טודרוס בן יוסף אבולעפיה

Rabbi Todros ben Yosef HaLevi Abulafia (טודרוס בן יוסף אבולעפיה, 1225–1283) was a rishon of Sefarad, a rav, a mekubal (master of kabbalah) and the author of peirushim on the Talmud Bavli. He led the Jews of Castile in the thirteenth century and was called the head of the exile of Sefarad.

He was born in Burgos to a rabbinic family, lived there, and stood close to the royal court. Alfonso X of Castile received him at court, and in 1275 he travelled to France with the king’s party. He was known for his generosity and for his fight against the Karaites. He taught Torah in Seville and was in contact with the Rashba and with Rabbi Avraham Bedersi. He later moved to Toledo and served as rav of the city, and there he was niftar and buried.

He was the nephew of Rabbi Meir HaLevi Abulafia, the Ramah. In Otzar HaKavod he writes that as a boy of ten he merited learning only one perek with his uncle, HaKoneis Tzon LaDir in Bava Kamma, and that the Ramah, then old, laid both hands on him and blessed him with a threefold blessing that stood by him all his life. In his work on masechet Yevamot he brings many chiddushim of his uncle. His son was the mekubal Rabbi Levi ben Todros Abulafia.

His works include Otzar HaKavod, a peirush on the aggadot of the Talmud according to kabbalah, printed in Novy Dvor in 1808; Shaar HaRazim, a kabbalistic peirush on Tehillim 19; Aliyot VeChiddushim on Yevamot; and a peirush on the Torah. In his drasha Zikaron LeYehudah he rebuked the community for what he saw as a lack of tzniut (modesty).

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