רמ"ה

Rav Meir ben Todros HaLevi Abulafia (c. 4930/1170–18 Nisan 5004/1244), known as the Ramah, was one of the foremost Talmudists and poskim of Sefarad — not to be confused with the later Rema, Rav Moshe Isserles. He was born in Burgos to a distinguished family, the son of Rav Todros ben Yehuda, and moved with his father to Toledo, where he founded a yeshiva. In his forties he was appointed by the community as a dayan on the beis din of Toledo, sitting alongside Rav Yitzchak ibn Migash and Ravan HaYarchi; on his father’s passing in 1225 the honorary title of nasi passed to him.

His major work is the Yad Ramah — originally titled Peratei Peratin — wide-ranging chiddushim on the Talmud that examine every detail of a sugya and draw the halacha from it, written largely in Aramaic. Once covering much of the Shas, it survives on Bava Basra, Sanhedrin, Kiddushin, and part of Gittin. It greatly influenced the Rosh, and through him the Tur, so that the Ramah’s rulings entered the mainstream of psak. He also composed Masoret Seyag LaTorah, a work on the masorah and the correct writing of a sefer Torah; he himself wrote a master Torah scroll from which others were corrected, and scholars came from Ashkenaz and the Maghreb to copy it. His Sefer HaIggaros collects his correspondence, and he wrote responsa and a commentary on Sefer Yetzirah.

As a young man the Ramah began the first controversy over the Rambam’s Mishneh Torah, troubled that its account of the World to Come seemed to him to deny the physical resurrection of the dead. He sent his objections to the chachmei Lunel in Provence, hoping they would bring them before the Rambam; instead they defended the Rambam and rebuked him. Yet he held the Rambam in great honor and wrote a kinah at his passing, and when the controversy flared again some thirty years later he stood apart and opposed the bans that were pronounced.

He was niftar on 18 Nisan 5004 (1244); his Yad Ramah on Bava Batra and Sanhedrin is printed and learned to this day.