Responsa of R. Abraham Maimonides from the Cairo Geniza: A Preliminary Review, 1990

Responsa of R. Abraham Maimonides from the Cairo Geniza a Preliminary Review Author(s): Mordechai A. Friedman Source: Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research, Vol. 56 (1990), pp. 29-49 Published by: American Academy for Jewish Research Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3622642 . Accessed: 14/04/2011 18:03 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=aajr. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

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RESPONSA OF R. ABRAHAM MAIMONIDES FROM THE CAIRO GENIZA A PRELIMINARY REVIEW MORDECHAI

A. FRIEDMAN

Perhaps more documents concerning Abraham Maimonides have been preserved in the Geniza than of any of the other Maimonideans. The 850th anniversary of the birth of his illustrious father R. Moses' has been the occasion for renewed interest in the life and works of the Maimonides family. Some pertinent dates concerning R. Abraham are commemorated at this time as well. The year 1986 marked the 800th anniversary of his birth, 1987 the 750th of his death. The Geniza documents contain information on all aspects of his life and works: his personal life, his work as court physician, as Nagid, that is the official spiritual and secular Head of Egyptian Jewry, the mystic, his responses to endless appeals for assistance, his correspondence, the judge, the cases which were presented to his court, the attention he paid to the small details of communal affairs, as well as fragments of his literary works. The late lamented S.D. Goitein had a special affinity for what he called Abraham Maimonides' "most lovable personality," and from the start of his Geniza studies he paid particular 'For the year of his birth, see M.A. Friedman, "New Sources from the Geniza for the CrusaderPeriod and for Maimonides and his Descendants" (Hebrew),Cathedra,40 (1986), 74, n. 33. I would like to thank the Syndicsof CambridgeUniversity Libraryand Dr. Stefan C. Reif, Directorof the TaylorSchechterGenizah ResearchUnit; Dr. Mayer E. Rabinowitz, Librarian,the Jewish Theological Seminary of America; the Keeper, the Department of Oriental Books and Manuscripts,the Bodleian Libraryand the Keeper, the Departmentof OrientalBooks and Manuscripts,the BritishLibrary,for their kind assistance.

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attention to the manuscriptsrelatingto him.2 Earlierscholars, who had neglected much of the documentaryGeniza material written mainly in Judeo-Arabic, may have been particularly discouragedfrom undertakinga study of the fragmentsin the frustrating cursive handwriting of Abraham Maimonides, a scrawl,in which most letters run together and are often hardly distinguishable from one another.3Goitein amassed over the years a wealth of manuscriptson AbrahamMaimonides which he deciphered and interpreted. Many of these were edited in various studies or were utilized in his A MediterraneanSociety4 and other works.His main findingswere alreadysummarizedin his paper "AbrahamMaimonides and his Pietist Circle,"published in 1967.5 Abraham Maimonides' responsa concern the practical and the spiritual, lawsuits and liturgy. Several of the questions which he answers deal with theoretical matters, such as the meaning of passages in the Bible, in the Talmud or in his father'swritings;but the majoritycontain rulingson mattersof everydaylife or the court cases which local judges were unable or unwilling to resolve on their own.6 His responsa can be characterizedas both literary sources of a legal nature and as documents dealing with socio-historicalrealities. The meeting of these two focuses has alwaysbeen of special interest to me in my own Geniza studies. As fiftyyearshave now passed since the publication of A.H. Freimann and S.D. Goitein's edition of Abraham Maimonides' Responsa,7 it seems only proper to 2

S.D. Goitein, "AbrahamMaimonides and his Pietist Circle,"A. Altman (ed.), Jewish Medieval and Renaissance Studies (Cambridge,Mass., 1967), p. 151. 3 Cf. Goitein, ibid, p. 149. 4 S.D. Goitein, A MediterraneanSociety: The Jewish Communitiesof the Arab Worldas Portrayedin the Documentsof the CairoGeniza,I-V (Berkeley, Los Angelesand London, 1967-1988) (hereafter:Med. Soc.). 5Goitein (above, n. 2), pp. 145-164; see now his Med. Soc., V, 474-496. 6 Cf. Goitein (above, n. 2), p. 155; Med. Soc., V, 485. 7 Abraham Maimuni,Responsa(Hebrew),ed. A.H. Freimannand S.D. Goitein (Jerusalem,1937).

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review the material identified in the Geniza over the last half century. In order to put the new material into perspective, we must provide some background information and statistics. The basis of the 1937 edition was the medieval Simonsen manuscript now housed in Copenhagen, which consists of 106 items. Twenty-two additional items, making a total of 128 (numbered 130, since two responsa in the Simonsen manuscript are missing), come from various manuscripts and include seven items from the Geniza. (Four of these were edited in this book for the first time and constitute, as such, Goitein's first Geniza publications, over a decade before he made the Geniza his main field of research.8) A few of the items in the book are not actually responsa of Abraham Maimonides but letters or the legal opinions of other scholars associated with his rulings. I am presently aware of Geniza manuscripts containing some sixty additional legal questions and answers of Abraham Maimonides (as well as some forty responsa of his contemporaries, some of which relate to his work). Notwithstanding the fragmentary nature of many, this number alone conveys some notion of the significance of the Geniza material. Three items were published by the late S. Assaf9 and A. Scheiber,'1 and some twenty others were referred to by Goitein in various studies. I have no doubt that a systematic search of the Geniza

8

Cf. M.A. Friedman, "Prof. S.D. Goitein, the Man and the Scholar" (Hebrew),Newsletter,WorldUnionofJewish Studies,25 (1986), 58. 9 S. Assaf, "Fromthe Treasuresof the 'Geniza"'(Hebrew),Sinai, 14 (1943), 3-6, 8; reprinted in Assaf, Texts and Studies in Jewish History (Hebrew) (Jerusalem, 1946), pp. 166-170. The first responsum is reedited in M.A. Friedman,Jewish Polygynyin the MiddleAges (Hebrew)(Jerusalemand TelAviv, 1986), pp. 319-322. 10A. Scheiber,"A query sent to R. AbrahamMaimonides (from the Kaufmann Geniza Collection)"(Hebrew),Sinai, 46 (1960), 268-270; reprintedin Scheiber,GenizaStudies(Hildesheim& New York, 1981), pp. 58-60 (Hebrew Section).

