זכריה בן יהודה אגמאתי

Rabbi Zechariah ben Yehudah HaLevi Aghmati (זכריה בן יהודה אגמאתי), also spelled Agamati, was a rishon of Morocco in the twelfth century, living from about 1120 to 1195. He lived in Aghmat, the town where the Jews of Marrakesh then lived, and was called after it.

He is known above all for Sefer HaNer, a collection of explanations from the geonim and rishonim before him, arranged in the order of the halachot of the Rif, which in his day was, together with the Gemara, the main subject of learning in North Africa. He gathers the words of Rav Hai Gaon, Rav Nissim Gaon, Rav Amram Gaon, Rabbeinu Chananel, Rashi, Rabbi Yitzchak ibn Ghiyat, the Ri Migash, the Rambam (including his Peirush HaMishnayot) and Rabbi Baruch HaSefaradi, and some of their explanations have come down to us only through him. He brings each one in its own language, Hebrew or Arabic. His own additions are short explanations of words and brief notes, written in Arabic, and at times he decides between the different views. It is the earliest known work of its kind, a gathering of earlier authorities on the Gemara, the form later followed by the Shitah Mekubetzet. Most printed editions give the Arabic in Hebrew translation.

He writes that he composed the sefer in Aghmat in 1189–1190, though those years most likely mark the completion of its first part only. He wrote it on all of the halachot of the Rif, and a booklist from the Cairo Geniza shows that it also covered Seder Moed and Seder Nashim, but most of it is lost. Two manuscripts are kept in the British Library, one on Berachot, Shabbat and Eruvin and the other on Bava Kamma, Bava Metzia and Bava Batra, and a small piece on Berachot was found in the Geniza. The sefer came to light only in the twentieth century. Rabbi Zechariah is also quoted in a manuscript from the time of the rishonim on the Rambam’s Sefer HaMadda and Sefer Zemanim.

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