רי"ף

Rav Yitzchak Alfasi (4773/1013–10 Iyar 4863/1103), known as the Rif after his name Rav Yitzchak al-Fasi, was among the greatest poskim of the rishonim and the author of the first great code of halachah. He was born in Qal’at Bani Hammad in the central Maghreb — for which he is sometimes called ha-Kala’i — and learned in the yeshiva of Kairouan under Rabbeinu Nissim ben Yaakov and Rabbeinu Chananel ben Chushiel, who trained him to draw the clear halachah out of the depths of the sugya. He stood at the seam between the age of the Geonim and the age of the rishonim, sealing the one and opening the other, and did not hold back from differing even with the Geonim.

His Sefer HaHalachot — the Hilchot HaRif — follows the order of the Gemara but distills from each sugya only what is halachah l’maaseh, in the language of the Gemara itself, so that it became the foundation upon which later psak was built; the Rambam, the Rosh, and the baalei Shulchan Aruch all lean upon it. It is said he labored ten years in his father-in-law’s attic to complete it. He settled in Fez, from which his name Alfasi is drawn, and served the community there for some forty years.

Late in life, at about seventy-five, a ruling he gave against a powerful man — some say a false denunciation by his enemies — forced him to flee to Sefarad. He settled first in Cordoba and then in Lucena, where he became rosh yeshiva after the passing of Rav Yitzchak ibn Ghiyyat, and there he remained until his petirah.

Among his talmidim were Rav Yehuda HaLevi, author of the Kuzari, and Rav Yosef ibn Migash, the Ri Migash, who taught the father of the Rambam — a chain of mesorah running straight from the Rif’s bet midrash. He was niftar in Lucena on 10 Iyar 4863 and was buried there; his Hilchot HaRif is printed at the back of the Gemara and learned to this day.