Joseph ibn Migash or Joseph ben Meir HaLevi ibn Migash or Yosef Ibn Meir Ha-Levi Ibn Megas or José ben Meir ibn Megas (early 1077 – c. 1141) ( he, יוסף בן מאיר הלוי אבן מיגאש) was a

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 ...

Posek In Jewish law, a ''Posek'' ( he, פוסק , pl. ''poskim'', ) is a legal scholar who determines the position of ''halakha'', the Jewish religious laws derived from the written and Oral Torah in cases of Jewish law where previous authorities a ...

, and

Rosh Yeshiva Rosh yeshiva ( he, ראש ישיבה, pl. he, ראשי ישיבה, '; Anglicized pl. ''rosh yeshivas'') is the title given to the dean of a yeshiva, a Jewish educational institution that focuses on the study of traditional religious texts, primar ...

Lucena Lucena, officially the City of Lucena ( fil, Lungsod ng Lucena), is a 1st class Cities of the Philippines#Legal classification, highly urbanized city in the Calabarzon region of the Philippines. It is the capital city of the Provinces of the ...

(actually Spain). He is also known as Ri Migash (), the

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 ...

acronym An acronym is a word or name formed from the initial components of a longer name or phrase. Acronyms are usually formed from the initial letters of words, as in ''NATO'' (''North Atlantic Treaty Organization''), but sometimes use syllables, as ...

for "Rabbi Joseph Migash".

Biography

Joseph ibn Migash was probably born in

Seville Seville (; es, Sevilla, ) is the capital and largest city of the Spanish autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the River Guadalquivir, in the southwest of the Iberian Penins ...

(though

Steinschneider Moritz Steinschneider (30 March 1816, Prostějov, Moravia, Austrian Empire – 24 January 1907, Berlin) was a Moravian bibliographer and Orientalist. He received his early instruction in Hebrew from his father, Jacob Steinschneider ( 1782; ...

believes it was

Granada Granada (,, DIN: ; grc, Ἐλιβύργη, Elibýrgē; la, Illiberis or . ) is the capital city of the province of Granada, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. Granada is located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains, at the c ...

). He moved to

at the age of 12 to study under the renowned

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 ce ...

ist

Isaac Alfasi Isaac ben Jacob Alfasi ha-Cohen (1013–1103) ( ar, إسحاق الفاسي, he, ר' יצחק אלפסי) - also known as the Alfasi or by his Hebrew acronym Rif (Rabbi Isaac al-Fasi), was a Maghrebi Talmudist and posek (decider in matters of ...

. He studied under Alfasi at Lucena for fourteen years. Shortly before his death (1103), Alfasi

ordained Ordination is the process by which individuals are consecrated, that is, set apart and elevated from the laity class to the clergy, who are thus then authorized (usually by the denominational hierarchy composed of other clergy) to perform ...

Ibn Migash as a rabbi, and - passing over his own son - also appointed him, then 26, to be his successor as

(seminary head). Joseph ibn Migash held this position for 38 years. Rabbi

Abraham ben David Abraham ben David ( – 27 November 1198), also known by the abbreviation RABaD (for ''Rabbeinu'' Abraham ben David) Ravad or RABaD III, was a Provençal rabbi, a great commentator on the Talmud The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central ...

, in his work '' Sefer ha-Kabbalah'' (Book of Tradition), mentions Joseph ibn Migash, a grandfather who had the same name, as being a contemporary of

Samuel haNagid Samuel ibn Naghrillah (, ''Sh'muel HaLevi ben Yosef HaNagid''; ''ʾAbū ʾIsḥāq ʾIsmāʿīl bin an-Naghrīlah''), also known as Samuel HaNagid (, ''Shmuel HaNagid'', lit. ''Samuel the Prince'') and Isma’il ibn Naghrilla (born 993; died 1056 ...

