יעקב פראג'י

Rav Yaakov Faraji (c. 5420/1660–c. 5490/1730), known as the Maharif, was av beit din and rosh yeshiva of Alexandria, among the great chachamim of Egypt in his generation. Counted among Alexandria’s important chachamim from his youth, he stood in close bond with Rav Avraham HaLevi, later rav of all Egypt — their halachic exchanges entered Rav Avraham’s Ginat Veradim — and with Rav Yosef HaLevi Nazir, author of the Mateh Yosef. Beside halachah he was at home in the hidden wisdom, in dikduk, and in astronomy.

His responsa, ninety-nine simanim printed as She’eilot u’Teshuvot Maharif, were brought to press in Alexandria in 5661 by Rav Eliyahu Chazan; the Chida testifies in Shem HaGedolim that he saw a second volume in manuscript, and it too reached print in our own generation. The Chida brings his rulings with esteem, and several entered his Birkei Yosef.

His most famous teshuvah concerns bein hashmashot: the Maharif concluded that the shitah of Rabbeinu Tam in the sugya of tzeit hakochavim must be reckoned with — against the settled practice of Egypt in his day, so settled, he writes with disarming honesty, that even his own wife would not follow him in delaying the end of Shabbat. His talmid was Rav Shmuel Laniado of the famed Aleppo family.