יצחק אבוהב (גאון קסטיליה)

Rav Yitzchak Aboab (5193/1433–5253/1493), called the last of the geonim of Castile and known in English sources as Isaac Aboab II to set him apart from Rav Yitzchak Aboab the First, author of Menorat HaMaor, was a rav, posek and commentator on the Torah who occupied himself with Bavli, halacha, kabbalah and philosophy. He was born in Toledo, a great-great-grandson of the first Rav Yitzchak Aboab, and was the talmid and successor of Rav Yitzchak Canpanton. He stood at the head of the yeshiva in Toledo in the generation of the expulsion, and later lived in Buitrago and in Guadalajara, heading yeshivot in those cities as well. He was the father-in-law of Rav Shmuel Sirilio, and among his talmidim were Rav Yaakov Beirav, Rav Avraham Zacuto and Rav Yitzchak Abarbanel.

When Ferdinand and Isabella issued the decree of expulsion in 5252/1492, he went out to Portugal with thirty of the most respected Jews of the land to negotiate with King Joao II for the taking in of the exiles of Spain, and he and his companions were permitted to settle on favorable terms in Porto. He was niftar there some seven months later, in January 5253/1493, before he had reached sixty. His talmid Rav Avraham Zacuto, the chronicler and mathematician, delivered the hesped.

Of his writing there appeared in print Nehar Pishon, drashot on the Torah and the rest of the sifrei Tanach, printed in Constantinople in 5298/1538; a supercommentary on the Ramban’s commentary on the Torah, printed in Constantinople in 5285/1525 and in Venice in 5308/1548; and his commentary on the Tur, which Rav Yosef Karo cites again and again in the Beit Yosef, at times in high terms — our great rabbeinu, Mahari Aboab — and which was brought out from manuscript and joined to the Machon Yerushalayim edition of the Tur. His supercommentary on Rashi on the Torah and a book of drashot remain in manuscript, as do chiddushim on Ketubot in Cambridge and on Berachot in Oxford; his chiddushim on Beitzah are brought in the responsa of the Maharam Galanti, and pieces on perek HaZahav appear in the Shitah Mekubetzet on Bava Metzia. In Tzefat stands a shul called the Abuhav shul, named for an ancient sefer Torah kept there whose writing is ascribed to Rav Yitzchak Aboab himself.