, and that during the dispute between the supporters of Bulukkin and the supporters of Badis, the Berber ruler of Granada, Joseph ibn Migash had sided with Bulukkin in this dispute and fled to Askilia, to avoid punishment. It is clear that Migash was a great scholar:

Maimonides Musa ibn Maimon (1138–1204), commonly known as Maimonides (); la, Moses Maimonides and also referred to by the acronym Rambam ( he, רמב״ם), was a Sephardic Jewish philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Torah ...

in the introduction to his Mishnah commentary says "the Talmudic learning of this man amazes every one who understands his words and the depth of his speculative spirit; so that it might almost be said of him that his equal has never existed." Judah ha-Levi eulogizes him in six poems which are full of his praise. Joseph ibn Migash's best known student is probably Maimon, the father and teacher of

. In Maimonides' Introduction to his

Mishnah The Mishnah or the Mishna (; he, מִשְׁנָה, "study by repetition", from the verb ''shanah'' , or "to study and review", also "secondary") is the first major written collection of the Jewish oral traditions which is known as the Oral Tor ...

commentary, he heaps lavish praises upon Rabbi Joseph ibn Migash (Halevi), saying of him: ''“I have collected what I stumbled across from the glosses of my father, of blessed memory, as well as others under the name of our Rabbi Joseph Halevi, of blessed memory; and as the Lord lives, the understanding of that man in the

is astounding, as anyone an seewho observes his words and the depth of his comprehension, until I can say of him that 'there has never been any king like unto him before him (cf. 2 Kings 23:25) ''in his method f elucidation I have also collected all of the legal matters (Heb. ''halachot'') that I found that belonged to him in his commentaries, themselves.”'' There is a tradition that Maimonides himself was a pupil of Joseph ibn Migash. This probably arose from the frequent references in Maimonides' works to him as an authority. It is unlikely that he was literally taught by him, as Maimonides was 3 years old at the time of Joseph ibn Migash's death. However, Maimonides' grandson published a pamphlet with the approval of his grandfather, in which it is described that Maimonides ran away from home in his youth, met Joseph ibn Migash, and studied under him for several years.

Works

Joseph ibn Migash authored over 200

responsa ''Responsa'' (plural of Latin , 'answer') comprise a body of written decisions and rulings given by legal scholars in response to questions addressed to them. In the modern era, the term is used to describe decisions and rulings made by scholars ...

, ''She'elot u-Teshuvot Ri Migash'' - originally in

Judeo-Arabic Judeo-Arabic dialects (, ; ; ) are ethnolects formerly spoken by Jews throughout the Arabic-speaking world. Under the ISO 639 international standard for language codes, Judeo-Arabic is classified as a macrolanguage under the code jrb, enco ...

- many of which are quoted in Bezalel Ashkenazi's ''Shittah Mekubetzet''. Five of Ibn Migash's responsa survived in Yemen, and were published by Rabbi Yosef Qafih in 1973. He specified Chananel Ben Chushiel and Alfasi as his authorities, but disagreed with Alfasi in about thirty some odd places related to

Halacha ''Halakha'' (; he, הֲלָכָה, ), also transliterated as ''halacha'', ''halakhah'', and ''halocho'' ( ), is the collective body of Jewish religious laws which is derived from the written and Oral Torah. Halakha is based on biblical comman ...

.''R. Moses b. Maimon Responsa'' (Jehoshua Blau edition), vol. 2, Jerusalem 1960 (reprint 1989), ''responsum'' #251 (p. 459) ebrew/ref> He also authored a Talmudic commentary - ''ḥiddushim'' (novellae) on tractates ''Baba Batra'' (lin
here
and ''Shevuot'' (included in Joseph Samuel Modiano's '' Uryan Telitai'', Salonica 1795) - which is quoted by various

Rishonim ''Rishonim'' (; he, ; sing. he, , ''Rishon'', "the first ones") were the leading rabbis and '' poskim'' who lived approximately during the 11th to 15th centuries, in the era before the writing of the ''Shulchan Aruch'' ( he, , "Set Table", a ...

. His other works have been lost.

References

External links

Ibn Migas, Joseph (Jehosef) Ben Meïr Ha-Levi
jewishencyclopedia.com
Uryan Telitai
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ibn Migash, Joseph 1077 births 1141 deaths 12th-century rabbis of Al-Andalus People from Seville Rosh yeshivas Authors of books on Jewish law 11th-century Jews of Al-Andalus