רשב"א

Rav Shlomo ben Avraham ibn Aderet (c. 4995/1235–5070/1310), the Rashba, known in English sources as Solomon ben Adret, was among the greatest chachamim of Spain in the days of the rishonim and the head of the chachamim of his generation. Born in Barcelona, he learned under Rabbeinu Yonah Gerondi, whom he held as his rebbi muvhak, under the Ramban — from whom he received his path both in halachah and Talmud and in Kabbalah — and under Rav Yitzchak bar Avraham of Narbonne. For fifty years he served as rav of the main shul of Barcelona, and his authority ran so wide that he was called El Rab d’España, the Rav of Spain. He and his family conducted extensive business affairs, documented to this day in the archives of the crown of Aragon, and in Barcelona’s old Jewish quarter a house is still pointed out as his.

Crowds of talmidim, many from distant lands, filled his shiurim, and sheilot streamed to him from Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, Ashkenaz, Moravia, and even Asia Minor. More than three thousand of his teshuvot survive — concise, wide in range, and quoted throughout the poskim; the Teshuvot HaRashba is a foundation sefer of psak halachah, and Rav Yosef Karo counted him in the hakdamah to the Beit Yosef among the handful of rabbanim on whom he leaned most. His Chiddushei HaRashba on many masechtot of Shas stand among the pillars of Talmud learning to this day, though later authorities showed that some chiddushim printed under his name came from other rishonim.

In halachah he wrote Torat HaBayit on issur v’heter in two forms — the Aroch, with the full talmudic give-and-take, and the Katzar, with the psak alone — a structure that laid the ground for the way the Beit Yosef and the Shulchan Aruch were later written. When the Ra’ah wrote hasagot on it in his Bedek HaBayit, the Rashba answered in the Mishmeret HaBayit. Beside these stand Sha’ar HaMayim on hilchot mikvaot, Avodat HaKodesh on Shabbat and Yom Tov, and Piskei Challah. He stood guard over emunah on every front: he answered the charges of the Dominican Raymond Martini, who had twisted passages of the Gemara and Midrash against Yisrael; he wrote a polemic answering claims from the side of Islam about the text of Tanach; and he opposed both false wonder-workers and the claims of Avraham Abulafia. He defended the Rambam and had part of his perush on the Mishnah put from Arabic into Hebrew — yet against the spread of unbounded philosophy he placed, with the beit din of Barcelona in Av 5065/1305, a cherem on learning philosophy and the natural sciences before the age of twenty-five, excepting the sefarim of the Rambam and the study of medicine; the letters of that polemic were gathered by Rav Abba Mari of Lunel in Minchat Kenaot.

Among his talmidim were the Ritva; Rabbeinu Bachya ben Asher, author of the perush on the Torah and Kad HaKemach; Rav Yehoshua ibn Shuaib; and Rav Shem Tov ibn Gaon, author of Migdal Oz on the Rambam — and some hold that the anonymous author of the Sefer HaChinuch was of his talmidim as well. After his petirah in 5070/1310, his son Rav Yehuda stood at the head of his yeshiva in Barcelona.