Critical Notes on the Mishneh Torah: On Rabbinic Authority

Abraham ben David of Posquières, known as Rabad, was perhaps the most important Jewish scholar in late twelfth-century Provence. He was born in Narbonne and married the daughter of Abraham ben Isaac (ca. 1110–1179), then the head of the rabbinic court in Provence. Although today best known for his critical glosses to al-Fāsī’s Halakhot and Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah, Abraham wrote several independent halakhic treatises, and responsa, as well as commentaries on mishnaic and talmudic tractates. He engaged in a bitter correspondence with Zeraḥiah ha-Levi of Girona, whom he probably knew when they were both students. No kabbalistic works from Abraham survive, but later kabbalists, such as his son, Isaac the Blind (ca. 1160–1235), asserted that he had had a deep knowledge of it.