Saʿadia ben Yosef Gaon (882/892 – 942) was a prominent rabbi , gaon , Jewish philosopher, and exegete who was active in the Abbasid Caliphate .
104-508: Saadia is the first important rabbinic figure to write extensively in Judeo-Arabic . Known for his works on Hebrew linguistics , halakha , and Jewish philosophy , he was a practitioner of the philosophical school known as the " Jewish Kalam ". In this capacity, his philosophical work The Book of Beliefs and Opinions represents the first systematic attempt to integrate Jewish theology with components of ancient Greek philosophy . Saadia
208-705: A "Scholars’ Forum" ( בימת חוקרים ) on "The Jewish Languages – the Common, the Unique and the Problematic" ( הלשונות היהודיות – המשותף, המיוחד והבעייתי ) with articles from Chaim Menachem Rabin " מה מייחד את הלשונות היהודיות " ('What Distinguishes the Jewish Languages') and Yehoshua Blau " הערבית-היהודית הקלאסית " ('Classical Judeo-Arabic'). This project explicitly sought to describe the Arabic of Jews as
312-541: A 19-year cycle, known as the Metonic cycle (See Leap months , below). The beginning of each Jewish lunar month is based on the appearance of the new moon . Although originally the new lunar crescent had to be observed and certified by witnesses (as is still done in Karaite Judaism and Islam ), nowadays Jewish months have generally fixed lengths which approximate the period between new moons. For these reasons,
416-674: A certain explanation is given in the Talmud , such as the Hebrew words בד בבד in Exo. 30:34 (explained in Taanit 7a as meaning "each spice pounded separately"), Saadia deviates from the rabbinic tradition in his Judeo-Arabic translation of the Pentateuch, in this case explaining its sense as "having them made of equal portions." In another apparent deviation from Talmudic tradition, where
520-623: A common dialect. Baghdad Jewish Arabic is reminiscent of the dialect of Mosul . For example, "I said" is qeltu in the speech of Baghdadi Jews and Christians, as well as in Mosul and Syria, as against Muslim Baghdadi gilit . Some Judeo-Arabic writers, such as Maimonides, were able to switch between varieties of Judeo-Arabic and the Standard Arabic dialect. Like other Jewish languages and dialects, Judeo-Arabic languages contain borrowings from Hebrew and Aramaic . This feature
624-460: A confrontation between the two strong-willed personalities, Exilarch David and Saadia. Nissim declared, however, that if David was determined to see Saadia in the position, then he would be ready to become the first of Saadia's followers. Under his leadership, the ancient academy of Sura founded by Abba Arikha entered upon a new period of brilliancy. This renaissance was cut short by a clash between Saadia and David, much as Nissim had predicted. In
728-556: A controversy arose concerning the Hebrew calendar , that threatened the entire Jewish community. Since Hillel II (around 359 CE), the calendar had been based on a series of rules (described more fully in Maimonides ' Code) rather than on observation of the lunar phases . One of these rules required the date of Rosh Hashanah to be postponed if the calculated lunar conjunction occurred at noon or later. Rabbi Aaron ben Meïr , head of
832-460: A dispute that had fallen out between him and the Exilarch. During Saadia's absence, his post was occupied by Joseph ben Jacob , the grandson of Natronai ben Hilai . At length, Saadia was reconciled with the Exilarch and returned to serve in his former position, although Joseph ben Jacob also remained serving in his capacity as Gaon. In 922, six years before Saadia was appointed Gaon of Babylonia,
936-680: A distinct, Jewish language, equating it with Yiddish . According to Esther-Miriam Wagner, the case of Judeo-Arabic reified a Zionist 'Arab vs. Jew' dichotomy. The Arabic spoken by Jewish communities in the Arab world differed from the Arabic of their non-Jewish neighbors. Particularly in its later forms, Judeo-Arabic contains distinctive features and elements of Hebrew and Aramaic, such as grammar, vocabulary, orthography, and style. For example, most Jews in Egypt lived in Cairo and Alexandria and they shared
1040-715: A few kharjas with a combination of Hebrew and Arabic. During the 15th century, as Jews, especially in North Africa, gradually began to identify less with Arabs, Judeo-Arabic would undergo significant changes and become Later Judeo-Arabic. This coincided with increased isolation of Jewish communities and involved greater influence of Hebrew and Aramaic features. Some of the most important books of medieval Jewish thought were originally written in medieval Judeo-Arabic, as were certain halakhic works and biblical commentaries. Later they were translated into medieval Hebrew so that they could be read by contemporaries elsewhere in
1144-482: A given month does not always begin on the same day as its astronomical conjunction. The mean period of the lunar month (precisely, the synodic month ) is very close to 29.5 days. Accordingly, the basic Hebrew calendar year is one of twelve lunar months alternating between 29 and 30 days: Thus, the year normally contains twelve months with a total of 354 days. In such a year, the month of Marcheshvan has 29 days and Kislev has 30 days. However, due to
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#17327647994381248-451: A member of Sura Academy . Saadia, in Sefer ha-Galui , stresses his Jewish lineage, claiming to belong to the noble family of Shelah , son of Judah , and counting among his ancestors Hanina ben Dosa , the famous ascetic of the first century. Saadia expressed this claim by calling his son Dosa ; this son later served as gaon of Sura Academy from 1012–1018. Regarding Joseph, Saadia's father,
