Isaac of Ourville ( ''Yiṣḥaq me-Orvil'', ) was a medieval French rabbi, author of the mostly-lost ''Sefer'' ''haMenahel'', a book of ''
halakha
''Halakha'' ( ; , ), also Romanization of Hebrew, transliterated as ''halacha'', ''halakhah'', and ''halocho'' ( ), is the collective body of Judaism, Jewish religious laws that are derived from the Torah, Written and Oral Torah. ''Halakha'' is ...
'' (Jewish ritual law).
Life and Time
Isaac appears to have been a contemporary of Perez of Corbeil (died );
Isaac cites
Moses of Coucy
Rabbi Moses ben Jacob of Coucy, also known as Moses Mikkotsi (; ), was a French Tosafist and authority on Halakha (Jewish law). He is best known as the author of one of the earliest codifications of Halakha, the '' Sefer Mitzvot Gadol''.
Biogr ...
's ''Semag'', from the generation before Perez, while segments of Isaac's ''Menahel'' are, in turn, cited alongside the Perez's teachings.
His master was Hayyim of
,
who is possibly identical with Hayyim ben Isaac the Frenchman (), the author of ''Ez Hayyim'' on Jewish monetary law, a disciple of Samuel of Evreux.
Orbeil
Orbeil () is a commune in the Puy-de-Dôme department in Auvergne in central France.
See also
*Communes of the Puy-de-Dôme department
The following is a list of the 463 communes of the Puy-de-Dôme department of France
France, offici ...
", a village in the
Puy-de-Dôme
Puy-de-Dôme (; or ''lo Puèi Domat'') is a department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in the centre of France. In 2021, it had a population of 662,285.department, while Gross considered this unlikely, as Orbeil probably had no Jewish population in medieval times. According to Gross, is probably Ourville (
Ourville-en-Caux
Ourville-en-Caux is a commune in the Seine-Maritime department in the Normandy region in northern France.
Geography
A farming village with a little light industry, in the Pays de Caux, situated some northeast of Le Havre, at the junction of th ...
),
Seine-Maritime
Seine-Maritime () is a department of France in the Normandy region of northern France. It is situated on the northern coast of France, at the mouth of the Seine, and includes the cities of Rouen and Le Havre. Until 1955 it was named Seine-Infà ...
Isaac ben Dorbolo Isaac ben Dorbolo () was a rabbi, about 1150.
He traveled much, and knew France, Germany, Bohemia, Moravia, Poland and Russia from his own observations. Some time after 1140 he visited Rabbeinu Tam in Ramerupt.
In Worms, where he remained for som ...
, after Rapoport's misinterpretation of the latter's
patronymic
A patronymic, or patronym, is a component of a personal name based on the given name of one's father, grandfather (more specifically an avonymic), or an earlier male ancestor. It is the male equivalent of a matronymic.
Patronymics are used, b ...
Most of his only known work, the halakhic ''Sefer'' ''HaMenahel'' ( "the Guide"), is lost, but select portions have survived as follows:
* Quoted by name in the closely related pair of halakhic works, ''Orhot Hayyim'' by
Aaron ben Jacob ha-Kohen
Aaron ben Jacob ha-Kohen was one of the hachmei Provence, one of a family of scholars living at Narbonne, France (not Lunel, as David Conforte and others say), who suffered from The Great Exile of 1306.
Ben Jacob emigrated to Mallorca, and ther ...
and ''
Kol Bo ''Kol Bo'' (, 'all is in it') is a collection of Jewish ritual and civil laws. Its author has not yet been ascertained. The work in content resembles other codes, as, for instance, the ''Orḥot Ḥayyim'', though in its form it is very different.
...
.''
* Incorporated anonymously into the halakhic decisions of
Menahem Recanati
Menahem ben Benjamin Recanati (;
1223–1290) was an Italian rabbi who was born and died in the city of Recanati, who devoted the chief part of his writings to the Kabbalah.
Works
In addition to the halachic rulings collected in Piskei Recanat ...
.
* Quoted by name in two manuscripts of commentary to the ''Sefer Mitzvot Katan'', JTS Rab. 1033 and Bodleian Opp. 338. A third manuscript of commentary to the ''SM"K'', once held by the Collegio Rabbinico Italiano, also contained content from the ''Menahel'', but the Collegio's entire library was confiscated by the
Nazis
Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...
in December 1944 and has never been recovered.
* MS Paris heb. 407 f. 236r includes a list of Gershom ben Judah's bans copied out of the ''Menahel''.