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will producemany more. The newly identifiedresponsacover a wide spectrum of practical issues. All of the questions and answers, as most of the printed edition, are written in JudeoArabic. While none of the Geniza items duplicatesthe materialin the published edition, two of them clearly relate to it. Each is of some interest. The first, already identified by Goitein," is the same item found in the Simonsen manuscriptno. 80, concerning the permissibility of drinking wine of the Karaites. The Geniza manuscriptcontains AbrahamMaimonides' autograph responsum. With the exception of two minor changes, the Simonsen text is identical with the Geniza manuscript.'2As noted by Goitein, this substantiatesthe repeatedclaim made by the medieval scribe who wrote the Simonsen manuscriptthat he faithfully copied and compared responsa with the originals in Abraham Maimonides' hand. The scribe also writes a numberof times that he copied the questions from the originals with equal care. This point is of much interest to the student of the period. The responsa are usually worded succinctly and state only what is necessaryto understandthe legal ruling, but the original questions frequently contained much detailed information, including names, dates and a variety of fascinating details which the questioner included preciselybecause he was unsureabout what might be significantfor the legal issues. The copyists were infamous for deleting all of the data which they considered halakhically irrelevant, exactly that information which the social historian finds most meaningful.The question concerningthe wine of the Karaites is a case in point. All but a few words in the question are still legible in the Geniza text, and I doubt, as has been suggested, that its poor state of preservationalreadydeterredthe medieval copyist.13 In " Goitein (above, n. 2), pp. 155-156; Med. Soc., V, 485. The additionof one letter,the conjunction1(to the word 13), and of "the son of R. Moses of blessed memory"to the signature. 13 See Goitein (above, n. 2), p. 156; Med. Soc., V, 485. 12

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the Simonsen manuscriptit is replacedby the following:"The esteemed rabbi our master and Gaon, our lord Abraham,the saintly rabbi, the great Nagid, son of his honor, his greatness and holiness, our master, rabbi and lord Moses, the man of God, may the memoryof the saintlybe for a blessing,was asked concerningthe wine of the Karaites, and he responded in his own hand." Contrary to this dry introduction, the Geniza manuscript alludes to a real life situation of personal and communal concern: "In the name of the All Merciful. His servant (the questioner) informs him (AbrahamMaimonides) that there is a Karaite man in our place. Sometimes it is necessaryto pay him (the Karaite)a visit, and he serves some wine. One tries to avoid drinking their wine, because they occasionally employ non-Jews for pressing the grapes ... and

similar things. This man claims that he does not transgressany of these matters,nor does he let non-Jewspress grapesfor him. He usuallypurchasesit (wine) from the Rabbanites,or they give it to him as a gift. Can the Karaitebe believed in this regardif he takes an oath or the like? May our lord instructus. And may he receive double compensation from heaven."14 Other documents help place the question (and answer) in perspective. During this period the Egyptian Karaites were frequentlymembers of the upper class. Many were important government officials, and Rabbanite community leaders did not hesitate to make use of their services. Referring to a responsumof his father,R. Abrahamrules that the Karaitecan be believed if he takes an oath that he did not employ non-Jews to prepare the wine. The end of Maimonides' responsum presumablyintended by R. Abrahamhas not been preserved, and the most significant legal requirement, namely imposing 14

BodleianLibrary,Oxford,MS. Heb. d. 66, fol. 84 (Cat. 2878), originaltext of the queryedited in M.A. Friedman,"New Fragmentsfrom the Responsaof Maimonides"(Hebrew),S. Moraget al. (ed.), Studies in Geniza and Sephardi Heritage Presentedto Shelomo Dov Goitein on the Occasionof his Eightieth Birthday(Jerusalem,1981), p. 116.

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the oath on the Karaite was lost.15 There are also minor differencesin the two rulings.16In his book PalestinianJewryin Early Islamic and CrusaderTimes, Goitein published a letter writtenat Alexandriain 1212 by Judahb. Aaronb. al-'Ammani (that is from Amman in Jordan),a cantor and teacher, to Abu 'l-Majd Meir b. Yakhin, AbrahamMaimuni's right-handman in Fustat. The writersays that he will be happy to performany service that he can for the addressee; and he notes that as requested he had gone to great effort to locate a copy of Maimonides' responsum on the wine of the Karaites.'7That responsumhad been writtenby Maimonidesat Alexandria,and obviously no copy was found in the capital.'8 By combining these data I furthersuggestthat AbrahamMaimonides sent for a copy of his father's ruling when a similar question was addressedto him. The Geniza manuscript of R. Abraham'sresponsum on the Karaite wine provides further information on how questions were transmitted to the Nagid and preserved. Most of the questions to AbrahamMaimonidesfound in the Geniza, as well as severalof those in the 1937 edition, begin with a stereotyped form of address such as the following: rn'px rmp'nlrn 'lpn Km

