אליהו הזקן בן מנחם

Elijah ben Menahem HaZaken, Rabbeinu Eliyahu HaZaken ben Menachem of Le Mans (אליהו הזקן בן מנחם), was a rishon of northern France, a posek and paytan among the leaders of French Jewry in his day, who lived from about 4740 (980) to about 4820 (1060). Born in France, he went in his youth to Ashkenaz and learned there under Rabbeinu Gershom ben Yehudah, and then returned to France and settled in Le Mans. The title HaZaken was attached to him already in his lifetime; several series of lines in his azharot carry the acrostic “Eliyahu HaZaken,” and it was not a family name, since his brother was not called by it. Not much else is known of his life.

His best-known work is the azharot Emet Yehegeh Chiki, a poem on the 613 mitzvot in 176 four-line stanzas. It circulated widely and is discussed in the halachic literature from Rabbeinu Tam onward; the Baalei Tosafot knew it and cite it in several places, and it has been printed in several annotated editions. He also composed Seder HaMaaracha, a set of pesukim from Tanach arranged to be said on each day of the week.

A tradition from the thirteenth century called Seder HaYachas, later published in the teshuvot of the Maharshal, holds that Rabbi Eliyahu was married to the sister of Rav Hai Gaon. Ezra Fleischer, however, found at the end of the acrostic of the azharot the title “Aluf,” an honorific of Bavel that only the rashei yeshiva and geonim there conferred, and took it as proof that Rabbi Eliyahu had a strong tie to the yeshivot of Bavel and may even have traveled there to learn, so that the tradition of the marriage could stand.

Biography © 2026 TorahSages · CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 · torahsages.com/sages/elijah-ben-menahem-hazaken · Copyright & Licensing