Rabbinic literature, in its broadest sense, is the entire spectrum of rabbinic writings throughout Jewish history. However, the term often refers specifically to literature from the Talmudic era, as opposed to medieval and modern rabbinic writing, and thus corresponds with the Hebrew term Sifrut Chazal. This more specific sense of "Rabbinic literature"—referring to the Talmudim, Midrash, and related writings, but hardly ever to later texts—is how the term is generally intended when used in contemporary academic writing. The terms mefareshim and parshanim (commentaries/commentators) almost always refer to later, post-Talmudic writers of rabbinic glosses on Biblical and Talmudic texts.
Bahya ben Joseph ibn Paquda, c. 1050–1120, was a Jewish philosopher and rabbi who lived at Zaragoza, Al-Andalus. He was one of two people now known as Rabbeinu Behaye, the other being Bible commentator Bahya ben Asher.
Jewish philosophy includes all philosophy carried out by Jews, or in relation to the religion of Judaism. Until modern Haskalah and Jewish emancipation, Jewish philosophy was preoccupied with attempts to reconcile coherent new ideas into the tradition of Rabbinic Judaism, thus organizing emergent ideas that are not necessarily Jewish into a uniquely Jewish scholastic framework and world-view. With their acceptance into modern society, Jews with secular educations embraced or developed entirely new philosophies to meet the demands of the world in which they now found themselves.
Abraham ibn Daud was a Spanish-Jewish astronomer, historian and philosopher; born in Córdoba, Spain about 1110; who was said to have died in Toledo, Spain, a martyr about 1180. He is sometimes known by the abbreviation Rabad I or Ravad I. His mother belonged to a family famed for its learning. Some scholars believe he was the Arabic-into-Latin translator known as “Avendauth.”
The microcosm–macrocosm analogy refers to a historical view which posited a structural similarity between the human being and the cosmos as a whole. Given this fundamental analogy, truths about the nature of the cosmos as a whole may be inferred from truths about human nature, and vice versa.
Judeo-Arabic dialects are ethnolects formerly spoken by Jews throughout the Arabic-speaking world. Under 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-Iraqi Arabic (yhd), and Judeo-Tripolitanian Arabic (yud).
Chovot HaLevavot, or Ḥobot HaLebabot, is the primary work of the Jewish rabbi, Bahya ibn Paquda, full name Bahya ben Joseph ibn Pakuda. Rabbi Ibn Paquda is believed to have lived in Zaragoza, Spain in the eleventh century.
Solomon ibn Gabirol or Solomon ben Judah was an 11th-century Andalusian poet and Jewish philosopher in the Neo-Platonic tradition. He published over a hundred poems, as well as works of biblical exegesis, philosophy, ethics and satire. One source credits ibn Gabirol with creating a golem, possibly female, for household chores.
This article covers the conversations between Islamic philosophy and Jewish philosophy, and mutual influence on each other in response to questions and challenges brought into wide circulation through Aristotelianism, Neo-platonism, and the Kalam, focusing especially on the period from 800–1400 CE.
Bahya ben Asher ibn Halawa was a rabbi and scholar of Judaism, best known as a commentator on the Hebrew Bible. He is one of two scholars now referred to as Rabbeinu Behaye, the other being philosopher Bahya ibn Paquda.
Jedaiah ben Abraham Bedersi was a Jewish poet, physician, and philosopher; born at Béziers. His Occitan name was En Bonet, which probably corresponds to the Hebrew name Tobiah; and, according to the practices of Hachmei Provence, he occasionally joined to his name that of his father, Abraham Bedersi.