9 IK 132:111 nNlmn 13n nn 3 imninn n tD11llt 13-1pytnr ?nlyn -13n , i 'ri I'in ... tn1r '5ly n,a: 5i, "What does his 'n1: 5i13 r'n

excellency, the esteemed, the diadem, the splendid, our master and rabbi, our lord, our Nagid, Abraham, the outstanding 15 R. Moses b. Maimon,Responsa,ed. J. Blau, II (Jerusalem,1960), no. 449, pp. 729-732. Reedited by I. Shailat,Lettersand Essays of Moses Maimonides (Hebrew,Israel 5748), II, 668 ff. (wherehe questions its authenticitybut does not consider AbrahamMaimonides' responsumand the letter published by Goitein). Also see the discussion by G.J. Blidstein, "Maimonides'Attitude towardsthe Karaites"(Hebrew),Tehum[m,VIII (1988), 501-510. 16 See Friedman(above, n. 14), p. 116, n. 27. 17 S.D. Goitein, PalestinianJewry in Early Islamic and CrusaderTimes in Light of the GenizaDocuments(Hebrew)(Jerusalem,1980), pp. 338-343. 18 Goitein, 339, n. 11; the text of the responsumindicatesthat Maimonides himself was in Alexandriawhen he wrote the responsum.

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rabbi, the powerful hammer, the western lamp, the banner of the rabbis, light of the world, may his majesty be elevated and his honor increased, say concerning..." But more often than not this address was only the embellishment of court scribes. Questionsto AbrahamMaimonideslike those to his fatherwere frequently included in private letters. A few of these are preserved in the Geniza with the Nagid's autographresponsum written on the margin or the reverse side.'9 Apparentlywhen members of his court thought that a question merited to be preserved as part of his (official?) responsa collection, they copied it, already omitting what they considered to be irrelevant details, along with phrases belonging to the personal correspondence.This copy with the stereotyped address was submitted to the Nagid, and he wrote his ruling on it. The question on the Karaite wine, beginning with "his servant informs him," so common in Geniza correspondence,retains some of the wording of the original letter. I realized the connection of the second manuscript which relatesto the publishedresponsaonly while rereadingthat book in preparationfor this paper. Items 82-94 contain Abraham Maimonides'answersto thirteenquestionswhich had been sent to him from Yemen. The questionsthemselves,thoughreferred to in the Nagid's answers, are not copied. The answers are prefacedby a longstatementthe upshotof whichis thatthe signof a true scholaris his willingnessto admit his errors.He cites inter alia precedentsfrom the Talmudwhich show that the greatsages were indeed preparedto concede their mistakes. R. Abraham also alludes to the fact that at least some of his answerswere in responseto an ongoingdebate,presumablywith the Yemenites. His firstanswer(82) appearsto be the longest one in his entire book of responsa,which in itself indicates the seriousnesswith 19 E.g., Cambridge University Library, Taylor-Schechter Collections (TS) 8 J 16.4; cf. Goitein (above, n. 2), pp. 156-157; Med. Soc., I, 146, V, 486. See examples of the stereotyped address in Abraham Maimuni, Responsa, pp. 143ff.

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which he took the matter. It deals with the sum of the ketubbah payment. Tannaitic and Amoraic sources repeatedly identify the ketubbahdebt for a firstmarriageas 200 zuz. Accordingto a late anonymouspassagein the BabylonianTalmud (BQ 89b) its real worth is only 25 full zuz. Historically speaking, this was clearly an innovation, and the Babylonian Geonim went to great efforts to impose the new sum on the various Jewish communities of the East.A numberof responsato North Africa show that they met with some opposition, and various attempts were made to reconcile the rulings of the Geonim with time hallowed customs relatingto the marriagecontract.20Abraham Maimonides' responsum specifically concerns a dispute as to whetherthe 25 zuz were to be calculatedas 25 dirhems, as had been claimed by Hai Gaon in a responsum cited in Kitab al-Hawl, "the Compendium," and by other Geonim, or, as suggestedby others, the weight of 25 zuz was to be understood as having been fixed in the Talmudic period, while its equivalent in Arab coinage would approximatelybe 36 dirhems. The latter opinion was strongly upheld by Abraham Maimonides who (following his father,Ishut 10:9)quoted in this connection the Mishnaic statement (Ketubbot 5:1) of R. Meir, "If anyone gives a virgin less than 200 zuz" - here taken as if it meant 25 full zuz calculatedas 36 dirhems,"thisis tantamountto fornication." (There is an element of unintended irony in using this quotation, as it also appears in the "Book of Differences between the Westerners and the Jews of Eretz Israel" as the Palestinian challengeto the Babylonianreduction of the ketubbah payment from 200 to 25.)21R. Abrahamargueshis point in 20 See M.A. Friedman, Jewish Marriage in Palestine - A Cairo Geniza Study, I (Tel-Aviv and New York, 1980), 244-257, 287-288; "The Biblical or Rabbinic Origin of the Ketubbah:On the Ketubbahin North Africa and its Relationshipto the Customsof Babyloniaand EretzIsrael"(Hebrew),Shenaton ha-Mishpatha-Ivri,XI-XII (1984-6), 91-97. 21 See M. Margulies(Margaliot),"The Differencesbetween Babylonianand Palestinian Jews" (Hebrew,Jerusalem, 1938), pp. 102 if.; B.M. Lewin, Otzar IHillufMinhagim(Jerusalem,1942), pp. 20-23.

