Moses ben Hanoch or Moses ben Enoch (in he, משה בן חנוך, ''Moshe ben Hanoch'') was a medieval
rabbi
A rabbi () is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi – known as '' semikha'' – following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form o ...
who inadvertently became the preeminent
Talmudic scholar of
Spain. He died about 965.
Moses was one of the four scholars who went from
Sura
A ''surah'' (; ar, سورة, sūrah, , ), is the equivalent of "chapter" in the Qur'an. There are 114 ''surahs'' in the Quran, each divided into '' ayats'' (verses). The chapters or ''surahs'' are of unequal length; the shortest surah ('' Al-K ...
, the seat of a once flourishing but then declining
Talmudic academy, in order to collect contributions for that school. During a voyage from
Bari
Bari ( , ; nap, label= Barese, Bare ; lat, Barium) is the capital city of the Metropolitan City of Bari and of the Apulia region, on the Adriatic Sea, southern Italy. It is the second most important economic centre of mainland Southern Italy a ...
, on the coast of
Italy, they were captured by the
Moorish
The term Moor, derived from the ancient Mauri, is an exonym first used by Christian Europeans to designate the Muslim inhabitants of the Maghreb, the Iberian Peninsula, Sicily and Malta during the Middle Ages.
Moors are not a distinct or se ...
-
Spanish admiral
Ibn Rumahis Muhammad ibn Rumahis () was a Muslim Admiral in 10th Century Spain. He is remembered in Jewish History for capturing of four Babylonian Rabbis and ransoming them to the Jewish communities of Alexandria, Kairouan, Spain, and one unidentified other l ...
, who, according to the legend, became enamored of the beautiful young wife of Moses. In distress she asked her husband in Hebrew whether those who were drowned in the sea could look forward to resurrection, and when he answered, in the words of the
psalm, "The Lord saith, I will bring again from
Bashan, I will bring them again from the depths of the sea," she cast herself into the waters and was
drowned. Moses was taken to
Cordova with his young son
Hanoch, where he was redeemed by the
Jewish community, in the year 945 or 948. While there, he went to the schoolhouse where he acted as a server, and sat in the corner listening quietly to the Talmudic discourse of the judge and rabbi, Nathan. At the time, the Jews of Cordoba were not well versed in the methodology of study of Talmud due to the centralization of Torah study in Babylon. Some of Rav Nathan's remarks attracted attention, and Moses' detailed explanation of the passage quoted by Nathan, his use of Rabbinic Aramaic and his ready answers to all questions addressed to him astonished the whole assembly. Nathan, therefore, on that very day voluntarily resigned his office and confessed himself Moses' pupil. The wealthy community of Cordova showed Moses much honor and immediately elected him rabbi.
Hasdai ibn Shaprut, rejoicing at this event, induced the
Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Rahman III to order Ibn Rumahis to forgo the higher ransom which he, in consequence, was demanding for Moses. Moses organized an important school at Cordova, which was independent of the
gaonate and was attended by many pupils; and through him Cordova became the seat of Jewish scholarship.
Bibliography
*''Sefer ha-Ḳabbalah'', ed. Amsterdam, p. 41a;
*Jost, ''Gesch. des Judenthums und Seiner Sekten'', ii. 399 et seq.;
*Frankel's ''Zeitschrift für die Religiösen Interessen des Judenthums'', ii. 100 et seq., iii. 397 et seq., 422 et seq.;
*Grätz, ''Gesch''. v. 336, 347 et seq., 542 et seq.
References
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Moses ben Hanoch
960s deaths
Year of death uncertain
Year of birth unknown
10th-century rabbis in al-Andalus
Talmudists