Aaron Samuel ben Moses Shalom of Kremnitz, also Abu Aaron ben Samuel ha-Nasi of Babylonia, was a personage who was considered until the turn of the 20th century to be a fictitious creation of the Traditionists (Zunz) —those who, in their desire to find teachers and originators for everything, invented him in order to announce him as the father of prayer-interpretation and mysticism. But the publication of the ''
Chronicle of Ahimaaz
Ahimaaz ben Paltiel ( he, אחימעץ בן פלטיאל; 1017–1060) was a Graeco-Italian liturgical poet and author of a family chronicle. Very little is known about his life. He came from a family some of whose members are well known ...
'' (written in 1054), by
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 Slovaki ...
, has demonstrated that Aaron is not altogether a creature of the imagination. It is true that legend has far more than history to say about him, and that only the barest outlines of his real career are accessible. Aaron was the son of a high dignitary in
Babylonia, a certain Samuel, who, according to R.
Eliezer of Worms, was a ''nasi'' (prince).
History
In the ''Chronicle of Ahimaaz'' Aaron is said to have been a member of the house of
Joab
Joab (Hebrew Modern: ''Yōʼav'', Tiberian: ''Yōʼāḇ'') the son of Zeruiah, was the nephew of King David and the commander of his army, according to the Hebrew Bible.
Name
The name Joab is, like many other Hebrew names, theophoric - de ...
, which means that he was the son of an ''ab bet din,'' or chief of the court of justice; since in Jewish legend (Yer. Mak. ii. 31a; Tan., Mas'ey, 12) Joab is referred to as the chief justice in the reign of
David
David (; , "beloved one") (traditional spelling), , ''Dāwūd''; grc-koi, Δαυΐδ, Dauíd; la, Davidus, David; gez , ዳዊት, ''Dawit''; xcl, Դաւիթ, ''Dawitʿ''; cu, Давíдъ, ''Davidŭ''; possibly meaning "beloved one". w ...
. Disagreements between father and son, about the middle of the ninth century, caused Aaron to leave home. He traveled through Palestine to Italy, and landing at
Gaeta went to
Benevento. He did not stay there long, but went to
Oria, in southern Italy, the center of Jewish life in Italy at that time. In that place he associated with the learned brothers, Shephatiah and Hananeel, sons of Amittai, under whose fostering influence he taught successfully—a vocation for which his profound knowledge of the Law, acquired in Babylonia, seemed especially to fit him. Aaron's activity bore fruit not only in Italy, but also beyond the borders of that country. Among his pupils were numbered of
Lucca
Lucca ( , ) is a city and ''comune'' in Tuscany, Central Italy, on the Serchio River, in a fertile plain near the Ligurian Sea. The city has a population of about 89,000, while its province has a population of 383,957.
Lucca is known as one ...
, who, under one of
Charlemagne
Charlemagne ( , ) or Charles the Great ( la, Carolus Magnus; german: Karl der Große; 2 April 747 – 28 January 814), a member of the Carolingian dynasty, was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and the first ...
's successors, went to the land of the Franks (Mentz), and there became the spiritual head of the Jews in that country. In spite of his success as a teacher in Italy, Aaron was seized by a secret longing for home; and seeing that the seed which he had carefully sown was bearing fruit, he considered himself entitled to return quietly to the land of his fathers. He embarked at Bari, to the great sorrow of his pupils and friends, among the latter being the ruler of the town, who tried to detain him by force. Nothing further is known of him. The cabalists considered him one of the chief pillars of their mysticism, ascribing to him the cabalistic works, ''Niḳḳud'' and ''Pardes''; but see
Moses Botarel
Moses Botarel was a Spanish scholar who lived in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. He was a pupil of Jacob Sefardi (the Spaniard), who instructed him in the Kabbala.
Moses studied medicine and philosophy; the latter, he regarded as a divi ...
's commentary on ''
Sefer Yeẓirah,'' i.1, 5; ii.4, and
Moses Cordovero
Moses Cordovero was a physician who lived at Leghorn (Livorno), Tuscany
it, Toscano (man) it, Toscana (woman)
, population_note =
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, population_blank1 =
, demographics_type1 = Citizenship ...
in his ''Pardes Rimonim.'' That he is considered to be identical with "Aaron the Babylonian" appears from the fact that Botarel (iv.2) describes the latter as making use of the ineffable name of God in working the most wonderful miracles in exactly the same way as Aaron ben Samuel is said, in the ''Chronicle of Ahimaaz,'' to have done.
Heinrich Graetz
Heinrich Graetz (; 31 October 1817 – 7 September 1891) was amongst the first historians to write a comprehensive history of the Jewish people from a Jewish perspective.
Born Tzvi Hirsch Graetz to a butcher family in Xions (now Książ Wielko ...
's identification of this Aaron with the Aaron who was a candidate for the ''gaonate'' in 814—according to
Isaac Halevi even earlier—is impossible upon chronological grounds. Aaron's activity in Italy is placed by the ''Chronicle'' half a century later than this date; in 870 he was still in Italy.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Aaron ben Samuel ha-Nasi
9th-century Italian rabbis
People from Babil Governorate