רבינו מנוח

Rabbeinu Manoach ben Shimon was one of the chachmei Provence, living and teaching at the close of the thirteenth century, and the author of a commentary on the Rambam’s Mishneh Torah. He dwelt in Narbonne and in Lunel. He learned from his father, Rabbi Shimon, and from Rabbi Meir ben Rabbi Shimon HaMe’ili and Rabbi Reuven ben Rabbi Chaim. The details of his life, and the years of his birth and his passing, are not known.

His sefer is called Sefer HaMenuchah. In it he labors above all to lay bare the sources upon which the Rambam drew and to answer the hasagot of the Raavad, and he speaks of the Rambam with great deference. What has reached us covers portions of Sefer Ahavah and Sefer Zemanim. Rabbi Yosef Karo draws on his words often and weighs them in the Kesef Mishneh and the Beit Yosef, and Rabbi David Conforti, in Korei HaDorot, raises the possibility that the Tosafot in Chullin 24a who quote a Rabbeinu Manoach mean him.

His chiddushim were first printed in Constantinople in 5478/1718, on part of Sefer Zemanim, and printed again in Pressburg in 5639/1879, where a broad commentary upon them by Rabbi Shimon Sidan, called Beit Menuchah, was joined to them. In 5730/1970 Mossad HaRav Kook brought out from manuscript his commentary on part of Sefer Ahavah, and his commentaries on further sections of the Rambam were added in the Shabse Frankel edition of the Mishneh Torah.