1352-662: A number of religious writings by Saadia Gaon , Maimonides and Judah Halevi , were originally written in Judeo-Arabic, as this was the primary vernacular language of their authors. Jewish use of Arabic in Arabia predates Islam . There is evidence of a Jewish Arabic dialect, similar to general Arabic but including some Hebrew and Aramaic lexemes, called al-Yahūdiyya , predating Islam. Some of these Hebrew and Aramaic words may have passed into general usage, particularly in religion and culture, though this pre-Islamic Judeo-Arabic
1456-476: A period known as an iggul , or the Iggul of Rabbi Nahshon . This period is notable in that the precise details of the calendar almost always (but not always) repeat over this period. This occurs because the molad interval (the average length of a Hebrew month) is 29.530594 days, which over 247 years results in a total of 90215.965 days. This is almost exactly 90216 days – a whole number and multiple of 7 (equalling
1560-544: A probate case, Saadia refused to sign a verdict of the exilarch, which he thought unjust, although the Gaon of Pumbedita had subscribed to it. When the son of the exilarch threatened Saadia with violence to secure his compliance and was roughly handled by Saadia's servant, open war broke out between the exilarch and the gaon. Each excommunicated the other, declaring that he deposed his opponent from office. David ben Zakkai appointed Joseph ben Jacob Gaon of Sura and Saadia conferred
1664-648: A product of the Arabization of a large portion of Judaism, it served for centuries as a potent factor in the impregnation of the Jewish spirit with Arabic culture, so that, in this respect, it may take its place beside the Greek Bible-translation of antiquity and the German translation of the Pentateuch by Moses Mendelssohn. As a means of popular religious enlightenment, Saadia's translation presented
1768-533: A remainder of 0 signifies Saturday. In Hebrew, these names may be abbreviated using the numerical value of the Hebrew letters, for example יום א׳ ( Day 1 , or Yom Rishon ( יום ראשון )): The names of the days of the week are modeled on the seven days mentioned in the Genesis creation account . For example, Genesis 1:8 "... And there was evening and there was morning, a second day" corresponds to Yom Sheni meaning "second day". (However, for days 1, 6, and 7
1872-535: A statement made by Abraham ibn Daud and doubtless derived from Saadia's son Dosa, Saadia himself died in Babylonia at Sura in 942, at the age of sixty, of "black gall" (melancholia), repeated illnesses having undermined his health. An anecdote is reported in Sefer Hasidim about Saadia ben Yosef "the sage," in which he ends a dispute between a servant who claims to be the heir of his deceased master and
1976-638: A statement of the ancient Jewish gaon Aaron ben Meïr has been preserved saying that he was compelled to leave Egypt and died in Jaffa , probably during Saadia's prolonged residence in the Holy Land . The usual nisba al-Fayyumi refers to Saadia's native place, the Fayyum , which is located in Middle Egypt ; in Hebrew, it is often given as Pitomi , derived from a contemporary identification of Fayum with
2080-514: Is Arabic , in its formal and vernacular varieties, as it has been used by Jews , and refers to both written forms and spoken dialects. Although Jewish use of Arabic, which predates Islam , has been in some ways distinct from its use by other religious communities, it is not a uniform linguistic entity. Varieties of Arabic formerly spoken by Jews throughout the Arab world have been, in modern times, classified as distinct ethnolects . Under
2184-624: Is 9:38 AM"). The Hebrew week ( שבוע , shavua ) is a cycle of seven days, mirroring the seven-day period of the Book of Genesis in which the world is created. The names for the days of the week are simply the day number within the week. The week begins with Day 1 ( Sunday ) and ends with Shabbat ( Saturday ). (More precisely, since days begin in the evening, weeks begin and end on Saturday evening. Day 1 lasts from Saturday evening to Sunday evening, while Shabbat lasts from Friday evening to Saturday evening.) Since some calculations use division,
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#17327647994382288-673: Is a bird that harbingers rain in the Levant (around October), for which reason the Talmud says: "When raḥam arrives, mercy ( raḥamīm ) comes into the world." He wrote both in Hebrew and in Arabic a work, now known only from a few fragments, entitled "Sefer ha-Galui" (Arabic title, "Kitab al-Ṭarid"), in which he emphasized with great but justifiable pride the services which he had rendered, especially in his opposition to heresy. The fourteen years which Saadia spent in Babylonia did not interrupt his literary activity. His principal philosophical work
2392-474: Is a leap year, find the remainder on dividing [(7 × n ) + 1] by 19. If the remainder is 6 or less it is a leap year; if it is 7 or more it is not. For example, the remainder on dividing [(7 × 5785) + 1] by 19 is 7, so the year 5785 is not a leap year. The remainder on dividing [(7 × 5786) + 1] by 19 is 14, so the year 5786 is not a leap year. This works because as there are seven leap years in nineteen years
2496-554: Is a seven-year release cycle. The placement of these cycles is debated. Historically, there is enough evidence to fix the sabbatical years in the Second Temple Period . But it may not match with the sabbatical cycle derived from the biblical period; and there is no consensus on whether or not the Jubilee year is the fiftieth year or the latter half of the forty ninth year. Every 247 years, or 13 cycles of 19 years, form
2600-561: Is also Judeo-Arabic videos on YouTube . A collection of over 400,000 of Judeo-Arabic documents from the 6th-19th centuries was found in the Cairo Geniza . The movie Farewell Baghdad would be released in 2013 entirely in Judeo-Iraqi Arabic Judeo-Arabic orthography uses a modified version of the Hebrew alphabet called the Judeo-Arabic script. It is written from right to left horizontally like