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great detail, quoting the relevant Talmudic sources, some of which he interpretedin a rathernovel way. The Geniza manuscript containing the question is a large fragment consisting of four sides, three of which are each covered by 16-18 lines.22The tops of the pages are no longer preserved,but little is missing. These pages attractedattention already at the beginning of Geniza research, and Solomon Schechterquoted a few lines in his book Saadyana,publishedin Cambridgein 1903.23These, as well as a few other lines, were cited by various scholarsover the years, sometimes in association with the subject matter of AbrahamMaimonides' responsum (as in my own 1976 paperon the ketubbahpayment);24but, as far as I know, the exact connection betweenthe two has never been made. The question is not explicitly addressed to Abraham Maimonides but rather to "our rabbis," apparently intended for the Nagid and his court. A similar address appears in a few of the questions sent to Maimonides and to R. Abraham.25But a reading of the question and the answer togetherleaves no doubt whatsoeveras to their relationship.In fact the fourth side of the manuscript contains a fragmentary inscription naming

"XrT rwn i:

unn r'i p7"

our master and

teacherMoses, of blessed memory,Abraham'sname being torn away. Furthermore,towardsthe end of the question the manuscript contains the date 1527 of the so-called Seleucid era, i.e. 22 TS 13 G 2.

S. Schechter,Saadyana - Geniza Fragmentsof Writingsof R. Saadya Gaonand Others(Cambridge,1903), p. 60. Schechtermistakenlyidentifiedthe fragment as the remainder of a codex of responsa of the Geonim, and he associatedits contents with Teshuvotha-Geonim,ed. A. Harkavy,no. 386 (see below, n. 28). He quoted five and a half lines from the second side of the document;these were markedoff with pencil in the manuscript. 24 M.A. Friedman, "The Minimum Mohar Payment as Reflected in the Geniza Documents: MarriageGift or Endowment Pledge?,"PAAJR,XLIII (1976), 43, n. 59. 25 Cf. Friedman(above, n. 14), pp. 117-119; AbrahamMaimuni,Responsa, ed. Freimann& Goitein, no. 62, p. 62. 23

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1215/6 C.E.26 This reconfirms its belonging to the period of Abraham Maimonides' activity and allows us to date the entire collection of thirteen questions which the Yemenites sent him. I am convinced that the manuscript is the original sent from Yemen and not a copy. Rather than a simple question of law, it constitutes a carefully written scholarly opinion requesting the confirmation of"our rabbis." We thus have a unique document testifying to the state of rabbinic scholarship in Yemen in the early thirteenth century. The writer's command of Geonic writings (and Talmudic sources) is rather impressive. Page one consists of an elaborate introduction and discusses the necessity of accepting the uncontested traditions of the ancients in matters of law. This extraordinary statement has nothing to do with the subject of the ketubbah payment. I suspect that it is to be understood as a not too oblique criticism of Abraham Maimonides for ignoring (Talmudic) sources and precedents. A remarkable letter published by Goitein quotes the sharp attack on R. Abraham and the rejection of his authority by a certain Abraham b. Solomon the Yemenite rabbi: "Hear my testimony, house of Israel. I do not believe in that man and all that he says... That man has abrogated and changed all the words of the Talmud and the words of the sages, and he does not acRz npl ni 'nn rln Kr 1p' rmUTns pi 1un knowledge them at all... When he preaches he neither says 'we have learned there (in the Mishnah)' or 'our sages taught'... Yes, bear testimony against me on this."27 As Goitein noted, this attack shows that the Yemenites quoted the Talmud in their own sermons and disproves the conventional theory held by historians that it did not 26

See Friedman,JewishMarriagein Palestine,I, 257. TS 18 J 4.3 (heretranslatingpartsof recto, lines 19-34), ed. S.D. Goitein, The Yemenites- History, CommunalOrganization,SpiritualLife (Hebrew, Jerusalem, 1983), pp. 120-129 (first appearedin Y. Ratzaby and Y. Shivtiel [ed.], Harel[Tel-Aviv, 1962], pp. 133 ff.). FollowingRatzaby'snote on p. 127, I suggesttranslatingrecto lines 33b-35a as follows:"... whom you did not see. He said, 'Yes, bear testimony against me on this.' And he does not believe whateverhe (R. Abraham)says." 27

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form part of their curriculum.(As far as AbrahamMaimonides' omission of Talmudic citations, we may note that, like his father's responsa, his are often terse and do not cite sources.) Our manuscript provides singular evidence on contemporary Yemenite scholarship which is based almost exclusively on citations (mainly from Geonic sources) and their interpretation.27aThe introductoryremarksof AbrahamMaimonides to his answer,as well as his statements in the body of the responsum, that one must not adhere to the practices of the ancients after their mistaken tenets have been exposed, are clearly intended as a rebuttalof this argument. Much can be learnedfrom the sources cited by the Yemenite scholar. Part of R. Hai's responsum, referred to in R. Abraham's answer, is quoted. Its complete text was published in Harkavy'scollection of Geonic responsa,but its authorand the community to which it was sent are not identified there. Scholars have since debated these questions. As S. Abramson has correctly noted, these issues are settled by its positive identificationin the Geniza manuscriptas R. Hai's responsum sent to Sijilmasa in North Africa.28The SijilmasanJews relied 27a I have recently identified (and am preparingfor publication) several responsa which this Yemenite scholar had written earlier in the same year, including one on the ketubbahpayment (TS Arabic 49.142). These attest his Talmudic scholarship(and show that TS 13 G 2 had 21 lines per page). Some are dealt with by AbrahamMaimonidesin his responsa.On the study of the Talmudin Yemen, see S. Morag,BabylonianAramaic- The YemeniteTradition (Hebrew,Jerusalem,1988), pp. 51ff. (and the literaturecited there). 28 Teshuvotha-Geonim,ed. Harkavy,no. 73 (see Ts. Groner,A List of Rav Hai Gaon'sResponsa= Alei Sefer, 13 (1986), no. 1100 [I was unableto findthis item in the List's indexes, and I would like to thank Dr. Groner for his assistance]). S. Abramson,Ba-Merkazimuva-Tefutsotbi-Tequfatha-Geonim (Jerusalem,1965), pp. 52-53. Abramsonrefersto S. Assaf,KiryatSefer,XXIII (1947), 236, n. 14. There Assaf quotes a few lines from the manuscript, including most of the citation of R. Hai's responsum, which he correctly connectswith Harkavyno. 73;by whatI assumeis merelya typographicalerror, Assaf copies r'Kn7D0 instead ofn;lxnSO.Neither Assaf nor Abramsoncite the manuscriptnumber.

