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Samuel Ben Ḥofni
Samuel ben Hofni (Hebrew: שמואל בן חפני, or full name: רב שמואל בן חפני גאון [abbreviation: רשב"ח] or שמואל בן חפני הכהן; also: Samuel b. Hofni or Samuel ha-Kohen ben Hofni; died 1034). He was the Sura Academy, Gaon of Sura from 998 to 1012. Biography His father was a Talmudic scholar and chief judge ("ab bet din," probably of Fes, Morocco, Fez), one of whose responsa are extant, and on whose death Samuel wrote an elegy. Samuel was the father-in-law of Hai ben Sherira Gaon, who is authority for the statement that Samuel, like many of his contemporaries, zealously pursued the study of non-Jewish literature. Beyond these few data, nothing is known of the events of Samuel's life. He served as the Gaon of Sura from 998 to 1012, he was later succeeded by Dosa ben Saadia. His son Israel ha-Kohen ben Samuel ben Hofni, Israel ha-Kohen ben Samuel was the last Sura Gaon. His ''responsa'' Although, as a rule, geonic literature consists mainly o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved throughout history as the main liturgical language of Judaism (since the Second Temple period) and Samaritanism. Hebrew is the only Canaanite language still spoken today, and serves as the only truly successful example of a dead language that has been revived. It is also one of only two Northwest Semitic languages still in use, with the other being Aramaic. The earliest examples of written Paleo-Hebrew date back to the 10th century BCE. Nearly all of the Hebrew Bible is written in Biblical Hebrew, with much of its present form in the dialect that scholars believe flourished around the 6th century BCE, during the time of the Babylonian captivity. For this reason, Hebrew has been referred to by Jews as '' Lashon Hakodesh'' (, ) since an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shemariah Ben Elhanan
Shemariah ben Elhanan was head of the yeshivah of Cairo, Egypt, about the end of the 10th century. Abraham ibn Daud''Sefer ha-Ḳabbalah,'' in A. Neubauer, ''M. J. C.'' i. 68 relates that Ibn Rumais (or Ibn Demahin), an Arab admiral, had captured four scholars who were voyaging from Bari to Sebaste to collect money for the maintenance of the great school in Babylonia ("haknasat kallah"), and that one of the four was called Shemariah b. Elhanan. Shemariah was sold by his captor at Alexandria, where he was afterward ransomed by rich Jews. Shemariah then went to Cairo, where he founded a flourishing school. As to the native place of the captured scholars, the general opinion, more particularly with regard to Shemariah, is that the four were Babylonians, I.H. Weiss being the only authority who assigns them to Italy. David Kaufmann thinks they came from Pumbedita. This opinion, at least with regard to Shemariah b. Elhanan, is confirmed by a fragment of a responsum apparently addressed b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joseph Ibn 'Aḳnin
Joseph ben Judah ibn Aknin ( ar, يوسف ابن عقنين, he, יוסף בן יהודה אבן עקנין; 1150 – c. 1220) was a Sephardic Jewish writer of numerous treatises, mostly on the ''Mishnah'' and the Talmud. He was born in Barcelona, but settled in Fes, where by his own admission he lived as a crypto-Jew. Though a native of Spain, his family had originated in North Africa. Works In addition to an introduction to the Talmud in Arabic (Hebrew translation at Mevo ha-Talmud'), and a treatise on Talmudic weights and measures, his surviving works include: * ''Sefer ha Musar'' (''"Book of Morality"'') :A commentary on the ''Pirkei Avot'' similar to that of Maimonides. * ''Tibb al-Nufūs al-Salīma wa-Mu'' ʿ''ālajat al-Nufūs al-Alīma'' (, ''"The Hygiene of Healthy Souls and the Therapy of Ailing Souls"'') :A book on psychology, with a chapters on friendship, speech and silence, keeping a secret, lying, food and drink, asceticism, education, the needs and destiny of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adolf Neubauer
Adolf Neubauer (11 March 1831 in Bittse, Hungary – 6 April 1907, London) was at the Bodleian Library and reader in Rabbinic Hebrew at Oxford University. Biography He was born in Bittse (Nagybiccse), Upper Hungary (now Bytča in Slovakia). The Kingdom of Hungary was then part of the Austrian Empire. He received a thorough education in rabbinical literature. In 1850 he obtained a position at the Austrian consulate in Jerusalem. At this time, he published articles about the situation of the city's Jewish population, which aroused the anger of some leaders of that community, with whom he became involved in a prolonged controversy. In 1857 he moved to Paris, where he continued his studies of Judaism and started producing scientific publications. His earliest contributions were made to the '' Allgemeine Zeitung des Judenthums'' and the ''Journal Asiatique'' (Dec. 1861). Works In 1865 he published a volume entitled ''Meleket ha-Shir'', a collection of extracts from manusc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jonah Ibn Janah
Jonah ibn Janah or ibn Janach, born Abu al-Walīd Marwān ibn Janāḥ ( ar, أبو الوليد مروان بن جناح, or Marwan ibn Ganaḥ Hebrew: ), (), was a Jewish rabbi, physician and Hebrew grammarian active in Al-Andalus, or Islamic Spain. Born in Córdoba, ibn Janah was mentored there by Isaac ibn Gikatilla and Isaac ibn Mar Saul, before he moved around 1012, due to the sacking of the city. He then settled in Zaragoza, where he wrote ''Kitab al-Mustalhaq'', which expanded on the research of Judah ben David Hayyuj and led to a series of controversial exchanges with Samuel ibn Naghrillah that remained unresolved during their lifetimes. His magnum opus, ''Kitab al-Anqih'', contained both the first complete grammar for Hebrew and a dictionary of Classical Hebrew, and is considered "the most influential Hebrew grammar for centuries" and a foundational text in Hebrew scholarship. Ibn Janah is considered a very influential scholar in the field of Hebrew grammar; his wor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Biblical