2704-628: Is described, and the process described in Sefer Yetzirah (matter formed by speech). The cosmogony of Sefer Yetzirah is even omitted from the discussion of creation in his magnum opus "Kitab al-Amanat wal-I'tiḳadat." Concerning the supposed attribution of the book to the patriarch Abraham , he allows that the ideas it contains might be ancient. Nonetheless, he clearly considered the work worthy of deep study and echoes of Sefer Yetzirah's cosmogony do appear in "Kitab al-Amanat wal-I'tiḳadat" when Saadia discusses his theory of prophecy. Saadia translated
2808-419: Is equal to 3 + 1 ⁄ 3 seconds). The very first molad, the molad tohu , fell on Sunday evening at 11:11:20 pm in the local time of Jerusalem , 6 October 3761 BCE ( Proleptic Julian calendar ) 20:50:23.1 UTC , or in Jewish terms Day 2, 5 hours, and 204 parts. The exact time of a molad in terms of days after midnight between 29 and 30 December 1899 (the form used by many spreadsheets for date and time)
2912-428: Is for calculating and announcing the molad . In another system, the daytime period is divided into 12 relative hours ( sha'ah z'manit , also sometimes called "halachic hours"). A relative hour is defined as 1 ⁄ 12 of the time from sunrise to sunset, or dawn to dusk, as per the two opinions in this regard. Therefore, an hour can be less than 60 minutes in winter, and more than 60 minutes in summer; similarly,
3016-497: Is less marked in translations of the Bible , as the authors clearly took the view that the business of a translator is to translate. Most literature in Judeo-Arabic is of a Jewish nature and is intended for readership by Jewish audiences. There was also widespread translation of Jewish texts from languages like Yiddish and Ladino into Judeo-Arabic, and translation of liturgical texts from Aramaic and Hebrew into Judeo-Arabic. There
3120-723: Is of uncertain status. Thus (for example) observance of Shabbat begins before sundown on Friday and ends after nightfall on Saturday, to be sure that Shabbat is not violated no matter when the transition between days occurs. Instead of the International Date Line convention, there are varying opinions as to where the day changes. One opinion uses the antimeridian of Jerusalem (located at 144°47' W, passing through eastern Alaska ). Other opinions exist as well. (See International date line in Judaism .) Judaism uses multiple systems for dividing hours. In one system ,
3224-471: Is performed. To calculate the day on which Rosh Hashanah of a given year will fall, the expected molad (moment of lunar conjunction or new moon ) of Tishrei in that year is calculated. The molad is calculated by multiplying the number of months that will have elapsed since some (preceding) molad (whose weekday is known) by the mean length of a (synodic) lunar month, which is 29 days, 12 hours, and 793 parts (there are 1080 "parts" in an hour, so that one part
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3328-432: Is the "real" Adar, and which is the added leap month. The Bible does not directly mention the addition of leap months (also known as "embolismic" or " intercalary " months). The insertion of the leap month is based on the requirement that Passover occur at the same time of year as the spring barley harvest ( aviv ). (Since 12 lunar months make up less than a solar year, the date of Passover would gradually move throughout
3432-462: Is the new year for kings and festivals. The 1st of Elul is the new year for the cattle tithe ... The 1st of Tishri is the new year for years, of the Shmita and Jubilee years, for planting and for vegetables. The 1st of Shevat is the new year for trees—so the school of Shammai, but the school of Hillel say: On the 15th thereof . Two of these dates are especially prominent: For the dates of
3536-613: Is whether Saadia applied this principle in his other translations. Re'em (Hebrew: ראם , romanized: rəʾēm ), as in Deuteronomy 33:17 , improperly translated as "unicorn" in some English translations, is a word that is now used in Modern Hebrew to represent the " oryx ." However, Saadia understood the same word to mean " rhinoceros " and writes there the Judeo-Arabic word for the creature ( Judeo-Arabic : אלכרכדאן , romanized: al-karkadann ). He interprets
3640-456: The Gregorian calendar . Like other lunisolar calendars, the Hebrew calendar consists of months of 29 or 30 days which begin and end at approximately the time of the new moon. As 12 such months comprise a total of just 354 days, an extra lunar month is added every 2 or 3 years so that the long-term average year length closely approximates the actual length of the solar year . Originally,
3744-448: The Gregorian years (365.2425 days/year) make (0.0003 days/year, or one day in 3333 years). Besides the adding of leap months, the year length is sometimes adjusted by adding one day to the month of Marcheshvan, or removing one day from the month of Kislev. Because each calendar year begins with Rosh Hashanah , adjusting the year length is equivalent to moving the day of the next Rosh Hashanah. Several rules are used to determine when this
3848-496: The ISO 639 international standard for language codes, Judeo-Arabic is classified as a macrolanguage under the code jrb, encompassing four languages: Judeo-Moroccan Arabic (aju), Judeo-Yemeni Arabic (jye), Judeo-Egyptian Arabic (yhd), and Judeo-Tripolitanian Arabic (yud). Judeo-Arabic, particularly in its later forms, contains distinctive features and elements of Hebrew and Aramaic. Many significant Jewish works, including
3952-459: The Jewish calendar , is a lunisolar calendar used today for Jewish religious observance and as an official calendar of Israel . It determines the dates of Jewish holidays and other rituals, such as yahrzeits and the schedule of public Torah readings . In Israel, it is used for religious purposes, provides a time frame for agriculture, and is an official calendar for civil holidays alongside