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[12] on former Geonim who had identified the Talmudic zuz as the mithqal, which would make 25 zuz worth 36 dirhems. R. Hai upheld the rulingsof his fatherand grandfather,practicedin all of Babylonia, which set the ketubbahpayment at 25 dirhems. In his answer, AbrahamMaimonides discounts the responsum "attributed to R. Hai" as the work of copyists or as reflectingthe uncriticalscholarshipof the latter'syouth. In light of the other evidence, this claim cannot be taken too seriously. But it is significantthat the Yemenite scholar quotes R. Hai's rulingfrom a secondarysource, which, as I have alreadynoted, is named in R. Abraham's responsum as Kitab al-Hawl "the are torn away in Compendium."The last two letters of '1KnrH the Geniza manuscript, but its identification as the question referred to by R. Abraham makes the restoration absolutely certain. The matching is mutually rewarding.The responsum allows us to complete the broken text in the Geniza fragment; from the latterwe learnthat the authorof this little known work is R. David b. Saadiah. This scholar is cited in Shitah Mequbbeset (BM 104b) as the author of a book on difficultpassagesin Halakhot Gedolotand another book on the laws of oaths, both written in Judeo-Arabic. By identifying him with the "'late R. David the judge,"the authorof a book on the laws of oaths as well as another work including comments (on the Talmud) written in Judeo-Arabic,mentioned in a responsumof R. Isaac b. Barukh (presumably Albalia), S. Assaf concluded that he probablywas active in Spain and was no longer alive by 1094 (the year of Albalia'sdeath).29S. Abramsonrefersto a book on 29 S. Assaf, "SeferMishpete ha-Shevu'otleR. David beR.Saadiah,"Kiryat Sefer, III (1927), 295-297. While Assaf's fixing of his activity as ca. 1040 is somewhatarbitrary,now that we know that he quoted R. Hai Gaon's responsum it can be firmlyestablishedin the eleventh century.(And accordinglyhe cannot be the same late R. David, mentioned in a responsum of R. Moses [b. Hanokh], ed. S. Assaf, Mada'e ha-Yahadut,II [Jerusalem,1927], no. 23, pp. 52-53.) R. Isaac's responsum is printed in Ch. Horowitz, Toratan shel Rishonim(Frankfort,1881), II, 35-38 (corruptionsin copyingthe Arabicmake much of it incomprehensible).His correspondentsquote R. David's book of

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divorce law which he also wrote.30 Evidently these and other books of his were included in his Compendium Kitdb al-Hdawf. From our Geniza manuscript we learn that it also included Geonic responsa, although we do not know whether these appeared in the books of the Compendium with whose names we are already familiar or in a separate one. The Mishnah commentary based on the interpretations of R. Nathan Av ha-Yeshivah, that is President of the Palestinian Academy, cites from the al-Haw; of a certain R. David four times.31 Obviously he is to be identified as the same R. David b. Saadiah. The citations, in Judeo-Arabic, all consist of comments on the Mishnah by R. David, one based on the Palestinian Talmud. Assaf suggested that the R. David quoted there is the author of the Kitab al-Hdaw, a fragment of whose fifth book, bearing the date 1157, was published by B.M. Lewin.32 As the sixth book of the Compendium is described there as consisting of explanations and discussions of difficult passages in Halakhot Gedolot, this is evidently the same composition of R. Dacommentaries('ztu1D)whereR. David referredto his book on oaths(kitdbinafi 'l-ayman),whichtheyalsoconsultedandquoteddirectly.(Referenceis alsomade to his ni1p'O17.) Also in the ShitahMequbbesetpassageR. David b. Saadiahrefers to his book on oaths in anotherwork, that dealing with critical questions on HalakhotGedolot.Assaf,KiryatSefer,XXIII (1947), 236, n. 14, cited David b. Saadiah'snamefromourmanuscript(TS 13G 2) andreferredto his 1927paperon him (thereis a misprintin the pagenumber),but he did not copythe word lKnfK. 30

S. Abramson, 'Inyanot be-Sifrut ha-Geonim (Jerusalem, 1974), p. 235 Cited by S. Assaf, Tequfat ha-Geonim we-Sifrutah (Jerusalem, 1955), pp. 319-322 (= Kiryat Sefer, X [1934], 542-545). On p. 320 he refers to S. Poznanski, "Judisch-arabische Bucherlisten aus der Geniza in Cambridge," Zeitschrift fur hebraeische Bibliographie, XII (1908), 114: '3 1'Klx'1nxK, which he renders "the Compendium - 20 sections" (so in Kiryat Sefer; in Tequfat ha-Geonim this is misprinted as 10); but the correct translation is "the Compendium, two sections - 20 [dirhems]." 32 B.M. Lewin, Ginze Qedem, III (1925), 69-71. Freimann (in his edition of Abraham Maimuni, Responsa, p. 111, n. 18) suggested identifying the Compendium of R. David mentioned by R. Abraham with the fragment edited by Lewin and the Compendium mentioned in the Mishnah commentary based on R. Nathan's interpretations. 31

