections of responsa already mentioned, important examples of responsa literature in

6474-533: Was a willingness to make use of the Jerusalem Talmud as well as the Babylonian. Developments in France and Germany were somewhat different. They too respected the rulings of the Gaonim , but also had strong local customs of their own. The Tosafists did their best to explain the Talmud in a way consistent with these customs. A theory grew up that custom trumps law (see Minhag ): this had some Talmudic support, but

6557-624: Was accepted by Jews throughout the Arabic-speaking world. Early attempts at standardizing the liturgy which have been preserved include, in chronological order, those of Amram Gaon , Saadia Gaon , Shelomoh ben Natan of Sijilmasa (in Morocco) and Maimonides . All of these were based on the legal rulings of the Geonim but show a recognisable evolution towards the current Sephardi text. The liturgy in use in Visigothic Spain

6640-478: Was exceptionally honored with the title of Gaon within the lifetime of his teacher. Eventually, he broke away from his teacher and started his own seat of learning. Upon Natronai's death, about 857, the full title and dignities of the geonate were conferred upon Amram, a title which he held for 18 years, until his death. He is the author of about 120 responsa, most of which were published in Salonica in 1792 in

6723-503: Was made familiar by the many excerpts quoted from it by the medieval liturgical writers, and which served as the model for Saadia 's and Maimonides ' own prayer texts, was published complete for the first time in Warsaw, in the year 1865 under the title Siddur Rav Amram Gaon . The work as published is composed of two parts. The second part containing the selichot and pizmonim for the month of Elul , for Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur ,

6806-566: Was not nearly so prominent in Arabic countries as it was in Europe. Special books on Ashkenazic custom were written, for example by Yaakov Moelin . Further instances of Ashkenazic custom were contributed by the penitential manual of Eleazar of Worms and some additional stringencies on sheḥitah (the slaughter of animals) formulated in Jacob Weil 's Sefer Sheḥitot u-Bediqot . The learning of

6889-404: Was the Kabbalistic teachings of Isaac Luria and Ḥayim Vital . Luria himself always maintained that it was the duty of every Jew to abide by his ancestral tradition, so that his prayers should reach the gate in Heaven appropriate to his tribal identity. However he devised a system of usages for his own followers, which were recorded by Vital in his Sha'ar ha-Kavvanot in the form of comments on

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