ריב"ש

Rav Yitzchak bar Sheshet Perfet (5086/1326–5168/1408), known by his acronym the Rivash, was among the great poskim and dayanim of the age and a leading sage of Spain in the fourteenth century. He was born in Barcelona — by another account in Valencia — and learned there under Rabbeinu Peretz HaKohen and Rav Chasdai Crescas, his principal rebbe being the Ran, the gadol of that generation. His name spread while his teachers yet lived, and she’elot reached him from distant kehillot, though for many years he refused a position of rabbanut and earned his living in commerce.

In Barcelona a false accusation was brought against him together with his rebbeim, and they were imprisoned some five months until found innocent. He then took the rabbanut of Zaragoza, where his young son was niftar and where he learned of the passing of his brother and mother; after four years, worn by strife within the kehillah, he moved on to Calatayud and then to Valencia. In 5151/1391, amid the persecutions that swept the Jews of Spain, he fled to Algiers and became rav of the community there. Even there he was not left in peace: when a royal writ of dayanut was obtained to secure his authority, the Rashbatz — who honored him greatly — objected to the crown’s hand in matters of rabbanut, and the Rivash withdrew from office and ruled no more.

He was niftar in 5168/1408, many marking the day as the 2nd of Elul, and was buried in Algiers; his kever and that of the Rashbatz, both later moved, stand together beneath one great monument, and the community of Algiers restored his stone in 1862. Of all his writings only his responsa survive — a collection of some five hundred teshuvot, prized by Rav Yosef Karo and Rav Yaakov Beirav and drawn upon as a foundation for many rulings of the Shulchan Aruch. He also left chiddushim on several masechtot, cited in the Shitah Mekubetzet, and kinot he composed over his ruined kehillah of Barcelona.