רבינו יהונתן מלוניל

Rabbeinu Yehonatan ben Rav David HaKohen of Lunel (c. 1135–4971/1211) was among the foremost chachmei Provence and the head of the chachamim of Lunel. He was a talmid of Rav Moshe of Narbonne, and by some accounts of Rav Avraham Av Beit Din as well; he was a talmid and colleague of the Raavad, Rav Avraham ben David, and stood in close friendship with Rav Zerachiah HaLevi. English sources call him Jonathan of Lunel.

His life’s work is a wide peirush on the Talmud built around the whole Sefer HaHalachot of the Rif together with the Mishnah — the first commentary on the Mishnah written in Hebrew and the first on the Rif. It turned the Sefer HaHalachot into the central text of learning and psak among the chachamim of Provence. Only a small part of it survives, and he is quoted constantly by the poskim of Provence who came after him, at times as Rabbi Yehonatan HaKohen, and in the Nimukei Yosef and the Shitah Mekubetzet. For generations he was known chiefly for his work on the Rif to masechet Eiruvin, which spread widely and has been printed around the halachot of the Rif since the first Constantinople edition of 5269/1509; in our own time his commentary has been printed on twenty-one masechtot.

A copy of the Iggeret Teiman that reached his hands opened a correspondence with the Rambam, which began with a question on whether there is truth in astrology — the Rambam’s answer was some years in coming. Rabbeinu Yehonatan defended the Rambam against the hasagot of the Raavad, and Rav Yitzchak de Latash records in his chronicle Sha’arei Tzion that he composed a work answering every one of them; he also stood at the Rambam’s side in the dispute raised against him by the Ramah. Their letters are written with great mutual honor and are counted among the finest of the Hebrew letter literature. In one of them, from 1199, the Rambam wrote that when the questions arrived he rejoiced greatly, having found a man who grasped their matters and their hidden points — all that you asked, you asked well, and all that you raised, you raised well. The Rambam then sent his Moreh Nevuchim to Lunel, and it was Rabbeinu Yehonatan who handed it to Rav Shmuel ibn Tibbon to render into Hebrew.

Around 1210, shortly before he went up to Eretz Yisrael together with Toviah ben Shimshon and Shmuel ben Shimshon, he corresponded with Rav Yitzchak ben Avraham of Dampierre, who had sent him a teshuvah on a Talmudic matter bound up with the Land. He was niftar in Acco in 4971/1211.