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a variety of forms originally written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Koine Greek. These texts include instructions, stories, poetry, and prophecies, among other genres. The collection of materials that are accepted as part of the Bible by a particular religious tradition or community is called a biblical canon. Believers in the Bible generally consider it to be a product of divine inspiration, but the way they understand what that means and interpret the text can vary. The religious texts were compiled by different religious communities into various official collections. The earliest contained the first five books of the Bible. It is called the Torah in Hebrew and the Pentateuch (meaning ''five books'') in Greek; the second oldest part was a coll ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Talmud
The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the centerpiece of Jewish cultural life and was foundational to "all Jewish thought and aspirations", serving also as "the guide for the daily life" of Jews. The term ''Talmud'' normally refers to the collection of writings named specifically the Babylonian Talmud (), although there is also an earlier collection known as the Jerusalem Talmud (). It may also traditionally be called (), a Hebrew abbreviation of , or the "six orders" of the Mishnah. The Talmud has two components: the Mishnah (, 200 CE), a written compendium of the Oral Torah; and the Gemara (, 500 CE), an elucidation of the Mishnah and related Tannaitic writings that often ventures onto other subjects and expounds broadly on the Hebrew Bible. The term "Talmud" may refer to eith ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kashrut
(also or , ) is a set of dietary laws dealing with the foods that Jewish people are permitted to eat and how those foods must be prepared according to Jewish law. Food that may be consumed is deemed kosher ( in English, yi, כּשר), from the Ashkenazic pronunciation (KUHsher) of the Hebrew (), meaning "fit" (in this context: "fit for consumption"). Although the details of the laws of are numerous and complex, they rest on a few basic principles: * Only certain types of mammals, birds and fish meeting specific criteria are kosher; the consumption of the flesh of any animals that do not meet these criteria, such as pork, frogs, and shellfish, is forbidden. * Kosher mammals and birds must be slaughtered according to a process known as ; blood may never be consumed and must be removed from meat by a process of salting and soaking in water for the meat to be permissible for use. * Meat and meat derivatives may never be mixed with milk and milk derivatives: separate equipm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shabbat
Shabbat (, , or ; he, שַׁבָּת, Šabbāṯ, , ) or the Sabbath (), also called Shabbos (, ) by Ashkenazim, is Judaism's day of rest on the seventh day of the week—i.e., Saturday. On this day, religious Jews remember the biblical stories describing the creation of the heaven and earth in six days and the redemption from slavery and The Exodus from Egypt, and look forward to a future Messianic Age. Since the Jewish religious calendar counts days from sunset to sunset, Shabbat begins in the evening of what on the civil calendar is Friday. Shabbat observance entails refraining from work activities, often with great rigor, and engaging in restful activities to honour the day. Judaism's traditional position is that the unbroken seventh-day Shabbat originated among the Jewish people, as their first and most sacred institution. Variations upon Shabbat are widespread in Judaism and, with adaptations, throughout the Abrahamic and many other religions. According to ''halakha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tzitzit
''Tzitzit'' ( he, ''ṣīṣīṯ'', ; plural ''ṣīṣiyyōṯ'', Ashkenazi Hebrew, Ashkenazi: '; and Samaritan Hebrew, Samaritan: ') are specially knotted ritual Fringe (trim), fringes, or tassels, worn in antiquity by Israelites and today by observant Jews and Samaritans. are usually attached to the four corners of the ''tallit gadol'' (prayer shawl), usually referred to simply as a or ; and ''tallit katan'' (everyday undergarment). Through synecdoche, a may be referred to as . Etymology The word may derive from the semitic root, Hebrew root [n-ts-h]. shares this root with the Hebrew for 'lock of hair', or 'dreadlock'. For example, in the Book of Ezekiel an angel grabs the prophet "by the of [his] head;" he could be said to be "dragged by his hair." A popular etymological interpretation of derives from another word which shares this root. ( 'budding flower') may once have referred to floral ornamentation on clothing. One can hear distinct similarities with cont ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tefillin
Tefillin (; Modern Hebrew language, Israeli Hebrew: / ; Ashkenazim, Ashkenazic pronunciation: ), or phylacteries, are a set of small black leather boxes with leather straps containing scrolls of parchment inscribed with verses from the Torah. Tefillin are worn by adult Jews during weekday morning prayers. In Orthodox Judaism, Orthodox and traditional communities, they are worn solely by men, while some Reform Judaism , Reform and Conservative Judaism, Conservative (Masorti) communities allow them to be worn by both men and women. By traditional Jewish Law (halacha), women are exempt from most time-dependent positive commandments. Although "tefillin" is technically the plural form (the singular being "tefillah"), it is often used as a singular as well. The arm-tefillah (or ''shel yad'' [literally "of the hand"]) is placed on the upper (non-dominant) arm, and the strap wrapped around the forelimb, hand and middle finger; while the head-tefillah (or ''shel rosh'' [literally "of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arabic Language
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston, 2011. Having emerged in the 1st century, it is named after the Arab people; the term "Arab" was initially used to describe those living in the Arabian Peninsula, as perceived by geographers from ancient Greece. Since the 7th century, Arabic has been characterized by diglossia, with an opposition between a standard prestige language—i.e., Literary Arabic: Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) or Classical Arabic—and diverse vernacular varieties, which serve as mother tongues. Colloquial dialects vary significantly from MSA, impeding mutual intelligibility. MSA is only acquired through formal education and is not spoken natively. It is the language of literature, official documents, and formal written m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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