Rav Saadia Gaon

Early years

Rav Saadia ben Yosef zt"l, one of the last and most famous Gaonim, was a great Talmudic scholar, a Jewish philosopher and an inspiring leader. He was born in a small village near Fayyum in Egypt, the site of the ancient city of Pithom, which Jewish slaves built together with Raamses under the Pharaohs. His family traced its origin to Yehuda, the son of Yaakov.

His father, Rav Yosef, was a learned man and was Saadia's first teacher. Saadia had excellent qualities and was a brilliant student. Before he was twenty he wrote his first work, the Agron, the first Hebrew dictionary and grammar, which was a great help to Hebrew poets and writers of sacred poetry. Rav Avrohom Ibn Ezra, the famed poet and commentator on the Torah who lived about two hundred years later, praised the Agron highly and considered its author the earliest authority on the Hebrew language.

The struggle against the Karaites

In Rav Saadia's time, one of the most serious threats to Jewish life came from the Karaites. They had arisen from within the Jewish people many years earlier, but separated from it in opposition to the Oral Torah. They claimed that the Talmud was not binding because it was written by the rabbis and not by Hashem, and that only the Written Torah comes from Hashem and should guide Jewish life. Traditional Judaism has always held that the Gemara is the Torah Shebe'al Peh, the Oral Torah given at Sinai and passed on by word of mouth until it was written down in the academies of Bavel. The Karaites had grown strong and influential, especially in Egypt.

Saadia was barely twenty-three when he declared war on them. His writings proved the falsity of the whole Karaite doctrine and had a tremendous effect, and many Karaites and would-be Karaites began to see the light. He defended the authority of the rabbis so firmly that he declared the Karaites were not Jews. Their leaders, unable to defeat the young scholar in a contest of wisdom and learning, turned to open hostility. Fanatical Karaites broke into his home and ransacked it, destroying his writings and seforim. His life was in danger, and he could no longer remain in the land of his birth. He left Egypt for Eretz Yisroel, and from there he continued his tireless fight against the Karaites.

Torah and leadership

For many centuries Bavel was the main center of Jewish learning. The heads of its academies in Sura and Pumbedisa were called Gaonim, and they were recognized as the foremost scholars of their day, with the authority to give halachic rulings for the community. Rav Saadia is regarded as the greatest Gaon of all time. He lived under Muslim rule, and his life ended in Sura.

The Rambam said of him, "If not for our master Saadia Gaon, Torah would have been forgotten in Yisroel."

Teachings and seforim

Jews in Muslim lands were exposed to the philosophy of Islam, much of it built on the thought of Aristotle and Plato. Rav Saadia sought to show that the Torah stands up to logical inquiry. His best-known sefer is Emunos Vedeos (Faith and Beliefs), written originally in Arabic and later translated into Hebrew by the Ibn Tibbon family. Its goal was to bring assimilated Jews back to Torah and halacha. In it he gives proofs that the world was created from nothing, that the Creator is One, that man has a soul, that Hashem gave the Torah to the Jewish people at Har Sinai, and that man is free to choose between good and evil and is rewarded or held to account accordingly.

He also wrote the first Arabic translation of the Tanach, with commentary and grammatical notes, the first Hebrew dictionary and a sefer on Hebrew grammar. The Muslims of his day were deeply involved in the study of the Arabic language, and Rav Saadia hoped to inspire Jews to explore their own roots more deeply. Among his many seforim is a commentary on Sefer Yetzirah.

Rav Saadia was also firm that people have free will. The thinkers of the Kalam taught that everything is ruled by the will of Allah and denied free will and even cause and effect. He disagreed for three reasons: if Hashem alone causes everything, righteous and wicked would be the same and a mitzvah and a sin would be no different; it would make no sense to punish someone who is only doing Hashem's will; and, most of all, mitzvos would have no purpose, since a commandment can only be given to someone able to accept it. He therefore stressed the covenant at Sinai, in which Bnei Yisroel freely took on their obligation to Hashem.

Later years and passing

Rav Saadia Gaon passed away in Sura, Babylonia, on 26 Iyar 4702 (942).