4056-526: The Jews of Yemen has been exceptionally great, as many of Saadia's extant works were preserved by the community and used extensively by them. The basis for the Yemenite tiklāl is founded upon the prayer format edited originally by Saadia. The Yemenite Jewish community also adopted thirteen penitential verse written by Saadia for Yom Kippur , as well as the liturgical poems composed by him for Hoshana Rabbah ,
4160-617: The Palestinian Gaonate (then located in Ramla ), claimed a tradition according to which the cutoff point was 642/1080 of an hour (approximately 35 minutes) after noon. In that particular year, this change would result in a two-day schism with the major Jewish communities in Babylonia: according to Ben Meir the first day of Passover would be on a Sunday, while according to the generally accepted rule it would be on Tuesday. Saadia
4264-461: The Rosh Hashanah postponement rules , in some years Kislev may lose a day to have 29 days, or Marcheshvan may acquire an additional day to have 30 days. Normally the 12th month is named Adar . During leap years , the 12th and 13th months are named Adar I and Adar II (Hebrew: Adar Aleph and Adar Bet —"first Adar" and "second adar"). Sources disagree as to which of these months
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4368-505: The Seder Olam Rabbah . Thus, adding 3760 before Rosh Hashanah or 3761 after to a Julian calendar year number starting from 1 CE will yield the Hebrew year. For earlier years there may be a discrepancy; see Missing years (Jewish calendar) . In Hebrew there are two common ways of writing the year number: with the thousands, called לפרט גדול ("major era"), and without the thousands, called לפרט קטן ("minor era"). Thus,
4472-481: The golden age of Jewish culture in Spain such as Judah Halevi , composed poetry with Arabic. The muwaššaḥ , an Andalusi genre of strophic poetry, typically included kharjas , or closing lines often in a different language. About half of the corpus of the more than 250 known muwaššaḥāt in Hebrew have kharjas in Arabic, compared to roughly 50 with Hebrew kharjas , and about 25 with Romance. There are also
4576-448: The molad interval (a mathematical approximation of the mean time between new moons) and several other rules , while leap months are now added in 7 out of every 19 years according to the Metonic cycle . Nowadays, Hebrew years are generally counted according to the system of Anno Mundi ( Latin : "in the year of the world"; Hebrew : לבריאת העולם , "from the creation of the world", abbreviated AM). This system attempts to calculate
4680-550: The remainder . (Since there is no year 0, a remainder of 0 indicates that the year is year 19 of the cycle.) For example, the Jewish year 5785 divided by 19 results in a remainder of 9, indicating that it is year 9 of the Metonic cycle. The Jewish year used is the anno mundi year, in which the year of creation according to the Rabbinical Chronology (3761 BCE) is taken as year 1. Years 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17, and 19 of
4784-646: The zamer (Hebrew: זָֽמֶר , romanized: zāmer ) in Deuteronomy 14:5 as giraffe . In Saadia's translation and commentary on the Book of Psalms ( Kitāb al-Tasābiḥ ), he has done what no other medieval writer has done before him, bringing down a biblical exegesis and noting where the verse is to be read as a rhetorical question, and where the verse itself derides the question with good humor: הַר אֱלהִים הַר בָּשָׁן. הַר גַּבְנֻנִּים הַר בָּשָׁן לָמָּה תְּרַצְדוּן הָרִים גַּבְנֻנִּים הָהָר חָמַד אֱלהִים לְשִׁבְתּוֹ. אַף יי' יִשְׁכּן לָנֶצַח Is
4888-481: The 24-hour day is divided into fixed hours equal to 1 ⁄ 24 of a day, while each hour is divided into 1080 halakim (parts, singular: helek ). A part is 3 + 1 ⁄ 3 seconds ( 1 ⁄ 18 minute). The ultimate ancestor of the helek was a Babylonian time period called a barleycorn , equal to 1 ⁄ 72 of a Babylonian time degree (1° of celestial rotation). These measures are not generally used for everyday purposes; their best-known use
4992-456: The 6th hour ends at solar noon , which generally differs from 12:00. Relative hours are used for the calculation of prayer times ( zmanim ); for example, the Shema must be recited in the first three relative hours of the day. Neither system is commonly used in ordinary life; rather, the local civil clock is used. This is even the case for ritual times (e.g. "The latest time to recite Shema today
5096-644: The Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza . Shohat identifies linguist Yehoshua Blau as a key figure in the development of the notion of Judeo-Arabic, within what she describes as a Zionist linguistic project invested in prioritizing the uniqueness and separateness of isolatable ' Jewish languages '. Shohat cites the first issue of the Israeli journal Pe'amim , which featured
5200-538: The Bible whenever he thought that they broke-away from the plain and ordinary meaning of the text. Saadia adopts in principle the method of the Sages that even the episodic-like parts of the Bible (e.g. story of Abraham and Sarah, the selling of Joseph, etc.) that do not contain commandments have a moral lesson to tell. In some instances, Saadia's biblical translations reflect his own rationale of difficult Hebrew words based on their lexical root, and he will, at times, reject
5304-580: The Biblical Pithom , an identification found in Saadia's works. At the age of 20, Saadia began composing his first great work, the Hebrew dictionary called the Agron . At 23, he composed a polemic against the followers of Anan ben David , particularly Solomon ben Yeruham, thus beginning the activity which was to prove important in opposition to Karaite Judaism in defense of Rabbinic Judaism . In
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#17327647994385408-604: The Hebrew alphabet. By around 800 CE, most Jews within the Islamic Empire (90% of the world's Jews at the time) were native speakers of Arabic like the populations around them. This led to the development of early Judeo-Arabic. The language quickly became the central language of Jewish scholarship and communication, enabling Jews to participate in the greater epicenter of learning at the time, which meant that they could be active participants in secular scholarship and civilization. The widespread usage of Arabic not only unified
