יעקב הלוי ממרויש

Rabbeinu Yaakov ben Levi HaLevi of Marvege (d. c. 4993/1233), called in the early sources Rabbeinu Yaakov HaChassid, was a rishon of France and a mekubal — and the author of the most extraordinary responsa collection in the halachic library: the She’eilot u’Teshuvos Min HaShamayim, questions asked of Heaven and answered.

The Radbaz, who held some of these teshuvot, wrote of him that he was “a great chacham and mekubal” who “would ask questions of Heaven — through hisbodedut, tefillah and the invocation of holy Names, and they would answer his questions.” The Shem HaGedolim records likewise: Rabbeinu Yaakov HaChassid would ask questions of Heaven in halachos and piskei din, to decide between the poskim, and they answer him. An old manuscript describes his manner: when a halachah stood in doubt, he would order the gates of his beit medrash locked, and the matter would be made known to him in a dream.

His teshuvot — on tefillin, tzitzit, the order of the parshiyot and other questions that divided the rishonim — were gathered and printed generations later within the fifth volume of the Radbaz’s responsa (Livorno, 1818), and some are brought in the Shibolei HaLeket and Tanya Rabbati. The poskim across the generations have weighed how far such answers bear on psak — but the sefer’s fascination, and the awe of the early sources before “the one who knocks on the doors of Heaven,” have never dimmed.