Sherira Gaon

Rab Sherira Gaon (Hebrew: רב שרירא גאון ) was a rabbi and also a prominent Jewish philosopher and exegete. He was the head of the Babylonian academy of the 10th century in Pumbedita. His main work is Iggeret Rav Sherira Gaon ( " Letter of Sherira Gaon ", abbreviated ISG), a summary history of the origin of the Talmud. He was one of the most famous Geonim his time, and he was the father of Chai ben Sherira Gaon (d. 1038 ), the last of the great Babylonian scholars. Chai ben Sherira Gaon mentioned, for example, that Jewish students from Constantinople Opel who were in Babylon. The reason was that at this time in Byzantium a renaissance of the Hebrew language was held as a sign of reception of rabbinic Judaism.

Iggeret

The Iggeret is a 987 authored by Sherira Gaon letter in length treatise, which answered a question of a community of Kairouan in Tunisia Tunis today. In this response, the history and the authentic teaching of the Mishnah and the Talmud, was outlined with biographical and genealogical information on the individual scholar. In contrast to Saadia Gaon, who founded the genuine tradition of the Torah and the Mishnah with the logic Sherira Gaon occupied the genuine and unbroken chain of teaching and tradition genealogically. This had become necessary because the Karaites in Tunisia, the Mishnah rejected.

Was one of the most famous quotes of the Sherira: " Why have you forgotten us? [ ... ] Let them suffer from hunger and dying of hunger? ". This makes it clear that the response letters were also a source of funds from which the Geonim also lived. Through the " atomization " and decentralization of Jewish communities through the diaspora who Geonim were important, because they were a kind of consulate where you could clarify its internal Jewish law.

The letter is preserved in two versions. The " French edition " was in Aramaic and is more original than the version considered. The " Spanish Edition " contains more Hebrew language shares and is held for a paraphrase. The two issues were arguing over the question of the editors of the Mishnah by Judah ha - Nasi of.

The meaning of the text is that it is next to Seder Tannaim we- amoraim and scattered in the Talmudim this material one of the few sources to the early history of the emergence of rabbinic Judaism.