5512-557: The Hebrew script and also like the Hebrew script some letters contain final versions, used only when that letter is at the end of a word. It also uses the letters alef and waw or yodh to mark long or short vowels respectively. The order of the letters varies between alphabets. Hebrew calendar Hebrew Judeo-Aramaic Judeo-Arabic Other Jewish diaspora languages Jewish folklore Jewish poetry The Hebrew calendar ( Hebrew : הַלּוּחַ הָעִבְרִי , romanized : halLūaḥ hāʿĪḇrī ), also called
5616-612: The Humash and some of the other books of the Hebrew Bible into Judeo-Arabic, adding a Judeo-Arabic commentary. Saadia translated Megillat Antiochus into Judeo-Arabic and wrote an introduction. Judeo-Arabic dialects Judeo-Arabic ( Judeo-Arabic : ערביה יהודיה , romanized: ‘Arabiya Yahūdiya ; Arabic : عربية يهودية , romanized : ʿArabiya Yahūdiya (listen) ; Hebrew : ערבית יהודית , romanized : ‘Aravít Yehudít (listen) )
5720-489: The Jewish New Year see Jewish and Israeli holidays 2000–2050 . The Jewish year number is generally given by Anno Mundi (from Latin "in the year of the world", often abbreviated AM or A.M. ). In this calendar era , the year number equals the number of years that have passed since the creation of the world , according to an interpretation of Biblical accounts of the creation and subsequent history. From
5824-467: The Jewish community located throughout the Islamic Empire but also facilitated greater communication with other ethnic and religious groups, which led to important manuscripts of polemic, like the Toledot Yeshu , being written or published in Arabic or Judeo-Arabic. By the 10th century Judeo-Arabic would transition from Early to Classical Judeo-Arabic. In al-Andalus , Jewish poets associated with
5928-462: The Jewish world, and by others who were literate in Hebrew. These include: Sharch ( šarḥ , pl. šurūḥ , šarḥanim ) is a literary genre consisting of the translation of sacred texts, such as Bible translations into Arabic , the Talmud or siddurim , which were composed in Hebrew and Aramaic, into Judeo-Arabic, prevalent starting in the 15th century, and exhibiting a number of mixed elements. The term sharḥ sometimes came to mean "Judeo-Arabic" in
6032-520: The Julian years are 365 and 1/4 days long, every 28 years the weekday pattern repeats. This is called the sun cycle, or the Machzor Gadol ("great cycle") in Hebrew. The beginning of this cycle is arbitrary. Its main use is for determining the time of Birkat Hachama . Because every 50 years is a Jubilee year, there is a jubilee ( yovel ) cycle. Because every seven years is a sabbatical year, there
6136-400: The Metonic cycle are leap years. The Hebrew mnemonic GUCHADZaT גוחאדז״ט refers to these years, while another memory aid refers to musical notation. Whether a year is a leap year can also be determined by a simple calculation (which also gives the fraction of a month by which the calendar is behind the seasons, useful for agricultural purposes). To determine whether year n of the calendar
6240-501: The Moon (Molad 1) is considered to be at 5 hours and 204 halakim, or 11:11:20 p.m., on the evening of Sunday, 6 October 3761 BCE. According to rabbinic reckoning, this moment was not Creation , but about one year "before" Creation, with the new moon of its first month (Tishrei) called molad tohu (the mean new moon of chaos or nothing). It is about one year before the traditional Jewish date of Creation on 25 Elul AM 1, based upon
6344-410: The Pentateuch, not only an exact interpretation of the text, but also a refutation of the cavils which the heretics raised against it. Further, it set forth the bases of the commandments of reason and the characterization of the commandments of revelation; in the case of the former the author appealed to philosophical speculation; of the latter, naturally, to tradition. The position assigned to Saadia in
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#17327647994386448-655: The Pentateuch. This period includes a wide array of literary works. Scholars assume that Jewish communities in Arabia spoke Arabic as their vernacular language, and some write that there is evidence of the presence of Hebrew and Aramaic words in their speech, as such words appear in the Quran and might have come from contact with these Arabic-speaking Jewish communities. Before the spread of Islam, Jewish communities in Mesopotamia and Syria spoke Aramaic, while those to
6552-487: The Scriptures even to the unlearned in a rational form which aimed at the greatest possible degree of clarity and consistency. His system of hermeneutics was not limited to the exegesis of individual passages, but treated also each book of the Bible as a whole, and showed the connection of its various portions with one another. The commentary contained, as is stated in the author's own introduction to his translation of
6656-543: The Talmud ( Hullin 63a) names a biblical species of fowl (Leviticus 11:18) known as raḥam ( Hebrew : רחם ) and says that it is the colorful European bee-eater called the sheraqraq , Saadia in his Judeo-Arabic translation of the Humash writes that raḥam is the Egyptian vulture based on the phonetic similarity of its Arabic name with the Hebrew. The sheraqraq ( Arabic : شقراق , romanized : šiqirrāq )
6760-650: The West spoke Romance and Berber . With the Early Muslim conquests , areas including Mesopotamia and the eastern and southern Mediterranean underwent Arabization , most rapidly in urban centers. Some isolated Jewish communities continued to speak Aramaic until the 10th century, and some communities never adopted Arabic as a vernacular language at all. Although urban Jewish communities were using Arabic as their spoken language, Jews kept Hebrew and Aramaic, traditional rabbinic languages, as their languages of writing during
