שם טוב אבן שם טוב (הראשון)

Shem Tov ibn Shem Tov (שם טוב אבן שם טוב), the first of that name, was a rishon of Sefarad (Spain), a mekubal (master of kabbalah) and rosh yeshiva at the start of the fifteenth century. Shalshelet HaKabbalah of Rabbi Gedalyah ibn Yachya places his life at about 1390 to 1440. He stood firmly against those who made the study of philosophy the basis of Jewish belief.

His best-known work is Sefer HaEmunot, printed in Ferrara in 1556. In it he writes against those who wanted to build faith on philosophy and investigation, and he sets out the tradition of kabbalah, which he calls the true teaching, handed down from generation to generation. He holds that Torah and philosophy do not agree in the way many Jewish philosophers claimed, and he argues against the Rambam, the Ibn Ezra and the Ralbag. In his view, the turn of his generation to philosophy at the cost of kabbalah and simple faith is what left so many unable to stand firm in the forced conversions of 1391. About a hundred years later Rabbi Moshe Alashkar answered his attack on the Rambam in a long teshuvah, printed on its own in Ferrara in 1557.

He also wrote a peirush on the Pesach Haggadah and other works of kabbalah, among them a peirush on the teaching of the sefirot, part of which survives in manuscript. Sefer Yesodot, also listed among his works, may be another name for Sefer HaEmunot. Rabbi Avraham Ergas printed Sefer HaEmunot with nikud and with a peirush called Mekor HaTevunah, and in 2018 it was printed again with nikud together with Torat HaSefirot from manuscript.

Unlike their father, his sons Rabbi Yosef ibn Shem Tov and Rabbi Yitzchak ibn Shem Tov, and his grandson Rabbi Shem Tov ibn Shem Tov the second, studied philosophy and supported the Rambam. Rabbi Yitzchak and the younger Shem Tov both wrote peirushim on the Rambam’s Moreh Nevuchim.

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