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vid b. Saadiah cited in Shitah Mequbbe4et.33 (I am confident that the Geniza contains many fragments of his Compendium.) Scholars have debated whether 1 157 was the year of the work's composition or when the manuscript (or the part of it with the date) was copied. Assaf opted for the former, and argued that since the Mishnah commentary cites R. David without the blessing for the dead, its compiler must have been a contemporary of R. David, who composed his work in the 1 160s. This conclusion can be challenged on two counts. If Assaf s unrelated dating of R. David b. Saadiah as no longer alive in 1094 is correct (I assume that it is), the 1157 date must obviously be taken as the year in which the al-.Hawrmanuscript was copied.34 Besides, while the three passages in the Mishnah commentary which name R. David do not contain the blessing for the dead, a '1rfN;K rRnK"the fourth, also quoted by Assaf, refers to '"T author of the Compendium of blessed memory." Our Yemenite Geniza manuscript further cites the writings of R. Nathan Av as a source for the 25 dirhem ketubbah payment. The quote corresponds in content and to a degree in language to that of the commentary based on his Mishnah 33 Assaf, Tequfatha-Geonimwe-Sifrutah,p. 320, n. 121:"Perhapsit is worth mentioningthat anotherancient scholarnamed David, viz. R. David b. R. Saadiah, wrote a book on Halakhot Gedolot."But he did not identify the two (certainlybecauseof the discrepancyin the dates;see below). 34 Assaf (ibid, p. 320) argues that it is uncommon for copyists to date the completion of only a portion of a composition, as was done in this case ("This section was completedin the month of Iyar 1468 [Sel. = 1157 C.E.]").As a hypothesis, I suggestthat the originalfrom which the scribecopied had an earlier date whichhe (inadvertently)changedto the currentone. (It is plausiblethat the originalwas dated 1368 [1057], and the copyist alteredthis by adding 100.) A Geniza fragmentconsisting of the cover page from a copy of Kitab al-.Hawi, Bodl. MS. Heb. f. 102, fol. 45, was published by N. Allony in Kiryat Sefer, XLIX (1974), 657-8 with some minor errors, including the author's name. Insteadof Allony's I-uK mi"'ly 'nil'in " '1l '1n['n l, the manuscripthas ['nl '1,3 r '"n.Portionsof the firsttwo lettersof his father'sname, n'i;'7ly,lt 'Il'"ln are still intact;and with the aid of the other data summarizedabove, Saadiah, there is no doubt as to their identity.A cover pagecontainingthe completetitle

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interpretations to Ketubbot chapter 1, and I see no reason whatsoever to assume with Assaf that this refers to another Nathan Av about whom we know nothing.35 A translation of the Mishnah commentary compilation prepared by Joseph Qafih from a unique manuscript written in Judeo-Arabic was published in the El ha-Meqorot edition of the Mishnah in 1955. In his introduction Qafih tells a fascinating story of how as a boy of about 10, that is approximately in 1928, he assisted his grandfather Yihye Qafih in unearthing the manuscript from the $an'a Geniza-cemetery. From an analysis of the Arabic of the ancient Yemenite manuscript, Qafih concludes that the compiler lived and wrote in Yemen.36 Having established the provenance of the Geniza fragment, we now know that R. Nathan Av haYeshivah's commentary circulated in Yemen in 1215/6, and this information supports Qafih's suggestion. (I have recently examined the Mishnah commentary manuscript now kept in the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and I would not be surprised if experts established that it was written in Yemen not much later than our query.)37 of the workbut missingthe author'sname is found in TS Ar. 18(1).83.(Also see now S. Abramson,"TwoChaptersfrom a Studyon the Book Sha'areShevu'ot" [Hebrew],Sinai, CIV [1989], 104 ff., 141.) 35 Assaf, Kiryat Sefer, XXIII (1947), 236, n. 14: "It seems not to be our R. Nathan."No explanationis given for dissociatingthem; perhapsAssaf was influencedby Schechter(Saadyana,p. 60). 36 PerushShishshaSidreMishna she-PereshRabbenuNatan Av ha-Yeshivah [be-EretzYisrael],ed. J. Qafihand M. Zaks, I (Jerusalem,1955), 6 ff. 37 The Jewish Theological Seminary of America Library Rab. 1492. R. Nathan's Mishnah commentarycirculatedelsewhereat approximatelythe same period;see A Digest of Commentarieson the TractatesBabha Kamma, Babha M'Si'aand BabhaBhath'ra,compiled by Zachariahb. JudahAghmati, ed. J. Leveen (London, 1961), pp. 54a, 56b (not "a"as in the index), 264b. Cf. Assaf, Kiryat Sefer, XXIII (1947), 236. Mention should be made of a large fragment(64 pages!)found in the BritishLibraryof anothermanuscriptof the Mishnahcommentarybased on R. Nathan Av's interpretations;see S. Abramson, R. Nissim Gaon(Jerusalem,1965),p. 32, n. 11.Also see referencescited by A. Kimmelman,"A Guide to Talmudic Commentaryin the Geonic Period" (Hebrew),Shenatonha-Mishpatha-lvri,XI-XII (1984-6), 512.

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A few wordsare in orderconcerningthe time of R. Nathan. In his The Jews in Egypt and in Palestine,J. Mann cited a Geniza manuscriptfrom the Adler collection volume 4010 written at Ramle in 1096 C.E. and signed by [nr'Wiil3K in3: ' ;,1toK.Since

the last wordwas not readby Mannbut placedin brackets(i.e. he was unable to read anything after mK),it is odd that this documentwas takenby him as evidence - presumablybecause Nathan's name was not followed by the blessingfor the dead(!) - that Nathan was Av in 1096.38Following the publicationof Mann'sbook, the Adlermanuscriptwas misplaced,and scholars continued to quote his dating for Nathan.39In 1972 I identified the manuscriptin questionin an unnumberedenvelope and had it replaced in volume 4010 (as folio 53). Mann erred on two counts. The document was written in 1076, not 1096, and the faded words after Nathan's name are clearly 4"XTnw,';n nK;

he was thus dead in 1076.40As Moshe Gil has subsequently noted, Nathan Av ha-Yeshivahis certainlythe same as Nathan b. Abraham,Presidentof the PalestinianAcademyand rival of the Gaon Solomon b. Judahbetween 1038-1042; he died sometime between 1045 and 1051.41 Concerningthe rivalry,it is of interest to note that R. Nathan, who spent several years in his youth in Qayrawanand studied with R. Hushiel, follows the Babyloniantraditionof 25 zuz on the ketubbahmoney;R. Solomon b. Judah, a native of Fez, Morocco, who sent his son to