6864-433: The assertions of Ben Meïr regarding the calendar and helped to avert from the Jewish community the perils of schism. His dispute with Ben Meir was an important factor in his call to Sura in 928. The Exilarch insisted on appointing him as Gaon "head of the academy" despite the weight of precedent (no foreigner had ever served as Gaon before) and against the advice of the aged Nissim Nahrwani, a Resh Kallah at Sura, who feared
6968-407: The beginning of each month was determined based on physical observation of a new moon, while the decision of whether to add the leap month was based on observation of natural agriculture-related events in ancient Israel . Between the years 70 and 1178, these empirical criteria were gradually replaced with a set of mathematical rules. Month length now follows a fixed schedule which is adjusted based on
7072-578: The content of this esoteric work by the light of philosophy and scientific knowledge, especially by a system of Hebrew phonology which he himself had founded. He did not permit himself in this commentary to be influenced by the theological speculations of the Kalam , which are so important in his main works. In introducing Sefer Yetzirah's theory of creation he makes a distinction between the Biblical account of creation ex nihilo , in which no process of creation
7176-491: The current year is written as ה'תשפ"ה (5785) using the "major era" and תשפ"ה (785) using the "minor era". Since the Jewish calendar has been fixed, leap months have been added according to the Metonic cycle of 19 years, of which 12 are common (non-leap) years of 12 months, and 7 are leap years of 13 months. This 19-year cycle is known in Hebrew as the Machzor Katan ("small cycle"). Because
7280-402: The days of the week). So over 247 years, not only does the 19-year leap year cycle repeat itself, but the days of the week (and thus the days of Rosh Hashanah and the year length) typically repeat themselves. To determine whether a Jewish year is a leap year, one must find its position in the 19-year Metonic cycle. This position is calculated by dividing the Jewish year number by 19 and finding
7384-563: The definitive trait of " a cock girded about the loins " within Proverbs 30:31 ( Douay–Rheims Bible ) as "the honesty of their behavior and their success", rather than the aesthetic interpretations of so many others, thus identifying a spiritual purpose of a religious vessel within that religious and spiritual instilling schema of purpose and use. In his commentary on the Sefer Yetzirah , Saadia sought to render lucid and intelligible
7488-408: The difference between the solar and lunar years increases by 7/19-month per year. When the difference goes above 18/19-month this signifies a leap year, and the difference is reduced by one month. The Hebrew calendar assumes that a month is uniformly of the length of an average synodic month , taken as exactly 29 13753 ⁄ 25920 days (about 29.530594 days, which is less than half a second from
7592-566: The earlier Targum for his own understanding. For example, in Psalm 16:4, Saadia retracts from the Targum (translated): "They will multiply their goddesses ( Hebrew : עַצְּבוֹתָם ); they have hastened after some other thing; I shall not pour out their libations of blood, neither shall I take-up their names upon my lips," writing instead: "They will multiply their revenues (Judeo-Arabic:אכסאבהם); they have hastened after some other thing," etc. Even where
7696-508: The eleventh century, anno mundi dating became the dominant method of counting years throughout most of the world's Jewish communities, replacing earlier systems such as the Seleucid era . As with Anno Domini (A.D. or AD), the words or abbreviation for Anno Mundi (A.M. or AM) for the era should properly precede the date rather than follow it. The reference junction of the Sun and
7800-517: The entire group of Judeo-Arabic dialects being considered endangered languages . There remain small populations of speakers in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Lebanon, Yemen, the United States, and Israel. Cultural critic Ella Shohat notes that Jewish speakers of Arabic did not refer to their language as 'Judeo-Arabic' but simply as 'Arabic'. In the period of ' massive dislocation ' from
7904-585: The exilarchate on David's brother Hasan (Josiah; 930). Hasan was forced to flee and died in exile in Greater Khorasan , and the strife that divided Babylonian Judaism continued. Saadia was attacked by the exilarch and his chief adherent, the young but learned Aaron ibn Sargado (later Gaon of Pumbedita, 943-960), in Hebrew pamphlets. Fragments of these pamphlets show a hatred on the part of the exilarch and his partisans that did not shrink from scandal. Saadia did not fail to reply. Saadia's influence upon
8008-436: The festivals specified in the Bible ( Purim , Passover , Shavuot , Rosh Hashanah , Yom Kippur , Sukkot , and Shemini Atzeret ). The lengths of months in this period are fixed, meaning that the day of week of Passover dictates the day of week of the other Biblical holidays. However, the lengths of the months of Marcheshvan and Kislev can each vary by a day (due to the Rosh Hashanah postponement rules which are used to adjust
8112-550: The first three centuries of Muslim rule, perhaps due to the presence of the Sura and Pumbedita yeshivas in rural areas where people spoke Aramaic. Jews in Arabic, Muslim majority countries wrote—sometimes in their dialects, sometimes in a more classical style—in a mildly adapted Hebrew alphabet rather than using the Arabic script , often including consonant dots from the Arabic alphabet to accommodate phonemes that did not exist in
8216-641: The hill of God the hill of Bashan? A hunchback mountain is the hill of Bashan! (Meaning, it is unfit for God's Divine Presence). Why leap ye, ye hunchback mountains? That mountain wherein God desires to dwell (i.e. Mount Moriah in Jerusalem), even the Lord shall dwell [therein] forever more. Saadia's approach to rabbinic exegesis and midrashic literature was ambivalent. Although he adopted them in his liturgies, he did not recoil from denouncing them in his commentary on
