ר' צדקיה בן אברהם

Rav Tzidkiyah ben Avraham HaRofeh (c. 4980/1220–c. 5040/1280), of the Anavim family of Rome, was a rishon of Italy and the author of Shibbolei HaLeket. His father and his uncle led the kehillah of Rome. He was the youngest of four brothers — among them Rav Binyamin, the best known of them, and Rav Moshe, a paytan from whom two selichot on the burning of the Talmud in Paris have come down.

In his early years he learned in Würzburg in Germany, under talmidim of Rav Shimshon of Sens of the Baalei HaTosafot. He then returned to Rome and learned from the gedolim of the city, chiefly from his cousin Rav Yehudah ben Rav Binyamin, and from his kinsman Rabbeinu Shabtai ben Rav Shlomo of the Anavim, who wrote a peirush on the She’iltot of Rav Achai. He corresponded with Rav Avigdor Cohen, with the Maharam of Rothenburg and with Rav Avraham ben Yosef of Pesaro, and he brings a great many pesakim from Rav Yeshayah di Trani, the Rid, an older contemporary of his.

Shibbolei HaLeket was written between 5004/1244 and 5020/1260. It runs to three hundred and seventy-two simanim in twelve sections, covering tefillah, Shabbat, berachot and the moadim, with treatises and teshuvot appended on milah, aveilut, tzitzit, shechitah, inheritance and ribbit. Rav Tzidkiyah says plainly in his preface — written in clear Hebrew and opened with a short acrostic — that the material is gathered in from the earlier authorities: Halachot Gedolot, Sefer HaPardes, the Rif, Rav Yitzchak ben Abba Mari, Rav Zerachyah HaLevi and the Rid. But he did more than gather. He ordered the material, gave it a form a man could use, and decided between conflicting opinions where they clashed, apologizing for that in his preface with the parable of the dwarf riding on the giant’s shoulders, who sees farther than the giant only because of what the giant knew. He later added to the work in a second collection, cited as Issur v’Heter.

The mekubal Rav Avraham Abulafia related that when he was in Rome in 1280 he taught Moreh Nevuchim to the two aged rabbanim of the city, one of them Rav Tzidkiyah, and that both were niftar a short time afterward. It is generally held that he left no children. Shibbolei HaLeket circulated for centuries in abridgment, one condensation being printed as Tanya Rabbati, and the complete work was first published by Shlomo Buber in Vilna in 5646/1886.