Rav Yitzchok Alfasi

Early years

Rav Yitzchok Alfasi zt"l, one of the greatest of the early codifiers of halachah and a name familiar to every student of Gemara, was born in 4773 (1013) in Qalaat Beni Hammad (also written Kalat ibn Hamad). This city, in present-day Algeria, was the seat of the Hammadid rulers of the central Maghreb. His name, Alfasi, means in Arabic a native of Fez, the city where he spent most of his career. He is also known as the Rif, from the initials of Rabbi Yitzchok Fasi.

He learned Gemara in Kairouan, in Tunisia, under Rabbeinu Nissim ben Yaakov and Rabbeinu Chananel ben Chushiel. These two great teachers were the recognized Torah authorities of the age, and through them Kairouan was then one of the leading centers of Gemara learning. Rabbeinu Chananel taught him how to draw out and clarify the halachah from its sources in the Gemara.

Torah and leadership

Out of this training grew a great plan. Rav Yitzchok wished to write one comprehensive work that would lay out, clearly and decisively, what the Gemara concludes for practical halachah. He spent ten years in a row working on it in the attic of his father-in-law.

In 1045 he moved to Fez with his wife and two children. The Jewish community there took it upon themselves to support his household, so that his sefer could be written without interruption. A yeshiva was founded in his name as well, and students traveled to learn from him from every part of Morocco. He also became the head of the Jewish community of Fez. Among his talmidim were Rav Yehuda HaLevi, who wrote the Kuzari, and Rav Yosef ibn Migash (the Ri Migash), whose own student was Rav Maimon, the father and teacher of the Rambam.

When his two great teachers passed away, around the year 1050, Rav Yitzchok became the most recognized Torah authority of his day. This was the second generation after the era of the Geonim had ended, when the great yeshivos of Bavel were closed. He stayed in Fez for forty years, and in that time he finished his Sefer HaHalachos.

Teachings and seforim

Sefer HaHalachos, also called the Hilchos HaRif, covers the orders of Moed, Nashim and Nezikin, together with Berachos and Chulin, twenty-four tractates in all. From each one the Rif took the halachic rulings and copied the Gemara's practical conclusions word for word, leaving out the discussion around them. He omitted the aggadic material, and also those laws that apply only in Eretz Yisroel. The Rambam wrote that the work replaced the earlier codes of the Geonim, because every ruling and law we need today is found in it.

The sefer shaped the course of halachah. The Rif created a digest that people studied closely, and from it came the great codes of the Rambam and of Rav Yosef Karo. It is counted among the Three Pillars of Halachah, on which both the Arba'ah Turim and the Shulchan Aruch rest. Rabbeinu Nissim of Gerona (the Ran) composed a detailed commentary on it, and the Rif and the Ran are studied together in yeshivos every day.

It was composed before Rashi and the other commentators wrote, and it transformed how the learned public studied, since it brought the world of the Gemara within reach of far more people. People soon called it the Talmud Katan (Little Talmud). Late in the Middle Ages the Talmud was banned in Italy, but the Rif's code was exempted. From the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, Italian Jewry made it their chief text of study. The Rif also holds an important place in the Sephardi approach to learning Gemara, which aimed to simplify it and spare the learner from excessive detail.

He also left many teshuvos (responsa). They were first written in Arabic and soon translated into Hebrew as Shailos U'Teshuvos HaRif.

Later years and passing

In 1088, at the age of seventy-five, he was accused to the authorities by two informers, over a charge that is not known. He left Fez for Spain, and in 1089 he became head of the yeshiva in Lucena.

Two incidents reveal his generous character. When Rabbeinu Yitzchok Albalia, who had opposed him, passed away, the Rif took in Albalia's son as his own. And as his own life neared its end, he named as his successor in the rabbanus of Lucena not his son but his talmid Rav Yosef ibn Migash.

Rav Yitzchok Alfasi passed away on 10 Iyar 4864 (1104).