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יצחק מאורוויל

Isaac of Ourville

Isaac of Ourville — late thirteenth-century French rishon, talmid of Rabbi Chayim of Blois and author of the mostly lost halachic work Sefer HaMenahel.

Biography

Isaac of Ourville, Rabbi Yitzchak of Ourville (יצחק מאורוויל), was a rishon of France who was active in the late thirteenth century. He wrote Sefer HaMenahel, a work of halacha, the greater part of which has been lost.

He was a contemporary of Rabbeinu Peretz of Corbeil, who was niftar around 1297. Rabbi Yitzchak cites the Semag of Rabbi Moshe of Coucy, from the generation before Rabbeinu Peretz, and passages of the Menahel are in turn brought together with the teachings of Rabbeinu Peretz. His teacher was Rabbi Chayim of Blois, who may be the same as Rabbi Chayim ben Yitzchak HaTzarfati, a talmid of Rabbi Shmuel of Evreux and author of Etz Chayim on monetary law.

The place-name in his title, אורביל, is most likely Ourville-en-Caux in Normandy; others read it as Orbeil in the Auvergne. For this reason he is sometimes called HaOrvili or HaOrbeli.

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Where traditions differ. Whether his teacher Rabbi Chayim of Blois is the author of Etz Chayim is only a possibility.

Isaac of Ourville was a medieval French rabbi, author of the mostly-lost Sefer haMenahel, a book of halakha.