38

J. Mann, The Jews in Egypt and in Palestine underthe Fatimid Caliphs2 (New York, 1970), II, 200-201; I, 193-194: "His successor was a certain Nathan b. Abraham(probablya grandsonof the Gaon Nathan b. Abraham, 1039). We find him as Ab alreadyin 1096..." 39 E.g.,Assaf, Tequfatha-Geonimwe-Sifrutah,p. 296; Zaks(above, n. 36), 3; cf. EncyclopaediaJudaica, XII, 857-858. 40 See Friedman,Jewish Marriagein Palestine, II (1981), 147 (citations of Mann'sdating of the Adler manuscript,connectedwith other matters,such as the historyof Ramle, are noted there). 41 M. Gil, Palestine during the First Muslim Period (634-1099) (Hebrew),I (Tel-Aviv, 1983), 582-583, 604.

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study Torah under R. Hai Gaon, rules accordingto the Palestinian Talmud and upholds the sum of two hundred.42 I have already referred to the process by which questions were edited before or after being submitted to AbrahamMaimonides. One question addressed to him concerns a suit broughtagainsta business associate in a Muslim court afterthe latter had claimed bankruptcy.In his autographresponsumhe rules that one is not allowed to apply to Muslim courts, and damageswhich resultedfrom this action (which did not accord with Jewish law) must be paid back. Two other versions of the question and of the answerare found in anotherGeniza manuscript, both in anotherhand. In both the question is addressed to Abraham Maimonides, but the answer is unsigned. They prove that members of R. Abraham'scourt assisted him not only by copying the question in an acceptableform but also by providingdraftsfor his answers,at least for what they probably considered simple matters of law. The question in the manuscript on which Abraham Maimonides wrote his responsum closely follows the final draft; in fact the first five lines are virtually identical, each line beginning and ending with the same words as the draft. In his holographresponsum,R. Abraham closely followed the wording of the draft preparedfor his answer as well, but he ignored it's ruling that the offender be placed under the ban should he refuse to comply with the court's instructions.43

42

R. Nathan in North Africa, see Gil, ibid, I, 563-564; cf. M. Ben-Sasson, "The Jews of the Maghreband their Relations with Eretz Israel in the Ninth throughEleventh Centuries"(Hebrew),Shalem, V (1987), 69 ff. R. Solomon b. Judah'srulingis in a responsumpublishedby S. Assaf,Mi-Sifrutha-Geonim (Jerusalem,1933), p. 97; cf. Friedman,Jewish Marriagein Palestine, I, 254255, 19ff. 43 The manuscriptsare respectivelyTS 12.205 and TS 10 K 8.9. See M.A. Friedman, "Responsa of Abraham Maimonides on a Debtor's Travails," Proceedingsof the ThirdConferenceof theAssociationof Judaeo-ArabicStudies (forthcoming).

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Specificdata on situationsof wider political-historicalsignificance are rare in Abraham Maimonides' responsa but not entirely lacking. One unfinished question to him recently discovered in the Adlercollection is a unique historicaldocument. It tells the story of Jewish women, who were capturedby the Crusadersand held in Akko during the 1220s. It appears that they were accompanying their husbands on a government mission in Palestine. The Jewish community of Alexandria, where they lived, appointed an emissary to Akko and commissioned him to negotiate their release with bribes or any other possible means. This man also carried a letter from the Ayyubid Sultan al-Malik al-Mu'azzamto the "king of Akko" which empowered him to negotiate the release of Muslim captives as well. Unfortunatelyhe failed in his mission and had to appearbefore al-Mu'azzamempty-handed.44 The stories from everydaylife are much more prevalent.One deals with a man who, when awayfrom home, marrieda second wife. He eventuallybroughther back to his home town. But his first wife did not care for the new addition to the family. The documents collected in my recent book Jewish Polygynyin the MiddleAges show that pluralmarriageswere not at all uncommon in Egyptduringthis period. One had to ask permissionof his firstwife, however.If she refusedand he insistedon marrying the other woman, she was empowered to demand her own divorce with full ketubbahpayments.The question to Abraham Maimonides as to whether the first wife could insist that the second be divorcedis unusualand probablyreflectsignoranceof the acceptedcustom. In any event, the husbandis describedas a pauperwithout a penny to his name, and the Nagid is asked if there is a legal stratagem,hfla, which can be used to effect the 44Jewish TheologicalSeminaryof America LibraryE.N. Adler Collection (ENA)NS 29.26r,ed. Friedman(above,n. 1),pp. 75-80 (on p. 78, 1. 17 TKXtois an errorfor t?0l'D);an Englishtranslationis found in the author'sarticle in Community and Culture,ed. N.M.Waldman (Philadelphia[Gratz College] 1987),p. 59.

