The Rif (Rabbi Yitzhak Alfasi)

North African master who spent his last years heading the academy of Lucena. His Sefer HaHalakhot distilled the Talmud's practical law and became the first of the three pillars on which Maran later built the Shulhan Arukh.

Who was the Rif?

Rabbi Yitzhak Alfasi, known as the Rif, was the greatest halakhic authority of his generation and the first of the three pillars on which Maran Yosef Karo built the Shulhan Arukh. Born in North Africa and active for most of his life in Fez, he spent his last years at the head of the academy of Lucena in al-Andalus, where he trained the teachers of the Sephardic world. His work, the Sefer HaHalakhot, is printed in every edition of the Talmud.

North Africa

Yitzhak ben Yaakov was born in 1013 near Qal’at Bani Hammad, in what is now Algeria. According to tradition, he studied in Kairouan, in present-day Tunisia, then one of the great centers of Torah in the world, with Rabbenu Hananel and Rabbenu Nissim, the leading North African sages of the age. He then settled in Fez, in Morocco, where he lived and taught for decades; the name Alfasi, “of Fez,” comes from those years.

In 1088, when he was about seventy-five, he was denounced to the authorities and was forced to flee. He crossed to al-Andalus, and after the death of Rabbi Yitzhak ibn Ghiyyat in 1089 he became the head of the academy of Lucena, near Córdoba, the leading center of Torah learning in Spain.

The Sefer HaHalakhot

The Rif’s great achievement was the Sefer HaHalakhot, often called “the Little Talmud.” He went through the Babylonian Talmud tractate by tractate and kept only what was needed to determine the practical law, in the Talmud’s own Aramaic, removing the discussions that did not lead to a ruling and most of the aggada. Where the Talmud left a question open, he stated the conclusion, often drawing on the Jerusalem Talmud and the rulings of the Geonim.

His work deals with the laws that apply in exile, and so it omits most of the orders of the Mishnah concerned with the Temple and agricultural laws of the Land of Israel. The result was a clear path through the Talmud that a student could follow from the text to the law.

The book’s authority was immense from the start. The Rambam, whose father had studied with the Rif’s student, praised the work and wrote that he differed with it in only a few places, and later sages, from the Ramban to Rabbenu Nissim of Girona, the Ran, wrote commentaries on it. In most printed editions of the Talmud, the Rif’s work appears at the back of each tractate, with the Ran’s commentary beside it.

Students and responsa

At Lucena the Rif trained a generation of scholars. His successor at the head of the academy was his student Rabbi Yosef ibn Migash, the Ri Migash, who in turn taught Rabbi Maimon, the father of the Rambam. Through that chain, the Rif’s way of learning shaped the Rambam’s. The Rif also wrote several hundred responsa, answering questions from communities across Spain and North Africa, which survive in Hebrew and Arabic.

Death

The Rif died in Lucena in 1103, at about ninety. Before his death he named the Ri Migash, then a young man, as his successor, passing over his own son.

The Rif’s legacy for Sephardim

When Maran Yosef Karo set out to decide the law for the whole Jewish people, he chose to follow the majority of three authorities: the Rif, the Rambam and the Rosh. The Rif stands first among them, and through the Shulhan Arukh his rulings still guide Sephardi practice every day. He is also a living link between the two great homes of Sephardic Jewry: born in North Africa, trained in Kairouan, famous in Fez and buried in Spain, he carried the Torah of North Africa to al-Andalus and made it the foundation of the Sephardic tradition.

Teachers and students