Joseph ben Abraham was a Karaite philosopher and theologian who flourished in Babylonia or Persia in the first half of the eleventh century. He was the teacher of, among others, Jeshua ben Judah. By way of euphemism he was surnamed "ha-Ro'eh", on account of his blindness. This infirmity, however, did not prevent him from undertaking long journeys, likely as a Karaite missionary. In the course of his travels he frequented the religio-philosophical schools of the Mu'tazili, whose teachings he defended in his works. Of these the most important is the Muhtawi, translated from the Arabic into Hebrew, perhaps by Tobiah ben Moses, under the title Sefer ha-Ne'imot, or Zikron ha-Datot. It is divided into forty chapters, in which all the main principles of the Mu'tazili kalam are applied to the Karaite dogmas: the five principles of the unity of God; the necessity of admitting atoms and accidents; the existence of a Creator; the necessity of admitting certain attributes and rejecting others; God's justice and its relation to free will; reward and punishment; etc. The author often argues against the Christians, the Dualists, the Magians, the Epicureans, and various other sects, with whose tenets he shows himself well acquainted. He cites the founders of the Mu'tazili sects of al-Jabaiyah and al-Bahshamiyyah, Abu Ali Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab al-Jabai, and his son Hashim Abd al-Salam, whose teachings he closely follows. The Muhtawi is still extant in manuscript, both in the Arabic original and in its Hebrew translation; the former in the David Kaufmann Library, the latter in the libraries of Leiden, Paris, and St. Petersburg.
Rabbi Zerachiah the Greek was a Greek-Jewish ethicist who resided in the Byzantine Empire in the thirteenth or fourteenth century. Of his life no details are known, except that he was the author of an ethical work entitled Sefer ha-Yashar ; this work was confused with Jacob Tam's halakhic work of the same name and erroneously attributed to the renowned tosafist. This error was detected by Menahem Lonzano, who, in his poem "Derek Ḥayyim", expressly states that the ethical work in question belonged to Zerahiah. Lonzano did not succeed, however, in correctly establishing the identity of its author, for a second error immediately arose. Since Zerahiah ha-Yewani had the same initials as Zerachiah Ha-Levi Gerondi, the author of the well-known Sefer ha-Ma'or, the Sefer ha-Yashar was attributed by some bibliographers to the latter.
Joseph ben Abraham Gikatilla was a Spanish kabbalist, student of Abraham Abulafia.
Meir ibn Aldabi was a 14th-century Jewish writer. He was the son of Isaac Aldabi, grandson of Asher ben Jehiel, and a descendant of the exiles from Jerusalem. His name is ascertained from his chief work, Shebile Emunah, wherein a poem is found in which every line begins with a letter of his name, and there it reads "Aldabi."
Jewish Kalam was an early medieval style of Jewish philosophy that evolved in response to Kalam in Islam, which in turn was a reaction against Aristotelianism.
Very few texts in Judaism refer to or take note of the Islamic prophet, Muhammad. Those that do generally reject Muhammad's proclamation of receiving divine revelations from God and label him instead as a false prophet.
Natan'el al-Fayyumi, born about 1090 – died about 1165, of Yemen was the twelfth-century author of Bustan al-Uqul, a Jewish version of Ismaili Shi'i doctrines, and a complete imitation of Bahya ibn Paquda's book, Duties of the Heart, and which Al-Fayyumi composed, in his own words, to counter some of the basic principles and tenets of Judaism expressed by Ibn Paquda, writing in his 3rd chapter that God's unity is far greater than that described by Ibn Paquda. Like the Ismailis, Natan'el argued that God sent different prophets to the various nations of the world, containing legislations suited to the particular temperament of each individual nation. Each people should remain loyal to its own religion, because the universal teaching was adapted to the specific conditions and experiences of each community. Not all Jewish depictions of Muhammad were negative. Jews who lived in environments governed by Ismailis did not view them as enemies, and vice versa.
Azharot, "exhortations") are didactic liturgical poems on, or versifications of, the 613 commandments in rabbinical enumeration. The first known example are 'Ata hinchlata' and 'Azharat Reishit', recited to this day in some Ashkenazic and Italian communitities, and dating back to early Geonic times. Other versions appear in the tenth century Siddur of Saadia Gaon, as well as by two Spanish authors of the Middle Ages: Isaac ben Reuben Albargeloni and Solomon ibn Gabirol and the French author Elijah ben Menahem Ha-Zaken.