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divorce, since the husband cannot pay the ketubbahdebt. R. Abraham'sansweris not preservedin this fragment.45 R. AbraThe hIlais well known from Islamicjurisprudence.46 ham is asked for such a legal device in a numberof questions,47 especially those concerning sensitive human situations; elsewhere in his responsahe disparageslegal subterfuges.48One of the other questions from the Geniza requestinga hila involves the status of children born from liaisons with slave girls, a subject also dealt with in my book on polygyny as reflectedin the Geniza documents.49A third describes a case of adultery. The parties confessed their guilt, but there were no witnesses except for the AlmightyHimself. The question seems to be how they can effect repentance.50In neither case is the answer preserved. Two questions dealing with Jews traveling to India and the Far East are noted by Goitein in his 1967 article.51 The active participation of the Jews in this trade and its importance for international economics were among Goitein's major Geniza discoveries.Extendedabsencesfrom Egyptoften caused serious interruptions of family life requiring the attention of the authorities.The two questions addressedto AbrahamMaimonides belong to Goitein's so-called India Book: On the India Route, Documentsfrom the Cairo Geniza on the India Tradeof the High Middle Ages. This project was Goitein's first major undertaking in Geniza research. In 1958 he decided that a comprehensive study on the Jews in the Mediterraneanwas a prerequisitefor understandingthe world of the India traders. Two months before his death he sent the final volume of A 45 TS G 1.75, ed. Friedman(above, n. 9), pp. 224-225. See J. Schacht,An Introductionto Islamic Law (Oxford, 1964), pp. 78ff. 47 Cf. Goitein (above, n. 7), p. XXXVII. 48 AbrahamMaimuni,Responsa,p. 89. 49 MS British LibraryOr. 10652, fol. 2, ed. Friedman(above, n. 9), pp. 324325. 46

50 TS Misc. 8.9 r.

51 Goitein

(above, n. 2), pp. 157-158; Med. Soc., V, 487.

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Mediterranean Society to the printer, and the India Book remains unfinished.The material is now in my hands, and the following remarksare intended as a modest contribution towards fulfillment of that project. Only the first question is describedin Goitein's 1967 study. It concernsa traderwho had departedfor India, leaving his wife to supportherself and their two daughters. Fifteen years had passed, and she had not received word from him. R. Abrahamruled that the report by a Jew from Aden that he had heard from another merchant about the man's demise in Fanjur, Indonesia, and about the seizure of his property by the ruler of the country, was equivalent to valid testimony, and his wife could accordingly remarry.Half of the question, previously missing, as well as part to the answer are found in one of the fragmentswhich I recently discovered.52 The address in the second question includes a prayer that God sustain R. Abraham's son; accordingly we can date it between 1222 and 1228, the respective birth years of his sons David and Obadiah.The question itself reads(in translation)as follows: "Concerninga man who wrote two bills of debt to his mother and brother for a binding loan of 200 dinars. He mortgageda house he owned for payment of the debt, for a period of ten years. When the time they had agreedon passed, they wanted to sell the house to collect their loan. The man is marriedand had set out for India. Now the prescribedtime has arrivedand the two creditorswant to sell as much of the house as is necessaryto collect their loan of 200 dinars. Does his wife have a right to prevent them?"53Two hundred dinars was a very considerablesum. Apparentlyit comprisedthe bulk of his ENA 4020.41, India Book VII, 33 (formerly233), translatedin S.D. Goitein, LettersofMedievalTraders(Princeton,1973),pp. 228-229 [theshelf mark is cited there as ENA 4020 I, f. 55(?), i.e. the exact numberin the volume had not yet been fixed].The second fragmentis TS Misc. 27.3.2. 53 CambridgeUniversity LibraryOr. 1080 J 32 (India Book VII, 31 [formerly 169]). For reasons to be explained elsewhere it is probablyfrom the earlierpart of the period 1222-1228. 52

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capital when the husband left to seek his fortune in India. It is likely that he too had not been heard from for ten years. The legal questions to Abraham Maimonides and his answers illuminate a major role of the busy Nagid. They provide invaluable information on the everyday life of the Jewish communities in Islamic countries during the high Middle Ages: family crises, business affairs, material culture, intellectual history, cooperation and conflict with non-Jews and more. Here I was able to describe only a few of the relevant manuscripts. I confess that the research done in preparation for this paper has whetted my appetite and convinced me to undertake a comprehensive study of the Geniza responsa of Abraham Maimonides and his contemporaries, based on a complete edition of their texts. This preliminary review is a first step towards that goal.54 54 The above paper is the annotated text with minor revisions - of a presentation at the Edelman Conference, The Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, New York University, March 1, 1987. I would like to thank Prof. Joel L. Kraemer for his valuable suggestions. Attention is called to the author's following studies which also are relevant: "The Estate of a Man with Two Wives - Two Responsa from the Geniza" (Hebrew), Dine Israel, XIIIXIV (1986-8), 239-262; "Menstrual Impurity and Sectarianism in the Writings of the Geonim and of Moses and Abraham Maimonides" (Hebrew), Maimonidean Studies, I, ed. A. Hyman (in print) and lectures on "Opposition to Palestinian Liturgy and Synagogue Practices in Responsa from the Geniza" delivered at the Conference on the Study of the Responsa Literature from the Geniza, Talmud Department, Tel-Aviv University, January 18, 1989; "On a Question from Yemen to Abraham Maimonides and his Responsum" (on TS 13 G 2) at the Fourth International Conference of the Society for JudeoArabic Studies, Tel-Aviv University, August 15, 1989 and "On the Responsa of Abraham Maimonides and his Contemporaries from the Geniza" at the Tenth World Congress of Jewish Studies, Jerusalem, August 20, 1989 (all being prepared for publication). [A paper based on the first of these three lectures will appear in the Ezra Fleischer Jubilee Volume.] At the Fourth International Conference of the Society for Judeo-Arabic Studies D. Sklare spoke on "David b. Saadiah the Proselyte and his Book al-HIdwl-."Several responsa of Abraham Maimonides identified in Goitein's writings will be published in S. Shtober's article in Shenaton ha-Mishpat ha-Ivri, XIV (forthcoming).