The presidency of the rabbinic college was thereupon entrusted by the Roman community to Jehiel's three learned sons: Daniel, Nathan, and Abraham – 'the geonim of the house of Rabbi Jehiel', as they were styled. He arrived home, however, from his scholarly travels some time before the death of his father, which occurred about the year 1070, and which gave him the opportunity of illustrating the simplicity of funeral rites which he had been advocating. On his way home he probably lingered for a while at the several academies flourishing in Italy, notably at Pavia, where a certain Rabbi Moses was head master, and at Bari, where Moses Kalfo taught. Then Narbonne enticed him, where he sat under the prominent exegete and aggadist Moshe ha-Darshan. It was there that Nathan garnered that Babylonian learning which has led some to the erroneous notion that he had himself pilgrimed to Pumbedita. He returned home, where his father began to bestow upon him the treasures of learning, the accumulation of which was continued under foreign masters.įirst, Nathan went to Sicily, whither Matzliach ibn al-Batzaq had just returned from a course of study under Hai Gaon, the last of the Pumbedita geonim. The death of his employer caused him to abandon trade for the Torah. It appears that he began life not as a student, but as a peddler of linen wares, which was then considered a distasteful occupation. The details of Nathan's sad life must be excerpted and pieced together from several autobiographic verses appended to the first edition of his lexicon. Nathan's father, Jehiel ben Abraham, aside from being an acknowledged authority on the ritual law, was, like the majority of the contemporary Italian rabbis, a liturgic poet. However, according to present scholarship, it is almost a certainty that he belonged to the Anaw ( ענו, Italian: degli Mansi) family. Owing to an error propagated by Azulai, he has been regarded as a scion of the house of De Pomis. He was born in Rome not later than 1035 to one of the most notable Roman families of Jewish scholars. He authored the Arukh, a notable dictionary of Talmudic and Midrashic words, and consequently he himself is often referred to as "the Arukh". 1035 – 1106) was a Jewish Italian lexicographer. Nathan ben Jehiel of Rome ( Hebrew: נתן בן יחיאל מרומי Nathan ben Y'ḥiel Mi Romi according to Sephardic pronunciation) ( c.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |