אברהם מן ההר

Rav Avraham ben Yitzchak min haHar (niftar 5075/1315), called in English sources Abraham of Montpellier, was among the chachamim of Montpellier in Provence in southern France; his by-name, “from the mountain,” points to the hill city where he lived. In his later years he settled in Carpentras, where he sat on the beit din of Rav Mordechai ben Yehosefa, author of Shaarei Nedarim. He was a friend of the Meiri, who addressed him with marked deference, writing to him in a letter that everything rests on his clear and unclouded understanding, and that after his words there is nothing to add.

Rav Avraham wrote a commentary covering much of the Talmud Bavli. He holds fast to the Rambam’s rulings and explanations, and he is among the earliest to cite the Rambam’s Peirush HaMishnah and Sefer HaMitzvot, both written originally in Arabic. His way is to work through the sugya first and then to draw the halacha lemaaseh out of it at the close. He had before him Rashi’s own commentary on Nedarim, which he quotes at length — a commentary other than the one printed under Rashi’s name today.

His chiddushim on Kiddushin were printed in the margins of the Vilna Shas under the mistaken title Tosafot Ri HaZaken, an error the Vilna editors themselves marked, showing that the Ri HaZaken could not have written it. Rav Moshe Yehuda Blau published his commentaries on Yevamot, Nedarim and Nazir under his own name in New York in 5722/1962, from a manuscript written by the author’s own hand, as its many crossings-out and corrections show; chiddushim on Rosh Hashanah, Sukkah and Megillah followed, and Machon Ofek prepared his Chullin for print. A few of his teshuvot survive, among them one on the controversy over the study of philosophy in 5063–5066/1303–1306, and two printed in Teshuvot Chachmei Provintzia (Yerushalayim, 5727/1967). His commentaries on Chullin and Ketubot are quoted by Rav Yaakov ben Moshe of Bagnols and by Rav Menachem di Lonzano.