ר"ן

Rabbeinu Nissim ben Reuven (c. 5050/1290–9 Shevat 5136/1376), the Ran — also called Nissim Gerondi, and in English sources Nissim of Gerona — was among the last of the great rishonim of Spain: dayan and moreh hora’ah of Barcelona, head of its yeshiva, and the classic commentator on the Rif. His Torah came first from his father, Rav Reuven ben Nissim, and from Rav Peretz HaKohen, and his chiddushim to Sanhedrin and Pesachim cite Rav David Bonfid at length; Rav Vidal de Tolosa, author of the Maggid Mishneh, was his friend. Like others of the Spanish chachamim he was also a physician, learned in astronomy and philosophy.

In Barcelona he sat as dayan and raised talmidim in the yeshiva he founded. When he sought to rebuke some of the wealthy of the kehillah for their ways, they set themselves against him — his talmid the Rivash writes that he saw it with his own eyes — and a false accusation before the crown put him and other leading rabbanim in prison for five months until their innocence was proven; he was afterward among those who drafted the petition of Spanish Jewry to the king for its protection. His word reached far beyond Spain: she’elot came to him from France, Italy, Africa, and Eretz Yisrael, and of about a thousand teshuvot that he wrote, seventy-seven survive, first printed in Rome in 5306/1546. The Rashbash writes that he fled the plague twice.

His perush on the halachot of the Rif, printed beside the Rif in the standard editions of the Shas, is the summation of the Spanish beit midrash of the generations before him: he gathers his predecessors, weighs them, and comes down to psak, differing where the sugya demanded even with Rashi, Rabbeinu Tam, the Rambam, and the Ramban — yet following the early ones in practice, writing that once the ancients have decided, their conclusion is not set aside. The perush survives on fifteen masechtot. He was the first to write a complete perush on Nedarim, printed on the daf of the Gemara itself; since Rashi’s commentary to that masechet was lost, it remains the central perush for all who learn it. Beside these stand his Chiddushei HaRan on masechtot of the Shas, a perush on the Torah surviving from Bereishit through Chayei Sarah and the start of Vayikra, and the Drashot HaRan, derashot of deep machshavah that stand among the yesod sefarim of Jewish thought.

Rav Yosef Karo, in the hakdamah to the Beit Yosef, counted the Ran among the eight poskim whose word he weighed most. His talmidim carried his Torah onward: the Rivash, Rav Yitzchak bar Sheshet, who wrote of his rebbi that none among the chachmei Yisrael could be set beside him; Rav Chasdai Crescas, author of Or Hashem; and Rav Yosef Chaviva, the Nimukei Yosef. The Ran was niftar on 9 Shevat 5136/1376.