8320-529: The late 1940s through the 1960s, Jewish speakers of Arabic in diaspora and their descendants gradually adopted the term 'Judeo-Arabic' and its equivalents in French and Hebrew. The 19th century rediscovery of the Cairo Geniza gave the study of Judeo-Arabic prominence within Judaic Studies , leading to publications such as Shelomo Dov Goitein's series A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of
8424-407: The man's true son and heir by having them both draw blood into separate vessels. He then took a bone from the deceased man and placed it into each of the cups. The bone in the cup of the true heir absorbed the blood, while the servant's blood was not absorbed in the bone. Using this as genetic proof of the son's true inheritance, Saadia had the servant return the man's property to his son. Saadia Gaon
8528-552: The modern name differs slightly from the version in Genesis.) The seventh day, Shabbat , as its Hebrew name indicates, is a day of rest in Judaism. In Talmudic Hebrew, the word Shabbat ( שַׁבָּת ) can also mean "week", so that in ritual liturgy a phrase like "Yom Reviʻi beShabbat" means "the fourth day in the week". Jewish holidays can only fall on the weekdays shown in the following table: The period from 1 Adar (or Adar II , in leap years) to 29 Marcheshvan contains all of
8632-472: The modern scientific estimate); it also assumes that a tropical year is exactly 12 7 ⁄ 19 times that, i.e., about 365.2468 days. Thus it overestimates the length of the tropical year (365.2422 days) by 0.0046 days (about 7 minutes) per year, or about one day in 216 years. This error is less than the Julian years (365.2500 days) make (0.0078 days/year, or one day in 128 years), but much more than what
8736-415: The next sunset. Similarly, Yom Kippur , Passover , and Shabbat are described in the Bible as lasting "from evening to evening". The days are therefore figured locally. Halachically , the exact time when days begin or end is uncertain: this time could be either sundown ( shekiah ) or else nightfall ( tzait ha'kochavim , "when the stars appear"). The time between sundown and nightfall ( bein hashmashot )
8840-449: The number of years since the creation of the world according to the Genesis creation narrative and subsequent Biblical stories. The current Hebrew year, AM 5785, began at sunset on 2 October 2024 and will end at sunset on 22 September 2025. Based on the classic rabbinic interpretation of Genesis 1:5 ("There was evening and there was morning, one day"), a day in the rabbinic Hebrew calendar runs from sunset (the start of "the evening") to
8944-469: The oldest list of Hebrew grammarians, which is contained in the introduction to Abraham ibn Ezra 's "Moznayim," has not been challenged even by the latest historical investigations. Here, too, he was the first; his grammatical work, now lost, gave an inspiration to further studies, which attained their most brilliant and lasting results in Spain , and he created in part the categories and rules along whose lines
9048-687: The same way that "Targum" was sometimes used to mean the Aramaic language . The texts of the sharh are based on and dependent on Hebrew. The significant emigration of Judeo-Arabic speakers in the 1940s and 1950s to Israel, France, and North America has led to endangerment or near-extinction of the ethnolects. Judeo-Arabic was viewed negatively in Israel as all Arabic was viewed as an "enemy language". Their distinct Arabic dialects in turn did not thrive, and most of their descendants now speak French or Modern Hebrew almost exclusively; thus resulting in
9152-500: The same year, he left Egypt and moved to Palestine . In 921, Saadia triumphed over Gaon Aaron ben Meïr over the latter's introduction of a new triennial cycle of Torah reading that also changed the dates of Passover and Rosh Hashanah . Later, one of Saadia's chief disputants was the Karaite by the name of Abu al-Surri ben Zuṭa, who is referred to by Abraham ibn Ezra , in his commentary on Exodus 21:24 and Leviticus 23:15 ). In
9256-775: The seventh day of Sukkot . Saadia's Judeo-Arabic translation of the Pentateuch, the Tafsir , was copied by the Yemenite Jews in nearly all their handwritten codices. They originally studied Saadia's major work of philosophy, Beliefs and Opinions , in its original Judeo-Arabic, although by the early 20th-century, only fragments survived. As much as Saadia's Judeo-Arabic translation of the Torah ( Tafsīr ) has brought relief and succour to Jews living in Arabic-speaking countries, his identification of places, fauna and flora, and
9360-403: The solar year exceed the lunar year? By approximately 11 days. Therefore, whenever this excess accumulates to about 30 days, or a little more or less, one month is added and the particular year is made to consist of 13 months, and this is the so-called embolismic (intercalated) year. For the year could not consist of twelve months plus so-and-so many days, since it is said: "throughout the months of
9464-534: The solar year if leap months were not occasionally added.) According to the rabbinic calculation, this requirement means that Passover (or at least most of Passover) should fall after the March equinox . Similarly, the holidays of Shavuot and Sukkot are presumed by the Torah to fall in specific agricultural seasons. Maimonides , discussing the calendrical rules in his Mishneh Torah (1178), notes: By how much does
9568-463: The stones of the priestly breastplate , has found him at variance with some scholars. Abraham ibn Ezra , in his commentary on the Torah, wrote scathing remarks on Saadia's commentary, saying: "He doesn't have an oral tradition […] perhaps he has a vision in a dream, while he has already erred with respect to certain places […]; therefore, we will not rely on his dreams." However, Saadia assures his readers elsewhere that when he rendered translations for
