Biography
Rabbi Zechariah ben Shlomo HaRofe (זכריה הרופא), known by the initials Harazah (הרז״ה) and in Arabic as Yihye al-Tabib, was one of the leading rabbis of Yemen during the first half of the 1400s. He wrote peirushim on Tanach and on halacha and was a physician by profession, as his name, “the doctor”, tells. He lived in the village of Bnei Kis, between Sanaa and Dhamar, and was also called al-Dhamari, most likely because he or his family had lived in Dhamar.
He was a master of halacha and wrote several works on the Rambam’s Mishneh Torah as well as other halachic works, eighteen works in all. The teachings of the geonim of Bavel and of Eretz Yisrael and their midrashim, together with the Rambam in halacha and philosophy, are the main foundations of his writing. The Maharitz, in his Zevach Todah on the Shulchan Aruch, quotes his notes on the Rambam and calls him one of a kind among the early rabbis of the land.
His best-known work is Midrash HaChefetz, drashot and peirush on the Chumash and on the haftarot, which he began in 1430 and finished some years later. It weaves together the midrashim of Chazal, halacha, mussar and good middot, folk stories and sayings of wisdom. In it he also brings the philosophy of Aristotle and Plato as it had reached Arabic, the teachings of the Rambam, and the views of al-Farabi, whom he quotes by name. He moves freely between Hebrew, Judeo-Arabic and Aramaic, and the Judeo-Arabic sections were translated into Hebrew in the edition printed in 1990–1992. In later years, at the request of one of his talmidim, he wrote a peirush on his own Midrash HaChefetz to clarify parts of the work.
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רבי זכריה בן שלמה הרופא היה מגדולי רבני תימן במאה ה-15, פרשן מקרא והלכה ורופא. כתב חיבורים הקשורים לכתבי הרמב"ם.
Zechariah ha-Rofé, or "Zechariah the physician", also known as Yiḥye al-Ṭabib, was a Yemenite Jewish scholar of the 15th-century, renowned for his authorship of the work, Midrash ha-Ḥefetz, a commentary and collection of homilies on the Five Books of Moses (Pentateuch) and on the readings from the Prophets which he began to write in 1430, and concluded some years later. The work is unique in that he incorporates therein Aristotelian and Platonic philosophy translated from Greek into Arabic, along with the teachings of Maimonides (1138–1204), and the philosophical notions expressed by Abu Nasr al-Farabi, whom he cites in his work. The author makes use of three languages in his discourse, Hebrew, Judeo-Arabic, and Aramaic, interchanging between them whenever he sees fit. All sections of the Judeo-Arabic texts have been translated into Hebrew by Meir Havazelet in his 1990–1992 revised editions of the work, to accommodate a largely Hebrew-speaking readership.
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