ראב"ד אב"ד

Rav Avraham ben Yitzchak of Narbonne (c. 4845/1085–4919/1158), called the Raavad II and known also as the Ravi Av Beit Din, was av beit din of Narbonne and head of the yeshiva there, one of the chachmei Provence in the age of the Rishonim; English works call him Abraham ben Isaac of Narbonne. He learned before Rav Yitzchak ben Meron HaLevi and was counted among the great talmidim of Rav Moshe HaDarshan of Narbonne, though it appears he received that Torah from Rav Moshe’s talmidim rather than from him directly. For a time he was in Barcelona, where he served Rav Yehuda HaBarceloni. He was raised to the head of the nine-man beit din of Narbonne in his rebbi’s lifetime, sitting together with Rav Todros ben Moshe and Rav Meshullam ben Nasan. He was a mekubal, and Sefer HaEmunot brings that he merited gilui Eliyahu.

Among the talmidim he raised in Narbonne were Rav Zerachiah HaLevi and Rav Avraham ben David — the Raavad III — who afterward became his son-in-law. He wrote commentaries on Yevamot, Ketubot, Gittin, Kiddushin, Bava Kamma, Bava Metzia, Bava Batra, Shevuot and Makkot; nearly all were lost, and only substantial portions of Bava Batra survive, in two incomplete manuscripts, the rest known from what the Rishonim quote — Rav Zerachiah, the Ramban, the Ran and others. In explaining a sugya he took Rashi as his model, and the same clarity marks his teshuvot, quoted in Temim De’im and in the Sefer HaTerumot of Rav Shmuel Sardi; a collection of them preserved in Teiman, the only manuscript of its kind, was published by Rav Yosef Kapach in 5722/1962.

His name is carried above all by Sefer HaEshkol, a halachic work built upon the words of the Geonim and especially upon the Halachot Gedolot, which served as a source of psak for the whole of Provence; the French and Italian codifiers took it for their model until the Tur appeared. Simcha Assaf printed from manuscript a set of selections out of the Sefer HaDin of Rav Yehuda HaBarceloni and argued on several grounds that Rav Avraham was the one who assembled them. He was niftar in Narbonne in 4919/1158.