יעקב חזן מלונדון

Rav Yaakov ben Yehudah Chazan of London, known in English sources as Jacob ben Judah of London, was a rishon of English Jewry in the generation before the expulsion of 5050/1290, a talmid of Rav Berachyah of Nicole (Lincoln) and the author of the Etz Chaim, a code of halachot, psakim and minhagim. At the head of his sefer he signs himself “Yaakov HaKatan, son of Rav Yehudah Chazan of Londres, son of Rav Yaakov HaAruch,” and that is nearly all that is known of him. From the sefer we learn that he sent Rav Berachyah a she’eilah on the writing of gittin, which suggests he may have served in, or near, the beit din of London. He also cites many minhagim of northern France and sets them beside those of England, so it seems he spent a period learning in France, possibly under Rav Yitzchak of Corbeil, author of the Smak. He wrote piyutim as well, and a few are woven into his sefer.

The Etz Chaim was meant as a sefer of halachah l’maaseh. In his introduction Rav Yaakov explains that the Rambam’s Mishneh Torah gave no reasons for its rulings and passed over the disputes of the chachamim of France, which moved Rav Moshe of Coucy to write the Sefer Mitzvot Gadol; yet the Smag in turn left out many dinim found in the Rambam. His own work takes the Rambam’s language, copied or abridged, as its core and adds dinim from the Rif, the Tosefta, the Halachot Gedolot and the Seder Rav Amram Gaon, and the teshuvot of Rabbeinu Tam, the Ri HaZaken and other chachamim of France where they differ from the Rambam. It is divided into Sefer HaTorah, on the halachot that apply today, and Sefer HaMishpat, on dinei mamonot and nefashot, the mitzvot of the Land, the avodah of the Beit HaMikdash and the other dinim not practiced in our day.

Its special worth is what he added from his rebbeim and the chachamim of England and of his generation, the Maharam of Rothenburg among them. He brings much from Rav Yom Tov of Londres, from his son Rav Moshe of London and Rav Moshe’s sons Rav Eliyahu Menachem of London and Rav Berachyah of Nicole, from Rav Yosef of Nicole and from Rav Yitzchak ben Peretz of Northampton; for several of these chachamim the Etz Chaim is the only surviving witness to their Torah, or even to their existence. The sefer was completed in Elul 5046/1286, four years before the Jews of England were driven out. Though little known afterward, it is quoted in the Kiryat Sefer of Rav Yitzchak de Lattes, in the Mordechai Katzar of Rav Shmuel of Schlettstadt, in the Maharshal’s Yam Shel Shlomo and in the Shiltei HaGiborim of Rav Avraham Portaleone. A single manuscript survives, possibly in the author’s own hand, today in Leipzig, and from it the complete work was published by Rav Yisrael Brodie through Mossad HaRav Kook in 5722–5727/1962–1967.