Critical Notes

Isaac al-Fāsī

Critical Notes on b. Shabbat 19a

Late 11th Century

Illustration of six bearded, turbaned men and a shirtless boy on a wooden sailboat in fish-filled water, below a line of Arabic script.
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In this Hebrew work, Isaac al-Fāsī responds to a ruling by Isaac ben Baruch Ibn Albalia (al-Bālīya; d. 1094), an Andalusi talmudist, astronomer, astrologer, poet, and writer, who lived at various times in Córdoba, Lucena, Seville, and Granada. He is known for two books, both now lost: one on the calendar, and one, never finished, called The Spice-Peddler’s Basket (Kupat ha-rokhelim), which discussed difficult passages in the Talmud. Al-Fāsī arrived in Lucena in 1088, six years before Ibn Albalia’s death, and quickly began criticizing the halakhic basis of certain practices in his new home. These excerpted passages address the prohibition against setting sail within three days of the Sabbath, an almost unending area of disagreement among medieval halakhists. Ibn Albalia’s arguments do not survive, but he apparently limited this prohibition to ships that were of a fairly large size.

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Related Guide

Early Medieval Law and Religious Observance

7th to 12th Century

Creator Bio

Isaac al-Fāsī

1013–1103

Isaac ben Jacob ha-Kohen al-Fāsī (known as Rif) was born in Qal‘at Ḥammād in what is now Algeria. After studying with leading scholars in Qayrawān, now Tunisia, al-Fāsī moved to Fez, now Morocco. He left Fez for Lucena, Spain, in 1088 and became the head of the academy there after the death of Isaac Ibn Ghiyath (1038–1089). Al-Fāsī was the author of hundreds of responsa, primarily written in Judeo-Arabic, but his most lasting contribution is his Hebrew and Aramaic Book of the Laws (Sefer ha-halakhot), a digest of the Babylonian Talmud that largely omits dialectic, legends, and nonapplicable laws. Al-Fāsī frequently cites Hayya Ga’on (939–1038) and other geonim. The Book of the Laws was immensely popular, attracted countless later commentaries, and exerted tremendous influence on the legal tradition, particularly on Maimonides (1138–1204). This work is included in all standard editions of the Babylonian Talmud.

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