Rabbi Aaron HaLevi of Barcelona (HaR’ah), one of the important medical rabbinical authorities, commentator on the Talmud and on Rabbi Isaac Alfasi’s Halakhot as well as author of other works, was a descendant of a long line of Talmudic scholars. Among his forebears were Rabbi Zerahia b. Isaac HaLevi, author of Sefer HaMa’or, and Meshullam b. Jacob of Lunel, a teacher of Rabbi Abraham b. David of Posquieres (Rabad).
Rabbi Aaron HaLevi himself was a student of Nahmanides (Ramban). He also studied with his older brother Phinehas, who he mentions often in his writings, and with Rabbi Isaac HaLevi, a son of his brother Benvenisti HaLevi.
Rabbi Aaron served as rabbi in Barcelona. His best known student was Rabbi Yom Tov b. Abraham Ishbili (of Seville”) the Ritba.
Several years ago, Rabbi Abraham Hillel and Rabbi Yosef Hillel, sons of Rabbi Jacob Moshe Hillel, head of Yeshivas Ahavat Shalom of Jerusalem and of the research institute and publishing house bearing the same name, founded “Kollel Ginzei Kedem,” whose members engage in the preparation for print of writings by early rabbinic authorities. Their first project was the publication of Rabbi Aaron HaLevi’s writings. In the year 2000 they put out an annotated edition of his Hiddushim (novellae) on Rabbi Isaac Alfasi’s Halakhot on Tractate Berakhot.
This work by Rabbi Aaron HaLevi was first published in 1874 in Mainz, by Rabbi Simha Bamberger, rabbi in Fischach and Anschaffenburg, who had added notes and comments of his own.
That edition was based on an early 15 th century manscript preserved in the Munich Library. The editors of the new edition made use of the same manuscript, which is the only one of Rabbi Aaron HaLevi’s work on Tractate Berakhot to have survived. By carefully examing the manuscript they were able to correct a large number of textual mistakes that have crept into the first printed edition.
Rabbi Yosef Hillel, who served as editor-in-chief, writes in his introduction that in addition to his Chiddushim on the Halakhot of Rabbi Isaac Alfasi on Tractate Berakhot, Rabbi Aaron HaLevi apprently write his own novellae on that tractate and that these were lost.
Rabbi Hillel also states that since its publication in 1874, Rabbi Aaron HaLevi’s work on Tractate Berakhot has been mentioned often in rabbinical responsa. The Chafetz Chaim refers to it more than a hundred times in his Mishna Berura.
In 2001, Kollel Ginzei Kedem put out an annotated edition of Rabbi Aaron HaLevi’s Chiddushim on Tractate Sukkah.
An annotated edition of this work was first published in Jerusalem in 1962 by the late Rabbi Moshe Hirschler in his Ginzei Rishonim on Tractate Sukkah, on the basis of a unique manuscript found in the Baron Guenzburg Collection in the Russian State Library in Moscow.
The manuscript is not complete. It goes only to Daf 38b of the tractate. In addition, parts of it are damaged and almost illegible. As a consequence and also because the photocopies of the manuscript which were at the disposal of Rabbi Herschler were of an inferior quality, he was unable to present the full text of the manuscript in his edition.
The scholars of Kollel Ginzei Kedem not only used a better photocopy of the manuscript, but also sent one of their members to Moscow to take a closer look at it. They worked hard on the manuscript and succeeded in deciphering the illegible portions, and corrected numerous errors found in the first printed edition.
They also printed, following the Temim De’im, responsa by Rabad, Venice, 1622.
The volume on Tractate Sukkah, like the volume on Berakhot, carries an introduction by the editor in chief Rabbi Yosef Hillel. He discusses the writings of Rabbi Aaron HaLevi, mentioning early as well as later authorities who quote from his work on that tractate.
Both volumes also include short prefaces by Rabbi Jacob Moshe Hillel and list the names of the members of Kollel Ginzei Kedem who participated in the preparation of these two editions.
Kollel Ginzei Kedem will probably publish in the near future additional volumes of Chiddushim by Rabbi Aaron HaLevi.
The Jewish Press, May 6 ,2005