משה אבן חביב

Rav Moshe ben Rav Shlomo ibn Habib (5414/1654–5456/1696), known in English sources as Moses ibn Habib, was Rishon LeTzion, Chacham Bashi and rosh yeshiva in Yerushalayim. He was born in Salonika (Greece) into one of the distinguished families of the Spanish exile; among his forebears were Rav Yosef ibn Chaviva, author of the Nimukei Yosef on the Rif, and Rav Yaakov ibn Habib, who gathered the Ein Yaakov on the aggadot of the Talmud and whose son was the Maharalbach. At fifteen he came up to Yerushalayim and entered the Beit Yaakov yeshiva of Rav Yaakov Chagiz, whose daughter he married; after her passing while still young he married the daughter of Rav Yehonatan Galanti.

Though still a young man, he was received by the chachamim of Yerushalayim as an equal — Rav Chizkiyah da Silva of the Pri Chadash, Rav Ephraim Navon of the Machaneh Ephraim, and his own rebbe Rav Yaakov Chagiz carried on halachic give-and-take with him. He was sent as a shadar to Turkey, and in 1678 he was in Belgrade on such a mission. When his brother-in-law Rav Moshe Galanti, the Rav HaMagen, was niftar in 5449/1689, Rav Moshe was appointed Rishon LeTzion and rosh yeshiva in his place; sitting with him on the beit din were Rav Yaakov Molcho, Rav Yom Tov Tzahalon and Rav Yosef bar Yosef.

His psakim are found often in dinei ishut, above all in the tangled halachot of agunot, and his two sefarim there — Get Pashut on hilchot gittin and Ezrat Nashim on the takanot for agunot — remain basic works in the field. His chiddushim on Shas he gathered in Shemot BaAretz, in three parts: Yom Teruah on Rosh Hashanah, Tosefet Yom HaKippurim on Yoma, and Kapot Temarim on Sukkah, a sefer that later drew glosses from Rav Akiva Eiger and Rav Yosef Shaul Nathanson. He also left Pnei Moshe on the Yerushalmi to Berachot, Peah and Demai, and a kuntres on the rules of safek sefeika. His volume of teshuvot sank at sea; what survived of it was printed in Yerushalayim in 5667/1907 as Kol Gadol.

He served as rav of Yerushalayim and rosh yeshiva until his last day and was niftar in 5456/1696, before reaching forty-three, without having seen a single one of his manuscripts in print. His grandson Rav Yaakov Culi — son of his daughter and of Rav Machir Culi, and later the author of the Yalkut Me’am Lo’ez — edited the manuscripts and carried them to Constantinople, no press being at work in Eretz Yisrael in those years; he arrived in 5474/1714, and the sefarim came out in 5482/1722 with the help of Rav Chaim Alfandari.