9672-551: The style of the Bible. He was likewise one of the founders of comparative philology, not only through his brief "Book of Seventy Words," already mentioned, but especially through his explanation of the Hebrew vocabulary by the Arabic, particularly in the case of the favorite translation of Biblical words by Arabic terms having the same sound. Saadia's works were the inspiration and basis for later Jewish writers, such as Berachyah in his encyclopedic philosophical work Sefer Hahibbur (The Book of Compilation). Saadia likewise identifies
9776-619: The twenty-odd unclean fowl mentioned in the Hebrew Bible , ( Leviticus 11:13–19; Deuteronomy 14:12–18) his translation was based on an oral tradition received by him. Saadia's method of conveying names for the fowls based on what he had received by way of an oral tradition prompted him to add in his defense: "Every detail about them, had one of them merely come unto us [for identification], we would not have been able to identify it for certain, much less recognize their related kinds." The question often asked by scholars now
9880-440: The week can be derived. The Hebrew calendar is a lunisolar calendar , meaning that months are based on lunar months , but years are based on solar years . The calendar year features twelve lunar months of 29 or 30 days, with an additional lunar month ("leap month") added periodically to synchronize the twelve lunar cycles with the longer solar year. These extra months are added in seven years (3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17, and 19) out of
9984-456: The year 928, at the age of thirty-six (variant: forty-six), David ben Zakkai , the Exilarch or head of Babylonian Jewry, petitioned Saadia to assume the honorary title of gaon, where he was appointed that same year the Gaon of Sura Academy at Mata Mehasya , a position which he held for 14 years until his death. After only two years of teaching, Saadia recused himself from teaching because of
10088-536: The year length). As a result, the holidays falling after Marcheshvan (starting with Chanukah) can fall on multiple days for a given row of the table. A common mnemonic is " לא אד"ו ראש, ולא בד"ו פסח ", meaning: "Rosh HaShana cannot be on Sunday, Wednesday or Friday, and Passover cannot be on Monday, Wedesday or Friday" with each days' numerical equivalent, in gematria , is used, such that א' = 1 = Sunday, and so forth. From this rule, every other date can be calculated by adding weeks and days until that date's possible day of
10192-532: The year", which implies that we should count the year by months and not by days. The Hebrew calendar year conventionally begins on Rosh Hashanah , the first day of Tishrei . However, the Jewish calendar also defines several additional new years, used for different purposes. The use of multiple starting dates for a year is comparable to different starting dates for civil "calendar years", "tax or fiscal years ", " academic years ", and so on. The Mishnah (c. 200 CE) identifies four new-year dates: The 1st of Nisan
10296-418: Was a pioneer in the fields in which he toiled. The foremost object of his work was the Bible; his importance is due primarily to his establishment of a new school of Biblical exegesis characterized by a rational investigation of the contents of the Bible and a scientific knowledge of the language of the holy text. Saadia's Arabic translation of the Torah is of importance for the history of civilization; itself
10400-886: Was also very active in opposition to Karaite Judaism in defense of Rabbinic Judaism . Saadia was born in Dilāẓ in the Faiyum in Middle Egypt in 892. He immigrated to ancient Israel (in the Abbasid province of Bilad Al-Sham) in 915 at the age of 23, where he studied in Tiberias under the scholar Abu Kathir Yaḥya al-Katib (known as Eli ben Yehudah ha-Nazir in Hebrew), a Jewish mutakallim or theologian also mentioned by ibn Ḥazm . In 926, Saadia settled permanently in Lower Mesopotamia , known to Jews as " Babylonia ", where he became
10504-401: Was completed in 933; and four years later, through Ibn Sargado's father-in-law, Bishr ben Aaron, the two enemies were reconciled. Saadia was reinstated in his office; but he held it for only five more years. David b. Zakkai died before him (c. 940), being followed a few months later by the exilarch's son Judah, while David's young grandson was nobly protected by Saadia as by a father. According to
10608-538: Was developed the grammatical study of the Hebrew language. His dictionary, primitive and merely practical as it was, became the foundation of Hebrew lexicography; and the name "Agron" (literally, "collection"), which he chose and doubtless created, was long used as a designation for Hebrew lexicons, especially by the Karaites. The very categories of rhetoric, as they were found among the Arabs, were first applied by Saadia to
10712-627: Was in Aleppo , on his way from the East, when he learned of Ben Meïr's regulation of the Jewish calendar. Saadia addressed a warning to him, and in Mesopotamia, he placed his knowledge and pen at the disposal of the exilarch David ben Zakkai and the scholars of the academies, adding his letters to those sent by them to the communities of the Jewish diaspora (922). In Babylonia, he wrote his Sefer haMo'adim , or "Book of Festivals ," in which he refuted
10816-671: Was not the basis of a literature. There were Jewish Pre-Islamic Arabic poets , such as al-Samawʾal ibn ʿĀdiyā , though surviving written records of such Jewish poets do not indicate anything that distinguishes their use of Arabic from non-Jewish use of it, and their work according to Geoffrey Khan is generally not referred to as Judeo-Arabic. This work is similar to and tends to follow Classical Arabic, and Benjamin Hary, who calls it Classical Judeo-Arabic, notes it still includes some dialectal features, such as in Saadia Gaon 's translation of
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