יחיאל בן יקותיאל

Jehiel ben Jekuthiel Anav, Rabbi Yechiel ben Yekutiel ben Binyamin HaRofe (יחיאל בן יקותיאל) of the Anav family, was a rishon of Rome, born in the first half of the thirteenth century and one of the rabbis of that city in its second half. He learned Torah from his uncle, Rabbi Yehudah ben Binyamin. He was a physician, a chacham, a writer, a paytan and poet, and a copyist of important sefarim.

The best known of his copies is the Leiden manuscript of the Talmud Yerushalmi, the oldest manuscript of the Yerushalmi and the only complete one that exists. He wrote it in 1289, correcting errors in the copy before him as he went. At its opening he writes that he finished Zeraim and Moed on the twelfth of Shevat and completed Nashim and Nezikin a month and a half later.

He wrote works of halacha, and Tanya Rabbati, a collection of the dinim and minhagim of the whole year related to the Shibbolei HaLeket, is commonly attributed to him. It spread through the Jewish world and was accepted in Italy. In it he often brings peirushim and halachot from members of his own family, in the name of “my teacher, the rav, my beloved Rabbi Yehudah ben Rabbi Binyamin HaRofe” and of “the chaver Rabbi Binyamin ben Avraham HaRofe,” and at its close he cites a halacha in the name of his brother, Rabbi Binyamin.

His main work is the musar sefer Maalot HaMiddot. Its twenty-four chapters treat the virtues in order, from the qualities of the mind to good middot, drawing on maamarei Chazal and on pesukim of Tanach. It was first printed in Constantinople in 1512 under the name Beit Middot, later under its own name, and went through many editions; Rabbi Yaakov Emden and the Chida both mentioned it.

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